What's new? Engage 2.0 Preliminary Info and FAQ
Centrally manage your AV network (switches, router, wireless access points) with the NETGEAR Engage™ Controller 2.0
- Easily portable software application for Windows, or MacOS offered free of charge, now supporting AV switching, router, and WiFi APs: download page
- Single pane of glass and centralized workflow to deploy AV configurations to all NETGEAR M4250, M4300, M4350, and M4500 switches across your AV network
- All NETGEAR AV certified profiles for ST2110, Dante, AES67, Q-SYS, AVB, NDI, Lighting, Video over IP, etc. can be deployed centrally, with automation between switches from NETGEAR IGMP PlusTM, Auto-LAG, and Auto-Trunk
- Engage 2.0 supports one PR460X Pro Router per site, to connect to the corporate IT network or the venue, and automatically propagates internet in the VLANs you need, as well as the mDNS traffic across your VLANs
- Engage 2.0 supports up to ten WBE758 / WBE718 WiFi 7 Access Points per site, to connect to the AV network wirelessly – ideal for AV and lighting control software than can now connect via WiFi
- Engage 2.0 supports WiFi assignment of user groups (mPSK) to Profiles/VLANs, Auto-Trunk for zero configuration on the switches when connecting an access point, and Instant Mesh for simplified setup (one wired access point can support up to four wireless access points)
What you need to know about discovery and onboarding of the PR460X Pro Router and WBE758 / WBE718 WiFi 7 Access Points
- Access Points
- Limit: 10 APs per site (WBE758 and WBE718)
- Discovery: APs need to be physically connected to the network - same as switches, in the same broadcast domain as Engage
- Onboarding: APs need to be in factory-default state, and not managed by Insight
- If the AP is managed by Insight, Engage will refuse the onboarding
- You need to go to Insight and ”remove” the AP from Insight first
- If the AP isn’t managed by Insight, but previously managed via local GUI with some config on it (user password etc.), Engage will refuse the onboarding
- You need to factory-default the AP first
- Router
- Limit: 1 router per site (PR460X)
- Discovery: the router needs to be physically connected to the network on one of its LAN ports - same as switches, in the same broadcast domain as Engage
- Onboarding: the router doesn’t need to in factory-default state, it can be previously configured – but it cannot be managed by Insight
- If the router is managed by Insight, Engage will refuse the onboarding
- You need to go to Insight and ”remove” the router from Insight first
- If the router isn’t managed by Insight, but previously managed via local GUI with config on it (user password etc.), Engage will onboard it nicely
- During the onboarding, Engage is detecting which LAN port on the router is connected to the AV network
- Engage is asking you to confirm that this is the correct LAN port
- For both access points and the router, Engage 2.0 is proceeding with the FW upgrade during the onboarding process, if the devices don’t have the minimum FW required yet
- Router: onboarding is fast, similar to switches
- APs: onboarding takes a little longer – when FW upgrade during onboarding, it can take up to 15/20 minutes
- After onboarding, when managed by Engage, the local GUI of the access points and the router are still accessible from your browser
- APs: it’s mainly read-only, as most features are managed from Engage, they are greyed out in the local GUI
- Router: the opposite, you can manage the router using its GUI the way you want (like with switches, it's better not to conflict with Engage, though)
Please contact us at ProAVDesign@netgear.com (sending us an email) for any question!
Thank you,
Laurent
