aFunkyBass wrote

1 - According to TP-LINK documentation EAP115-WALL is perfect for the bedrooms. Do you think it is suitable for the dining and the living room? They are about 35 square meters (around 100 square feet)

While I clearly prefer EAP-WALLs for small hotel rooms (b/c WiFi and RJ45 jack are in one device and cabling is most often available already), I would use an EAP225 in the center of any bigger/more populated room mounted on the ceiling. Imagine three people sitting in front of the EAP-WALL: this could attenuate the WiFi signal for others sitting behind them. That's no problem in a hotel room, but it might be in a dining room.

To get best WiFi coverage, always mount the access point centered in the area to be supplied (you can do that very easily with EAP225 and PoE) and try to ensure a free line of sight to your guest's devices. If you need wired connections in your rooms too, use additional standard RJ45 jacks for those.

2 - Is it possible to configure the wired Ethernet EAP115-WALL port to be connected only to the staff VLAN?

As with any RJ45 jack you can assign them a specific VLAN by means of a VLAN-aware switch (you would have to do so with the EAP-WALL anyway). Only multi-SSID WiFi (two or more WiFi networks) and the management UI of the device itself can be assigned to VLANs inside an AP usually.

 3 - Is it necessary a managed switch to set up VLANs or can I use a smart switch? Could you please suggest me a model that fits my needs?

A smart switch is a managed switch, too, but with very limited functionality. It supports VLANs and few other functions, though. I would recommend a TL-SG108PE, which is a fine smart switch well suited for VLANs and PoE. This switch supports up to 4x PoE with up to 15.4 W per port, it's PoE budget is 55 W (65.2 W power consumption in total). That's enough for 4x EAP225. Three of the remaining four ports could be used for wired devices if needed and one port is for the uplink to the main network (Linux controller, router, you name it).

aFunkyBass wrote

As for the switch you suggested, I guess that 4 POE ports aren't enough as I have at least 6 POE powered access point. Do you think that adding a multi port passive POE injector on the remaining port is a reliable solution? Otherwise I could buy a TL-SG1016PE, but it costs MUCH more than the previous solution.

Yes, you could use the PoE adapters that comes with the EAP225 (or any other PoE adapter conforming to either IEEE 802.3af or - if you buy the V3 EAP225 model - 24 volts passive PoE) on the remaining ports of a TL-SG108PE switch. Or you buy two TL-SG108PE, which are still cheaper than a TL-SG1016PE.

By the way, I noticed that the 115-WALL is not listed in the AP Walls on the main tp-link site (it was there 2 days ago)... Is it a discontinued product?

 

Only TP-Link could tell. On the US site it's de-listed, on the German website it is still there, even listed as a »hot« product (top-selling product).

@jonas, could you please enlighten us on availability of the EAP115-WALL in the future?

jonas wrote

Hi R1D2,

 Thank you for the suggestion. EAP115-Wall(EU) is still a selling model of EAP products, but please remember EAP115-Wall just have EU version.(Because it only support 86mm and EU standard Cassette specifications)

Ah, I was wondering that aFunkyBass saw it on TP-Link's U.S. site, maybe he saw it on an EU website. Thank you for clarification!