Lightspeed MDM - experiences?

[ItsMattUK]

We're looking for a way to manage our (many!) iPads. We currently use the free Meraki but obviously that's a bit grandfathered now as we have more than 100 devices. We have been advised by our LEA to potentially either pay for Meraki (they are looking to broker a deal, but talks have been very slow) or use Air-Watch which they are charging something like £10 a year per device to provide the licence and setup and manage(!)

 

Lightspeed's pricing is a lot cheaper, but is there a reason for this? Is it that much more limited than the solutions they are suggesting.

 

We only need the ability to push-out apps via VPP, monitor and keep them up to date - I presume Lightspeed supports the iOS updating? Senior management would like apps like the App store removed so the children can't go on a spree/get distracted?

 

Is anyone using Lightspeed can comment on what it can and can't do?

 

Thanks

[Griff]

I setup Lightspeed here last year after being in exactly the same boat as you moving across from Meraki after maxing out our devices.

 

Lightspeed does everything I need.. manage and push out apps, lock down the iOS set wallpaper, restrict passcodes, disable screen shots, disable camera, deploy shortcuts it also has timed policies so you can say right I want to enable the camera for an hour and it pushes out. Lost mode is particularly good as well we have tracked an iPad down to a students exact house after it got taken from school

 

In terms of the specific things you want you can disable the app store it will pop up briefly when you're installing or deploying new apps but otherwise its hidden from the iPad. You can push out apps via VPP and force them to update remotely. You can also update the iOS via the the system as well.

 

Feel free to drop me a message if you have any specific questions I will try and help

[Edu-IT]

Had very positive experience with Lightspeed MDM and they're constantly improving it.

 

It'll do probably everything Meraki does I'm sure. Apple really control what MDM's can do.

 

Also happy to answer any specific questions.

[RLR]

Most of the big MDM's do the same thing as apple have limited api's to allow them to do stuff. You probably want to look at more MDM's and see what you may need for the future. For example, if you want to start managing iMacs you may want to go for Casper (now called Jamf Pro). They also make sure they have all new features available for zero day release. Other things to look for are what support is like for each copany. Edited October 20, 2016 by RLR

[2ilent8cho]

I have been mostly happy with Lightspeed, but they were VERY slow to add the new iOS 9.3 features such as app blocking which i found highly annoying and made me wish i had gone for JAMF Casper Suite as that has much better Mac support too if you need to manage them. But apart from that, if its just iOS devices you want to manage it seems to work well.

[Edu-IT]

I have been mostly happy with Lightspeed, but they were VERY slow to add the new iOS 9.3 features such as app blocking which i found highly annoying and made me wish i had gone for JAMF Casper Suite as that has much better Mac support too if you need to manage them. But apart from that, if its just iOS devices you want to manage it seems to work well.

I believe there's a big difference in price between those two options?

[RLR]

I believe there's a big difference in price between those two options?

 

I'm not sure what our initial cost was but our renewal quote this year was £4.60 per iPad and £9 per MAC for casper.

[2ilent8cho]

I'm not sure what our initial cost was but our renewal quote this year was £4.60 per iPad and £9 per MAC for casper.

 

When i enquired the only off putting thing was the £5000 on boarding and training fee. They refused to sell Casper without it

[RLR]

When i enquired the only off putting thing was the £5000 on boarding and training fee. They refused to sell Casper without it

 

Have you checked with re-sellers such as Jigsaw? I think they do a jumpstart which involve setting it up and some training but I don't know the costs.

[ItsMattUK]

Thanks for the replies. We don't have any Macs, all our computers are Windows based, this would be purely for iPads and management of those devices. Which seemingly on the whole is a pretty positive experience from the replies here. We are only a Junior school so not having everything on zero day wouldn't be a major issue in most respects.

[jdoldridge]

We use Lightspeed for our iPad deployment (1:1 for 6th Form) and some class sets too. It doesn't tend to need much doing to it really. You can tell the apps on the devices to update an app when needed. I have just started setting up class set of iPads for one of our primaries in the following way: Prepare in Apple Configurator (Connect to Wifi) > Supervise in Configurator (Add the lightspeed management profile) > Relax, Lightspeed does the rest if the profile settings are configured correctly. We have Lightspeed connect to Apple VPP so the apps pull in pretty seamlessly.

[Michael]

We're looking for a way to manage our (many!) iPads. We currently use the free Meraki but obviously that's a bit grandfathered now as we have more than 100 devices. We have been advised by our LEA to potentially either pay for Meraki (they are looking to broker a deal, but talks have been very slow) or use Air-Watch which they are charging something like £10 a year per device to provide the licence and setup and manage(!)

 

Lightspeed's pricing is a lot cheaper, but is there a reason for this? Is it that much more limited than the solutions they are suggesting.

 

We only need the ability to push-out apps via VPP, monitor and keep them up to date - I presume Lightspeed supports the iOS updating? Senior management would like apps like the App store removed so the children can't go on a spree/get distracted?

 

Is anyone using Lightspeed can comment on what it can and can't do?

 

Thanks

 

Have you enquired how much Meraki is, given you're already using it?

[simpsonj]

Odd, as I've found Lightspeed MDM unbearable: clunky and with no ability to do things en mass (like add apps to a group in bulk, or add iPads to a group in bulk) so I'm wondering if I'm lacking some training, or it wasn't setup right from the beginning...

[jdoldridge]

@simpsonj that's a pretty easy task to be honest, I think you might be right there.

[simpsonj]

Thought I must be missing something, looks like I need to watch some training videos!