The TP-Link EAP655-Wall is specifically designed to provide discreet Wi-Fi 6 services in a wide range of environments, including meeting rooms, apartments, and home offices. It offers an affordable and compact solution, making it an attractive option for hotels that wish to offer in-room network services. With three gigabit ports in its base, it can also provide Power over Ethernet (PoE) on the third port, which is perfect for connecting additional room devices such as IP phones.

In terms of features, the EAP655-Wall offers a lot for its price. This dual-band access point (AP), operating at AX3000, delivers impressive speeds of up to 2,402Mbps on its 5GHz radio and 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz radio. It even supports high-speed Wi-Fi 6 160MHz channels, although its main uplink port is limited to gigabit, preventing you from experiencing their full potential.

Despite this limitation, the EAP655-Wall performed well in our real-world performance tests. We conducted tests by enabling its 80MHz channels. When we copied a large file in close proximity between a Dell Windows 11 Pro workstation equipped with a TP-Link Archer TXE75E Wi-Fi 6E PCI-E card and a server on our 10GbE LAN, the average transfer speed was 94MB/sec. Even with the AP moved ten meters away and into an adjoining room, the transfer speed only dropped slightly to 77MB/sec.

When the AP’s 160MHz channels were activated, the workstation indicated a wireless connection speed of 2.4Gbits/sec. As expected, our file transfers reached the maximum capacity of the AP’s gigabit port, resulting in speeds of 111MB/sec at close range and 91MB/sec at a distance of ten meters. These speeds should suffice for all but the most demanding users.

While the AP can be managed in standalone mode, most businesses will likely opt for TP-Link’s Omada cloud service, which allows centralized management of all APs through a web portal. Previously, each site required a locally installed hardware or software controller, but TP-Link now provides cloud-based controllers with yearly pricing starting at £12 per device.

From the main Omada cloud portal account, we accessed the hardware, software, and cloud-based controllers. Upon selecting the cloud-based controller, we were directed to its dedicated management console.

Before adding the AP to our site, we ensured that we had enabled the cloud-based controller management option from the AP’s local web console. We then imported the AP by entering its serial number, assigning a name, and activating a license. Once adopted, access to the AP’s local console was disabled, and it began broadcasting our site-managed SSIDs.

The site portal provides a comprehensive dashboard that can be customized with various widgets. We added widgets to display information such as AP traffic, client distributions, the most active APs, a Wi-Fi summary, and 24-hour graphs of client associations and overall wireless traffic. The AP was connected to the lab’s TP-Link TL-SG3210XHP-M2 PoE+ multi-gigabit switch, and additional widgets were added to monitor its active ports, PoE usage, and available power budget.

The wireless features are extensive, supporting up to eight SSIDs per radio and offering options for mixed WPA2/WPA3 encryption. It is possible to set upload and download rate limits globally or for individual clients and SSIDs. Guest networks can also be utilized to restrict access for users from private networks.

The captive portal features are equally impressive, with the ability to apply global passwords, local user authentication, vouchers, Radius or Facebook authentication, and customize logos, greeting messages, and acceptable use policies using profiles.

The AP comes with three gigabit pass-through ports enabled by default. The PoE services on the third port can be activated by selecting the appropriate option in the AP configuration page of the portal. However, it is important to ensure that the main LAN port is connected to a PoE+ power source. During testing, these features worked flawlessly, and when we connected a Yealink IP phone to the third port, it received power and internet access as expected.

While it would have been advantageous to have a 2.5GbE port, the EAP655-Wall remains a reasonably fast Wi-Fi 6 AP with excellent coverage. It offers a wide range of wireless features at an affordable price point. The cloud management functionality is exceptional, and the inclusion of three gigabit downlink ports with additional power delivery adds to its versatility.