Recently purchased 3 EAP225-Outdoor as the introduction to creating a mesh network to eventually cover much of a 3 acre property (small farm). Before permanently mounting the APs or ordering more equipment, I decided to configure my OC200 and three EAP225-O's and do some tests from different points and structures around the main house to get a feel for range, stability, througput, etc. 

With a clear line of sight, just 20 meters from the root AP, I am getting -74 dBm at best on my Galaxy s8+. Not a big deal, given mobile ranges I figure. Same on another android smartphone and similar on my work laptop -- just a bar or two of signal. Also pretty comparable performance on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz radios. 

The real shock came when I attempted to boot up the second EAP225-O at the same location. Mouting is to a 6x6 wood post, directionally facing the house where the EAP225-Oudoor root AP is, again with a totally open air, clear line of sight. The result is poor throughput (~20-30 mbps u/d via Google Speed test, and a tad higher through Ookla, connected to my FIOS Gigabit connection) and worse -- bad signal (-70 dBm) and frequent missed heartbeats and isolation errors. With an advertised range of up to 200-300 meters+, I am shocked to be seeing this sort of poor signal and instability at only around 10% of that range. 

Full disclosure: I have not needed to manage my own network for the last 8 years, and this is my first mesh setup, so I am open to suggestions on configuration, mounting, etc. I feel like I have to be missing something. I don't have an illusions regarding speeds anywhere near my wired connection, but it is important to me to have high stability, range and up-time.