Ubiquiti wifi or mesh
Discussion
Currently I have a Cityfibre broadband connection into the house and connected to a Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Ultra router. There's an ethernet network made up of old Netgear unmanaged switches and I have WiFi from a TP-Link Deco M5 mesh setup. The mesh system is made up of four nodes - in the main house there's one upstairs and one downstairs, one in the kitchen/dining extension and one in the garden office. They are getting a little long in the tooth now so am thinking about replacing them.
I quite like the UniFi system so am keen to stick with that but I'm struggling with the options available. The U7 Long-Range has appeal, if it means I only need the one AP for the whole property. The difficult thing is the outer walls of the house are granite blocks so I guess that means it'd struggle to get outside to the garden office, the Nest doorbell or the EV charger? Also I see some chat online that it only supports Wifi-7 and not 6 - does that mean that older devices won't be able to connect?
I quite like the UniFi system so am keen to stick with that but I'm struggling with the options available. The U7 Long-Range has appeal, if it means I only need the one AP for the whole property. The difficult thing is the outer walls of the house are granite blocks so I guess that means it'd struggle to get outside to the garden office, the Nest doorbell or the EV charger? Also I see some chat online that it only supports Wifi-7 and not 6 - does that mean that older devices won't be able to connect?
It's all backwards compatible, so will work with all the older wifi versions - although you won't get the benefit of faster/wider wifi 7.
I bought a single UDR7 to replace most of my repeaters (as they were just taking up plug sockets)...and I get about the same coverage/speed as I did...although I don't have thick granite wall or a 12 acre small-holding to cover
You might get away with a single U7 Mesh or U7 Outdoor / U7 Pro Outdoor (if you want max coverage) on the outside of the house, which will cover most of the inside too.
Just realised that your router doesn't have wifi at all, and no POE.
I bought a single UDR7 to replace most of my repeaters (as they were just taking up plug sockets)...and I get about the same coverage/speed as I did...although I don't have thick granite wall or a 12 acre small-holding to cover
You might get away with a single U7 Mesh or U7 Outdoor / U7 Pro Outdoor (if you want max coverage) on the outside of the house, which will cover most of the inside too.
Just realised that your router doesn't have wifi at all, and no POE.
Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 23 September 16:56
The long range models are good, but signal drops sharply the second any solid wall appears at a poor angle.
I've got the U6+ model and range is very much governed by materials in the way!
Don't rule out having a couple of the basic models with more sensible power settings to get better coverage.
They also do outdoor specific models if you're able to get a cat5/6 from a switch to somewhere outside that would give good line of sight to the garden office.
I've got the U6+ model and range is very much governed by materials in the way!
Don't rule out having a couple of the basic models with more sensible power settings to get better coverage.
They also do outdoor specific models if you're able to get a cat5/6 from a switch to somewhere outside that would give good line of sight to the garden office.
I bought a few old AC Pro's for about £25 each...not the current thing being WiFi 5 but I've not found any limitations.
I've got four now...one on the Landing, one in the conservatory, one in the Garage (obvz) and one in the garden shed! My neighbours must hate me blatting out so many channels especially on 2.4G
I've got four now...one on the Landing, one in the conservatory, one in the Garage (obvz) and one in the garden shed! My neighbours must hate me blatting out so many channels especially on 2.4G
Don't bother with the LR models.
Connections are as reliant on the client device as they are the AP.
You're better off with additional normal units to get the coverage you want.
(I speak from a position of having bought into LRs, only to realise the error of my ways
).
Edited to add, the wall units are pretty good...as and when my std APs need replacing, I'll likely use these.
Connections are as reliant on the client device as they are the AP.
You're better off with additional normal units to get the coverage you want.
(I speak from a position of having bought into LRs, only to realise the error of my ways
).Edited to add, the wall units are pretty good...as and when my std APs need replacing, I'll likely use these.
If you can, I’d recommend cabling access points over mesh.
The APs are PoE, so you will need to get cable to them anyway. Ubiquiti also have wall / table mountable APs if ceiling mount isn’t easy or possible.
Magnum’s first rule of networking: if it doesn’t move, cable it.
For me that was easy: had to re-wire most of the house when we bought it, so planned and installed Cat 6 everywhere, including ceiling access points. Then ran more Cat 6 when I found WiFi dead spots.
The APs are PoE, so you will need to get cable to them anyway. Ubiquiti also have wall / table mountable APs if ceiling mount isn’t easy or possible.
Magnum’s first rule of networking: if it doesn’t move, cable it.
For me that was easy: had to re-wire most of the house when we bought it, so planned and installed Cat 6 everywhere, including ceiling access points. Then ran more Cat 6 when I found WiFi dead spots.
Thanks all, great insight so far.
One thing I neglected to mention, I'd like to set up a dedicated IoT network to support WiFi and some wired devices. Not sure if that limits the options I have of APs.
Magnum 475 said:
If you can, I d recommend cabling access points over mesh.
The APs are PoE, so you will need to get cable to them anyway. Ubiquiti also have wall / table mountable APs if ceiling mount isn t easy or possible.
Magnum s first rule of networking: if it doesn t move, cable it.
For me that was easy: had to re-wire most of the house when we bought it, so planned and installed Cat 6 everywhere, including ceiling access points. Then ran more Cat 6 when I found WiFi dead spots.
Fully on-board with Magnum, currently everything is cabled where possible. The current mesh system uses ethernet for the backhaul but I don't have any PoE at the moment. I'd love to replace the cheap Netgear 1gig switches with some 10GbE PoE Ubiquiti ones but I'd be looking at about a grand to do that with my current switch setup.The APs are PoE, so you will need to get cable to them anyway. Ubiquiti also have wall / table mountable APs if ceiling mount isn t easy or possible.
Magnum s first rule of networking: if it doesn t move, cable it.
For me that was easy: had to re-wire most of the house when we bought it, so planned and installed Cat 6 everywhere, including ceiling access points. Then ran more Cat 6 when I found WiFi dead spots.
One thing I neglected to mention, I'd like to set up a dedicated IoT network to support WiFi and some wired devices. Not sure if that limits the options I have of APs.
Murph7355 said:
Don't bother with the LR models.
Connections are as reliant on the client device as they are the AP.
You're better off with additional normal units to get the coverage you want.
(I speak from a position of having bought into LRs, only to realise the error of my ways).
Edited to add, the wall units are pretty good...as and when my std APs need replacing, I'll likely use these.
This is good advice as well. It's all good and well getting the loudest shoutiest AP around and turning it up to maximum transmit power, but if it can't hear what your iPhone is whispering back to it through an insulated wall, it's no better than a low power unit.Connections are as reliant on the client device as they are the AP.
You're better off with additional normal units to get the coverage you want.
(I speak from a position of having bought into LRs, only to realise the error of my ways
).Edited to add, the wall units are pretty good...as and when my std APs need replacing, I'll likely use these.
Same reason why when dealing with multiple AP's you need to set channels and lower transmit power levels to minimise conflict and poor signal strength on the client --> AP path.
I have loads of Unifi AP's as my house is structurally difficult for WiFi propagation. I've achieved a good stable setup with seamless roaming as you move around the house on a call but it's been hard work and a lot of experimentation.
Also ceiling mount where possible, if you aren't using the wall units. I wouldn't just buy the round/flat APs intended for ceiling mounting and sling them anywhere.
I did subscribe to the view that everything should be hardwired where possible, but this has been practically very difficult to achieve and therefore I've only hard-wired all the APs, any other POE devices and my desk location. Most media streaming is to WiFi clients and it works very well now the WiFi infrastructure is good.
8bit said:
One thing I neglected to mention, I'd like to set up a dedicated IoT network to support WiFi and some wired devices. Not sure if that limits the options I have of APs.
I think you said you've already got the Ubiquiti cloud gateway? If so you should be able to set up vlans and multiple wifi networks with ease. If you're going the vlan route though I think it pushes you into l3 switches, but ubiquiti ones should play nicely with the gateway and you can configure the whole lot from one gui.Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff