Mixing Network Vendors: Meraki Switches With Cheaper APs?

Can you actually mix network vendors?

Short answer: yes, technically you can. And it's more common than vendors like to admit.

A modern network is built from independent layers — switching, wireless and security — that all talk to each other over standard Ethernet and IP. Those standards don't care whose logo is on the box. A Meraki MS switch will happily deliver Power over Ethernet and carry traffic for a UniFi or Aruba Instant On access point. Equally, a Meraki MR36 access point will plug into a no-name PoE switch and work fine.

So from a "will the packets flow?" perspective, mixing is a non-issue. The interesting questions are about cost and what you give up — and that's where this guide earns its keep.

Meraki is our specialty at TYO Store — but we're happy to supply gear from other manufacturers too. So we'll be upfront: there are situations where mixing is a smart, money-saving move, and situations where it quietly costs you more than it saves. Let's be honest about both.

Why people mix in the first place: cost

The number one reason Australian SMBs ask us about mixing is simple — licensing.

Meraki is a subscription model. Every device, including every access point, needs an active licence to keep working and stay in the dashboard. For a small site with one switch and one firewall, that's manageable. But access points multiply fast. A retail floor, a warehouse or a multi-storey office can easily need six, eight or a dozen APs — and that's a recurring per-AP wireless licence on every single one.

So a common plan looks like this:

• Keep the Meraki MX67 firewall for its security, content filtering, VPN and threat protection.
• Keep the Meraki MS130-8 switches for clean cloud-managed wired networking and PoE.
• Swap the Meraki MR36 access points for cheaper, unlicensed third-party APs (UniFi, Aruba Instant On, TP-Link Omada) to dodge the recurring wireless licences.

The logic is sound: you keep Meraki where its security and management value is highest, and you cut the licence cost on the layer where there are the most units. For a budget-conscious small business, that maths can be very persuasive.

What you actually give up when you mix

Here's the part that doesn't show up on the invoice. Mixing isn't free — you just pay in different currencies.

1. You lose the single pane of glass. The whole pitch of Meraki is one dashboard for everything. The moment you add UniFi or Aruba APs, you're running two management systems. Your team now logs into the Meraki dashboard and a separate controller to manage wireless. That's more tabs, more logins, more context-switching — every day, forever.

2. You lose integrated wireless features and visibility. A lot of Meraki's smarter features depend on the AP talking to the Meraki dashboard — things like application-aware traffic visibility down to the client device, air marshal rogue-AP detection feeding into your security view, and seamless identity-based policies that span wired and wireless. Bolt on a third-party AP and that wireless layer goes dark inside Meraki. You still get Wi-Fi; you lose the integrated part.

3. Troubleshooting now spans two vendors. When Wi-Fi drops for a user in the back office, is it the AP, the switch port, the firewall policy, or the DHCP scope? In an all-Meraki network you trace that in one dashboard. In a mixed network you're correlating logs across two systems that weren't designed to talk to each other.

4. The support boundary gets fuzzy. This is the big one. When something breaks at the seam between two vendors, each one can point at the other. Meraki support will help with the MX and MS; they won't troubleshoot your UniFi APs. The AP vendor won't touch your Meraki gear. You — or your IT partner — own the grey area in the middle. For a business without in-house network skills, that's a real risk.

Where mixing genuinely makes sense

Mixing isn't wrong. It's a trade-off, and for the right site it's the right call.

Mixing tends to work well when:

• The site is simple and low-risk — a single office, a cafe, a small shopfront where Wi-Fi just needs to work and there's no compliance overhead.
• Budget is genuinely tight — the recurring AP licence savings make a material difference and the business can live without integrated wireless analytics.
• You have someone who can manage two systems — even a capable owner-operator or a local IT contractor who's comfortable in both dashboards.
• Wireless requirements are basic — standard staff and guest Wi-Fi, nothing exotic.

Where mixing bites

Mixing tends to cost you more than it saves when:

• The environment is security-sensitive — you want unified visibility of who and what is on your network, wired and wireless, in one place.
• You're running multiple sites — managing two systems across one site is annoying; across ten sites it's a genuine operational drag.
• You're bound by compliance — healthcare, finance, legal and government-adjacent work often needs consistent, auditable, integrated controls. A fragmented stack makes audits harder.
• You don't have IT support — if there's no one to own the grey area, the vendor-blame problem will eventually land on you at the worst possible time.

The pragmatic rule: mix at clean layer boundaries

If you're going to mix, do it cleanly.

The sensible approach is to keep an entire layer with one vendor rather than going half-and-half within a layer. In practice that means:

• Wired and security backbone, all Meraki: MX67 firewall plus MS130-8 switches. This is your foundation — security, routing, VLANs, PoE — and it stays unified and well-supported.
• Wireless, all one third-party vendor: every AP from the same brand and the same controller, not a patchwork.

What you want to avoid is the messy version — some Meraki APs and some UniFi APs on the same site, or two different third-party wireless brands. That gives you the worst of every world: two controllers and roaming problems and a support nightmare.

Clean boundaries keep troubleshooting predictable. When Wi-Fi misbehaves, you know it's in the wireless system. When routing or PoE misbehaves, you know it's in the Meraki layer. The seam is one clear handover point, not a tangle.

A quick honest comparison

All-Meraki (MX67 + MS130-8 + MR36):

• One dashboard, integrated security and wireless visibility, single support line.
• Lifetime hardware warranty across the MX, switches and APs, with free advance RMA replacement while licensed.
• Higher recurring cost due to per-AP wireless licences.
• Best for multi-site, security-sensitive or compliance-bound businesses.

Mixed (Meraki MX + MS, third-party APs):

• Lower recurring wireless cost.
• Two management systems, reduced wireless visibility, fuzzier support.
• Best for simple, single-site, budget-driven businesses with some IT capability.

Neither is "better" in the abstract. The right answer depends entirely on your site, your risk profile and who's going to look after it.

Let TYO Store design the right mix for your site

We'd rather help you build a network that fits your business than sell you boxes you don't need. Whether that's a fully integrated Meraki stack or a smart, clean mix that saves you on wireless licences, we'll give you the honest version.

Talk to the team at TYO Store and we'll design the right mix for your site — weighing your budget, your compliance needs and your support reality — and quote the exact Meraki gear (MX67, MS130-8, MR36) and any third-party wireless to match. Get in touch today for a no-pressure network design tailored to your Australian small business.