They are telling HVAC guys their Kuomo Cloud devices need a separate router which makes no sense. I keep telling the guy I created a 2.4 ONLY for him and I can shut off band steering and anything else required for interoperability.

On another project at trim they said oh by the way we have 66 devices we need to connect (big house all mini split). That house we did a VLAN for the HVAC but and all the Kuomo cloud stuff connected but our ELAN HR40's have been struggling. Slow, not connecting etc etc. I finally shut the SSID off for the Mini Splits and the HR40's immediately started working as expected. This project has Araknis 320 AP's.

Do you think if I upgrade to 820-AP with the 4x4 antenna the APs will be able to handle the HVAC traffic AND ELAN HR40 AND general WiFi? All video is hardwired fyi.

The only reason im second guessing is the HVAC guy is pretty adamant about a 2nd router which I could just do and be done but I dont really want to be on the hook for this seperate network and their HVAC gear connecting to it.

The HVAC guys do not know anything about networking (why would they). The manufacture is looking at the total market, which is flooded with consumers that don't understand networking and problems everywhere. So they insist that a separate network be installed for their stuff (protecting themselves no matter how stupid the idea is). The HVAC guys only understand what the manufacture tells them, they don't know why or know any better.
But you have to be able to install a solid network every time, to debunk that.

My other paragraphs were going to be about the Araknis and why you are having problems. But it is rehashing things I (and several others) have talked about until we're blue in the face. I'm done trying to educate on that, use whatever junk you want.

Yes I understand why they are "add your own router". The client in both cases is listening to me so that is helpful. The HVAC service guy wont schedule the work unless I "add a separate router like the Mitz training dictates"

As far as Araknis I am aware of it problems. We used to use Mikrotik and UniFi but back then the remote management was more difficult. Once I transitioned out of the field I needed something more manageable for techs that may or may not be necessarily network focused. OvrC was just starting around than and it offered me a way to be another Tech w/o leaving the desk. I can quickly jump in diagnose a problem and between OvrC and NICE Management Cloud 85% of the time fix the issue w/o rolling a truck.

At some point we became so deep into OvrC, that we are kinda stuck. I dont want to have "this client is over in this dashboard and this other client is over in that dashboard". We strive for consistency in our product mix, so we are for now at least willing to put up with some of the Araknis performance issues.

Maybe you can create a seperate vlan for the HVAC stuff. That may alleviate the traffic on your regular network.

We moved away from Araknis and got into Grandstream for all of our networking. Way better pricing and they are offering more advanced WAPs then Araknis ever could. They have a free cloud service (GDMS), which we use, and we can see and edit all of clients networking needs. They have a far larger selection of switches and routers including aggregate fiber switches.
We initially had pushback from our owner because he had the same concerns about being too far into OVRC, but far and away we are better off. We hardly ever have issues with Grandstream