Basically, you can't configure it without a license. They're all cloud managed. Some stuff, like the access points will refuse to function if there's no license, they just won't turn on the radios, other stuff like their switches might pass packets in the last known configuration, but are otherwise not useful. Their firewalls I think also need a license to work.

I'm not 100% on this, since I've avoided it wherever possible. There's sometimes a grace period where it will continue to work without a license (so you can renew it), but it's usually fairly short, like a month at most. Maybe two if you're lucky.

Without a license, you can't add the units to the meraki dashboard, and you can't manage them for configuration. It's a pretty cruel policy if you ask me.

The IP phones are not tied to the same licensing, and I have a small fleet of the predecessor phones (mostly 7960/7965/7970). But the phones on their own won't really do anything, and require a PBX of stone kind to connect to. You can establish a lightweight version of this with most ISR routers, known as Cisco "voice" aka CME (call manager express). The PBX will basically provision the phones and assign them an extension, and provide connections to a SIP line or an analog line using voice cards (or VIC/voice interface card). I have such a setup at home for the 7900 series phones I have.

I might be interested in the 8800 series phones you have, I've been meaning to upgrade my 7900s to the 8800 series, but I haven't gotten around to even planning it. Right now my voice system is in pieces. It has been in pieces since I decommissioned the first iteration of it when we sold my late father's home. That system ran on a Cisco ISR 2821 using CME and a SIP connection provided by VoIP.ms, as well as an analog voice line for my father's legacy telephone connection. It allowed me to call my father at his desk, or call my brother in another room without trouble. We could all also call out on the analog or SIP lines from each phone as needed. Default routing for my father's extension was to use the analog line (if it's not in use already, otherwise fail over to the SIP), and ring only when the analog line was receiving a call. It made it easy for us to communicate across the house. After that I moved into an apartment with my significant other and didn't really need anything so elaborate.

Now, I'm living in a multi-family home so the need to be able to call between rooms and such has become more relevant again, and I just haven't had time to take on the project to fix communication between devices and the PBX... But it's a desired option. So I'll probably pick up some 8800's eventually either way. The 7900's still work, even with the ISR 2911 that I'm using now, but they're a bit older and I'm getting concerned about reliability moving forward.

As for the meraki's, you may want to check into whether or not you can reflash them with firmware that isn't from Cisco. I know there was a nontrivial number of people who acquired similar products that wanted to use them without having a monthly fee from Cisco for the privilege. The last time I looked at it, they were working on ways to put different software on the devices so that they would at least function without a subscription. I'm not sure if that is continuing or if the efforts have been mostly abandoned. I wouldn't suggest to use meraki in a business/production environment with custom firmware, but for home or lab use, I don't see an issue with it. I just don't have enough experience with meraki to know, and I've avoided working with the products whenever I can because of all of this.

Let me know if you want to discuss about the 8800s, and we can link up on matrix or signal or telegram or something to hammer out the details. It might be a good idea to push the transaction through eBay, using a private listing if possible, just to ensure all the details of the transaction are good, but that's a matter to discuss later.

No pressure. If you want to keep them, by all means do so. I'm in no rush to buy anything right now; so this is entirely your option. If anything about it bothers you in any way, feel free to say no, or back out of the deal at any point. I have no expectations and I will hold no grudges.

In every case, good luck and have a wonderful day.