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Supported equipment

Cisco Meraki MX

MX security appliances running the sign-in page themselves — on wired networks, or on the Wi-Fi of an MX with a radio in it.

What you get

What this equipment can do

Three things decide what a venue actually gets. The first two are the same everywhere in this list. The third is where equipment differs, and it is the reason each page says so plainly.

Your own sign-in page

Your logo, your colours, your welcome message, in the guest's own language — and every way in you have switched on, from room number and surname to a tap on Google.

Plans that are enforced

Speed, time limit and how many devices each guest may bring, applied by the equipment itself rather than being a promise on a page.

Checkout does not cut a session short

At checkout we stop the guest signing in again, and the session they already hold runs to its time limit. Set sessions in hours rather than days and this rarely matters; a property that needs an immediate cut-off needs different equipment.

How the equipment talks to us: Your Wi-Fi vendor's own cloud service asks us directly, over the internet, on your equipment's behalf. Nothing at your property has to reach us and nothing needs a private link — the connection already exists between your vendor and the internet.

Before your installer starts

What has to be true first

None of this is work we do for you — it is the state the equipment needs to be in before the short part begins. A step that fails for something on this list is a wasted visit, which is why it is here rather than buried in a manual.

Not sure whether your site meets it? Send us a photo of the equipment and we will tell you.

Checklist

  • Dashboard access with permission to change the network.
  • Knowing which part of your network carries guests. Settings apply to one network at a time, and settings made against the wrong one put a sign-in page in front of your own staff while the guest network stays wide open.
Worth knowing

The things that catch people out

Every make has its own quirks. These are the ones that matter on Cisco Meraki MX — not because they are problems, but because knowing them in advance turns a site visit into a short one.

This is how you put wired sockets behind a sign-in page. A hotel with network sockets in the rooms can put those behind the same branded page as the Wi-Fi, with no extra equipment. That is genuinely useful and not something most equipment offers.
No usage record on this equipment. Meraki does not provide a connection log for guests on an MX, only on its MR access points. Where a country's rules require keeping a record of who connected and when, an MX alone cannot meet that on its own — ask us if this applies to you.
If the property has Meraki access points, use those instead. The MR access points get checkout cut-off and a full connection record. The MX gets neither. Where a property has both, put the guest Wi-Fi on the access points.
The setup

How it goes on the day

Roughly half an hour on a straightforward site, most of it waiting for equipment to restart. Your console writes out every value for your property in advance — there is nothing to work out and nothing to invent.

1

Add the equipment in your console

You register the router, controller or access point in your Resort Manager Hotspot console. It generates everything the following steps need — the address of your sign-in page, the credentials, the settings — already filled in with your property's own values. Nobody copies a setting out of a manual and nobody types a password twice.

2

Let guests reach the sign-in page

A guest who has not signed in yet has no internet, so the equipment is given a short list of addresses that stay open regardless — the sign-in page among them. Your console writes that list out in the exact form this equipment expects.

3

Nothing to connect on site

Your equipment's own vendor cloud asks us directly over the internet on its behalf. There is nothing to install, dial or open at the property for this step — the connection already exists between your vendor and the internet.

4

Point the guest network at your sign-in page

The guest Wi-Fi is set to open, with your branded page in place of the equipment's own. Usage recording is switched on at the same time — that is both your reporting and, in the countries that require it, the connection log you are obliged to keep.

5

Prove it with a real phone

Join the network on a phone, sign in, and watch the session appear in your console with the right plan against it. That is the point at which anything is actually proved.

Other equipment

Comparing makes?

Most sites come down to a choice between two or three of these. The pages below cover the ones closest to Cisco Meraki MX.

Also from Cisco Meraki

Cisco Meraki MR access points

All 40 supported makes →

Have this equipment already?

Then there is nothing to buy. Tell us what you have and we will confirm the details for your site — or set the whole thing up for you, which is a service we offer.