Meraki Go Plus Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

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The Meraki Go Plus (opens successful caller tab) is simply a compact router (opens successful caller tab) with an integrated firewall, comparable to much costly products but for a fraction of the price. The Go Plus is accelerated to get up and moving utilizing the mobile app. Out of the box, the transportation complaint with packet filtering is simply a decent 500Mbps crossed each 4 ports. Even amended is the slew of bundle features, specified arsenic VPN (opens successful caller tab) and unreality access, provided for free.

The Meraki Go has 4 1Gb Ethernet ports for section entree and different 1Gb dedicated to the Internet. The included USB larboard tin lone beryllium utilized arsenic a powerfulness root for tiny devices, portion a multicolored LED connected the beforehand shows the advancement of the router’s interior operations. The portion comes with a constricted two-year warranty.

Meraki Go Plus: Price and availability

There are presently 2 versions of the Meraki Go. The Plus, which costs $340, stands retired by being accelerated astatine processing Internet packets. For $130, the Meraki Go provides the aforesaid diagnostic and comes with Power implicit Ethernet but has a slower processor. 

Meraki Go Plus: Design

The Meraki Go Plus comes well-packed, with the main portion and accessories stored successful 2 abstracted cardboard trays. Two RJ45 Ethernet cables, a 30W 12V AC powerfulness block, and partition equine screws are each provided to marque installation arsenic creaseless arsenic possible. Instead of providing a idiosyncratic manual, Meraki gives a URL and QR codification printed connected a tiny concern paper wherever the idiosyncratic tin get the implicit installation procedure.

The Go Plus is simply a plain achromatic metallic container with the Cisco logo engraved connected the top. It tin beryllium placed level connected a array oregon vertically connected a partition utilizing 2 screw slots astatine the back. A azygous LED acts arsenic a multifunction presumption indicator connected the front, portion a Kensington fastener slot connected the near prevents the removal of the unit. The backmost of the lawsuit holds each web connections and a 12V powerfulness input. Two greenish LEDs showing link-up and enactment are placed supra each RJ45 ethernet socket.

Under the hood, the Meraki Go Plus sports a Freescale Quad-core ARM CPU clocked astatine 1.6GHz. The magnitude of representation is besides singular for a router/firewall of this size, with 4GB of DDR and 1GB of flash memory. All progressive components are passively cooled. The Meraki Go consumes little than 4W erstwhile idle and 14W utilizing each ports and features. A reset fastener adjacent to the powerfulness jack allows for restoring the device’s mill settings erstwhile things nary longer work.

A multicolored beforehand LED shows the device’s status. Orange indicates that the portion is disconnected from the cloud, portion rainbow shows that the container is attempting a unreality connection. The firewall performs its firmware upgrade erstwhile the LED flashes white, and a coagulated achromatic means the firewall is connected and afloat operational.

Meraki Go Plus: In use

Configuration of the Meraki Go firewall is performed utilizing the mobile application, which is disposable for Apple and Android platforms. The archetypal measurement is registering the instrumentality by scanning a QR codification astatine the backmost of the firewall. For this to work, the instrumentality indispensable person entree to the Internet done the WAN port. The Meraki Go Plus boots wrong 1 minute.

The firewall’s bundle supports respective features, including VPN and lawsuit filtering. The idiosyncratic usually uses VLANs to isolate antithetic networks to unafraid infrastructure. The Go Plus tin link implicit 50 clients simultaneously without velocity degradation utilizing VLANs. On apical of supporting packet filtering based connected ports and IP addresses, the idiosyncratic tin usage 2 connected Meraki firewalls to make a site-to-site VPN, ensuring end-to-end privacy.

Meraki Go offers escaped unreality connectivity from the get-go. The idiosyncratic tin presumption and power the firewall wherever an Internet transportation is available, either from a web browser oregon the Meraki mobile app.

A nifty diagnostic of the Meraki Go Plus is its quality to presumption connected users’ trends. For this, the firewall records transportation times, IPs, and the busiest clip of the day. This information tin assistance concern owners recognize their customers’ needs and spot imaginable infrastructure problems earlier it adjacent happens, specified arsenic web congestion during highest hours.

Meraki Go Plus: The competition

A firewall/router combo is simply a useful instrumentality that helps unafraid a nationalist web rapidly portion offering power and visibility implicit connected clients.

Firewalla’s Gold firewall (opens successful caller tab) provides akin show to the Go Plus. The tiny signifier origin is besides comparable to Meraki’s unit, and with an MSRP of $485, the Gold is much costly by $100. The Gold besides has less Gigabit ports, with lone four, including the WAN port, compared to 5 for Meraki. It besides has a higher powerfulness specification, being based connected a much almighty CPU.

Meraki Go Plus: Final verdict

The Meraki Go Plus shines with its discrete and modern design. The hardware performs 1 task to perfection: filter web packets arsenic rapidly arsenic possible. It comes with plentifulness of bundle options that volition smoothly modulation the proprietor from an unsecured web to 1 that volition withstand galore communal web attacks. On apical of having the basal IP and MAC filtering, the Guest Insights diagnostic brings precocious web analytics to neophytes.

Since Meraki is simply a Cisco brand, the hardware costs much than akin firewalls. It besides feels similar the hardware could grip much tasks, 1 wherever the USB larboard could beryllium leveraged and bash backups to an outer drive.

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