So funny enough - after a couple of days of my buddy running his UniFi system after I made these improvements, we discussed it and I may NOT have to go down there to do the extra improvements that I recommended. Funny how that works...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it! He's going to live with it for a bit and see what it's like...but wanted to mention that there may never be a follow-up video here.
Hey Chris. Have you ever thought about doing a video on how to layout access points in multi story homes? I live in a two story house with a basement and am racking my brain trying to figure out the best layout so the wifi APs don’t interfere with each other. In a squarish house, makes sense to put them in the middle but then they are stacked on top of one another. UniFi design centre doesn’t work in 3D. Think about it! Keep up the great work.
@@keithprokasky4285 Glad you agree. I've found loads of videos showing you Design Centre and talking about how to space them out across one floor, but what about when they are stacked. How does that work? Should I stack them and lower the output? Should I stager them? Do I have to buy a bunch of wifi APs and experiment with Wifi Man to find the answer? Or can Chris add this to his amazing list of videos? 😉
I just bought 4 APs for my two story house. Isn't the radio beam focused more on spreading wide "XY" so they wont interfere that much between levels, i.e. in the "Z" direction? I would like a video on it too of course! Edit: I'm going for all wired APs tho (WiFi 6 Lite) , including two outdoor APs (AP AC Mesh) but I'm still interested in possible interference problems that can occur.
Absolutely the clearest explanation on mesh networking logic and fundamentals that I have found. Excellent all around. Kudos and please keep doing what you do!
I'm a networking noob with a bunch of Ubiquity stuff in his house, trying to understand how his meshing setup should look like. This video is pure gold for me. Thank you soo much
I delayed use of the Unifi auto optimization feature based on your comments. However with (17 switches) 19 APs over 16 acre campus and 165 wifi devices regularly connected - doing what you did was driving me crazy. I finally turned on auto optimize and it has dramartially improved the entire network wifi. All APs are above 90% incluing three meshed access points. It would be interesting if you compared your results to the auto optimize feature.
I have an AC mesh on the side of my metal barn. From there I hard-wired an AP-lite on the inside of the building. The AC mesh is more of a bridge. I love this stuff and you make it fun and easy to learn how to make it better. Have a beer or coffee on me...
Thank you SOOOOO much for this video. The mesh only via 5Ghz was a lightbulb moment and while after you explained some of the manual mesh settings, they seem quite intuitive. I can't believe its taken me this long to find this video. I added a Beacon HD in my house were I cant add a wire. I turned "auto" mesh on my two hardwired access points thinking they both had to have mesh turned on. Its been a mess until your video explained the 5Ghz meshing and the manual settings. Thx so much for all your vids.
I've been doing my own home project and started only wired uplink, and eventually relocating old APs as meshed APs this video helped me understand what I was intuitively doing. As knowledge evolves, I realize I have too many APs. Now I will start doing fun projects
That was excellent and it made me realise I’d got an uplink configuration error in my own setup. Thanks very much 👍 Looking forward to your "on-the-road" episode.
Chris, I'm installing a couple of these UAP-AC-M-PRO on the outside of a new home. The home is new construction so we're installing all of the wring inside the house in a "rough-in" stage of preparation for insulation and drywall. The "standard thought" is to simply drill a hole in the siding and bring the roughed-in wiring into the AP directly. The exterior of the house is clapboard/lapped siding and to make for a nicer install, the carpenter is putting a block in the siding to allow for flat-mounting the AP to the outside of the home. I'm using the UI Tough cable and it's a bit stiff to bend up and into the bottom of the AP where the input is. It's also black wiring and will be exposed for the homeowner to see. My thought is to install a single-gang old work box flush-mounted into the siding block, oriented horizontally and then screw the mount to the single-gang box screws of the cover and include a keystone jack in the cover, too. This allows the rough-in wiring to be terminated int eh box and then a short jumper cable to be installed from the keystone to the AP (color of choice and a more flexible cable) with the intention of making a neat/clean installation. You and your staff have installed several, I'm sure (and maybe some of your followers) and I wanted to know if anyone has ever done this type of installation that I've described - or if there are any suggestions for a better/cleaner outcome. Thanks in advance. Matt
Thinking of replacing my current nighthawk mesh with UniFi and this video helped tons with my decision to pull the trigger. I love the flexibility and configurability options. Love the explanations and advice.
Even without hardwiring, the situation could be improved by relocating the patio AP a bit more "north" in the map to put it into the line of sight to the two downlink APs. That should also render the "Mesh" AP even more useless, so that it can be decomissioned.
Exactly. I was just about to suggest the very same thing and then i saw your post. Moving the patio AP “North” as you say, will.put it in the opposite corner of the front House HD, providing better coverage in the main House, and line of sight with the guest House for a better Uplink. The “Mesh” could then be eliminated or redeployed if needed elsewhere.
Fantastic Video - Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. Understood well, really well presented.. Thanks Chris (once again!) I currently live in a 1200 year old house in the UK with 35inch (90cm) stone walls in-between every room. Spent 3 weekends wiring outdoor ethernet (not ideal but only real solution without drilling for oil (holes)) lol - Really love your videos and you convinced me to buy Unif! 1 x UDM SE, 4 x Wifi 6 Pro and 4 x G4 Bullets - Think I've finally got a robust network across the house. I'm pretty lucky to have 1Gbit connection plumbed into a rural old property, may look at consultancy to setup IOT, Guest Networks, let me know if interested and fees - Thanks
When I lived in the UK I installed a mesh wifi (not Unifi) in a granite built hotel in Falmouth, Cornwall. It was an absolute nightmare! I would get it working then the customer complained of no WiFi. There was no plausible explanation and I was getting frustrated so I asked my boss for a fresh set of eyes and another tech went and could not work it out either. The WiFi would work one day but not the next. BTW, the hotel reputed to be haunted!! Work it out 👻
Well done! I understand so much more about meshing now, im about to do a tiny mesh at home and know how im going to set it up for best performance. THANK YOU!
Related to Sonos- if you hardwire one sonos device, it will create a separate wireless mesh network where all sonos speakers connect to. Truly is a game changer for houses like mine with many Sonos speakers.
The hypothetical example at 27:00 isn't using uplink and downlink unless you leave the guest house meshed to the patio to protect against a wire failure. The example is really just showing the coop wap using a secondary uplink.
Totally agreed on the hardwiring, but even then, it is odd to have two APs basically near each other, and even more so, the regular AP outside and the 'mesh' on in the bedroom. I would have put the APs inside (looks nice and tidy), then the hardwired Mesh AP on the outside, or remove it totally. I actually found having a mix of old APs and the 5GHz ones really kicked the performance down too. I wasn't aware meshing was only on 5GHz band, but I guess that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the detail in the video, very handy!
One thing I've noticed about these unifi mesh networks is that if you find them doing something strange such as taking multiple hops when a single good one is available it usually implies interference or some other unknown problem that is worth looking into.
Would love to see a similar settings video for PTMP set ups. With nano stations or nano beams. Something that talks about the spectrums and best practices.
As always another great video which is clear (one of the best on youtube) and very informative, Sometimes too much as I have lost clients by mentioning your youtube channel. Personally I didn't learn anything new here but I know MANY!!! that would. Huge thanks for your wonderful content Chris and keep up the good work. look forward to your next release.
I recently took down a full Unifi Mesh system that consisted of a UAP-AC-M-Pro as ROOT and 3 UAP-AC-M REMOTE. At the head is a UDM-Pro. Each AC Mesh was linked to the AC MESH Pro and set up to connect only that way. I had no issues with client connectivity and performance. My issue was the MESH would not reestablish after rebooting the UDM-Pro. I did that intentionally to see if the MESH would come back up. One of the remotes came back up but was flakey. In the end it required forgetting each remote, resetting each remote and then readopting each remote. I already had things set basically as you recommended. RSSI between remotes and the ROOT AP are all in the -58 top -62 range. Interference on 5Ghz is minimal to non existent. As stated, connectivity and speeds were very good. My only problem was the MESH not coming back up, something we cannot have since we can't have someone onsite to go through the tedious process of setting it back up again. With the exception of the UMD-Pro, I returned all the equipment and put our TP-Link Omada back in place. I want to give it another shot but will start with just the AC Mesh Pro and one AC Mesh. I do require a total of 3 AC Mesh so if the MESH is stable with the one, I will add another, and so on. Any ideas on why the MESH would fail like that?
Big thanks. Did not know the mesh used 5GHz and that the channels for the meshed devices had to be the same for mesh to work. I was trying to space the 5GHz similar to what you do with the 2.4ghz. Huge help !
What I actually once did and it worked pretty well in such a Meshed cenario was the following: So there was a "Master" Access Point which was wired in and one Access Point should mesh to it. It was really far away and only got a very weak signal but was able to connect and stay connected just fine until a device connected to it (also via 5 GHz). Then it got unstable. I ended up disabeling 5 GHz for my WiFi network on only that AP. With the older version of Unifi that was possible. You could disable the 5 GHz part of a Network on just one single AP. Now in the newer version you have to do it for all APs. But it's not really an issue because they only have 60 Mbit/s internet and it really isn't a high client density deployment. With the 5 GHz for only the Backhaul it works really well and they now get 50+ Mbit/s throught the meshed Access Point because seperate radios are used for takling to client and talking to uplink AP
I really love your videos. Thanks. 😊 As I understand it, mesh networking has two functions. The first is to give a backup wireless rout, in case a node goes down. The second (which is my favourite) is having the ability to share the same SSID, and then being able to pass a connection, on to the next access point, as you move around (much like a Cell Phone service). I have a long house, and I was using two WAPs (with separate SSIDs), one at each end of the house. However, the problem with that setup was you could still see both Assess Points at the same time, so your device would never automatically move over to the stronger Assess Point when you went from one end of the house, to the other. Now I’m running a Mesh Network, that’s no longer an issue. As I move around my house, my Wi-Fi signal seamlessly gets handed over to the next Access Point. Unfortunately, the Mesh Network I currently have (which was supplied by my Service Provider) gets its mesh signal from a base unit and the Mesh satellite units don’t have the ability to be hard wired. So, if I was to move over to a Unifi (or similar) Network, I could theoretically have all of my Mesh Access Points Hard wired, and this way I could still use the one SSID, while maintaining the best speeds that a wired connection can supply?
You don't need mesh to consolidate SSIDs. Unifi will do this with a wired backhaul also, but you could theoretically do this with access points from different manufacturers. You just have to give them the same SSID and the same authentication credentials. If the access points are all hard wired, then it's technically not mesh anymore.
@@smithophoto, I did try that quite some time ago, and it didn't end well. I'm not sure what was going wrong, but when I tried that, neither WAP seemed to work well. 😞
That's exactly what I'm trying to solve too ! Being able to move around and have my laptop or phone switch to the nearest AP seamlessly, without having to wait for it to lose the first AP entirely. I thought about using exactly the same SSID and wifi config on all APs, but it doesn't work very well...maybe each of them need to be on separate channels too ? I thought Mesh would help with it but it seems it's not the best way to handle this ^^
@@overtechnc3462 so If you device is not "roaming" correctly from AP to AP, then you need to look at "WHY?" your device - cell phone laptop etc. will only try to lock onto a new AP if it's signal gets to weak. Which the devices are not that good at. SO, you decrease the power output from one AP or more. or set minimum RSSI levels in the AP to force the device to -- "go away" , therefore look for a closer stronger wifi signal. What you are doing will work, setup the SSID's all the same with the same password. If these devices are connected to the same LAN then it will work. IF you use a TPLINK or Netgear or Unifi AP. etc. If one AP says "your signal is weak, kick it." then you will be forced to connect to a stronger wifi signal. if it's ALL unifi then this is easy in the controller.
Chris, I think you need a vacation to the beautiful Black Forest in Germany. I live 20 minutes from Switzerland and 30 minutes from France. I have a horse farm here so you could bring your kids and they could ride all day. You, well, I could keep you busy setting up my network so you don't get bored. My home is 15,000sq ft. , three stories with 80cm thick stone walls. A few hardwire ethernet cables. It is beautiful this time of year!
WHEW.... You BURIED THE LEAD by not telling us that "uplink" fixes would be covered in this video! LMFAO YOU are AWESOME! Thank you. Please follow up with the new ONVIF camera options... "Pretty please... with sugar on top, school us in new Unifi ONVIF camera options!" {in Winston Wolf voice} LOL
Because they're sold as hardwired access points the fact that they can mesh is just a secondary function, it'll be interesting to see if the Wi-Fi 6 enterprise line whether or not you'll be able to use the 6 gigahertz as a mesh
@@CrosstalkSolutions It’s always been that way. On auto if you look at the AP settings you will see it’s transmit power is always at its max for its selected channel.
@@joevining2603 I don’t think that is true. The way UniFi APs work is that auto makes a decision on boot only (as channel works). I often see people forget different AP channels have different max DB; so they think one AP is at a different power than another when both on AUTO
@@chrisjames7489 I'll have to check, but I'm talking about a complex with about 30 APs, all the same model, all on auto, and only a few having lower than max power showing, but you could be right. I've never heard of a different power limit for any of the three main 2.4 GHz channels, though.
Great video with very well put together information! I would just run pvc pipe at the edge of the property and paint/burry it to conceal the cables to feed each AP. Mesh is a last resort or if it isn’t mission critical IMHO. (Especially in a saturated Wi-Fi area)
I have a reasonably large double story property on just 2 AP’s and using mesh and getting fantastic up/down speeds.. I find it’s a combination of lots of testing and not relying on the nice uniFi colourful mappings, some of that including the topology drawings are just marketing to sell you more gear than you might really need, because everyone goes into hyper mode on coverage and strength of signal. It’s a blend and trade offs of low .db no.s latency, actual up down speed testing, channel selection relative to other households, channel width.. selection… low TX retries.. not making the fateful assumption of just increasing power signal on the AP’s because it does not automatically translate into better speeds. In my office area I lose only 5mb of download relative to my external service cap. Over the rest of the house it depends on NICs and specific device hardware capabilities but I can say uniFi is nothing short of fantastic, just be careful with your eco system selection in the design phase. Too many variables can result in more complexity. I now have that corporate level speed and stability I always wanted for working remotely and built it all myself. I am not a tech these days… 😂 I just focus on block architecture and keeping it minimal and specific to needs.. ❤😂 A great video with emphasis on mapping your AP mesh traffic flow. ❤
as a HAM Radio Operator, I understand why the MESH device was given link priority, its Antennas are usually mounted vertically and may be a better signal to the ap at the rear of the property, vertical antennas often have a better ground plane effect and travels a longer distance - while MIMO antennas in a round configuration on a MIMO device is often using 2x2 and 3x3 and even 4x4 to waveform a beam-ish at an antenna, nothing beats the real deal. 1x1 that is using a full-length antenna is typically going to beat out a round AP that is aimed at a strong, shorter distance. - it has the benefits of using the area to reflect off trees, homes, and other objects and often catch less interference, a round AP is better at grabbing all the smaller signals around it at a shorter distance... their app does not show a REAL signal performance but a simulated one. If you want coverage on the same plane (same floor, for a house), vertical is typically better for distance. If you want coverage above and below the router, horizontal is better, which is why we mount the Round APs flat on a ceiling and not flat on a wall. (And the antennas on the connected devices, even if they’re internal, and you can’t see them, have to be parallel to the router antenna. If they’re at right angles, you lose most of the signal. At intermediate angles, you lose more or less signal.) sometimes when dealing with a large system it is good to have a mix of both
I would have used the MESH Device to backbone the House at the back of the property and not let small devices use it at a local level. And I would have spaced it at least 10 feet from the other AP
No doubt if you can CABLE it; do so! I've also used a couple PTP (bridged) solutions to create dedicated pathways for camera systems in the past. For now; most ONVIF compliant cameras are only 100MB. Love wireless products and systems...BUT they should always compliment a cabled solution. Thanks for your videos/channel as its very informative and helpful.
I'd like to hear more about why you chose 'auto' for all the power settings... With your manual selection of channels, thoughtful separation of AP's, and longer distances, why not select high power for at least the key AP's on 2.4Ghz? Do you trust the UI 'intelligence' to make the right choices for power any more than you (don't) trust it to make the right selection for channels? I never do...
Hi Chris. One thing I noticed was you said the HD and mesh pro were powered by a US 60W. That switch is only Poe AF but the HD alone requires Poe AT. Add the mesh pro and that connection could end up flapping under load
Saw this too. That is the wrong switch to use. Also, Chris needs to know that auto power level equals high power. Junk unifi labelling. Sonos mesh uses a 1 or 6 or 11 channel, configure on sonos app. Do not use this in the unifi system. 2.4ghz should change to all low power, that is a very small place.
Question: I have a detached garage that is 150 feet from my house, and a wired connection is not an option. In your property, my cable modem would be located roughly at the Patio AP, my garage would be the Guest AP, and then I would like another mess point near the front driveway. Can I plug a switch or a desktop computer directly into the wireless access point? ... Also, we have no cell service where I live, so Wi-Fi is a must.
Hi Chris, great video. Quick question: I have 2 storey house with wire points in 3 different rooms. 2 rooms on same floor and 1 room upstairs. Thinking to use 3 AP’s in mesh configuration and connect them wired from main switch, so wired connection for AP’s would be used as backhaul connection. Would would be your advice for this solution? Or I should use AP’s without mesh? Thank you
I also have this same question. All AP's are hardwired. Since they're hardwired they would be considered Backhaul. What benefits would their be or not be for setting them as Mesh, since they're all hardwired?
I’m confused as to why you wouldn’t set the Meshed AP’s to Auto for the channel and set the Priority to Patio. This way, they would all connect to the Patio AP when it's available. But, when the Patio AP is down (for an update or anything else), you wouldn’t take down the entire mesh network with it. When the Patio AP was down, all the mesh AP’s would move over to the Front House AP until the Patio AP was back up. What am I missing?
I set up my 8 port switch a couple years ago along with litebeams to my shop. I added a u6+ to the shop end. I only get signal from the house. when shop door is closed all signal is lost. Im worn out mentally working with this. my cloud has expired and cant acess settings anymore.
Great video, it's always good to see how other people do things. Personally I usually try to set all 2.4 APs to the same channel when possible. My reasoning is that since clients tend to roam to the strongest APs then interference with other APs (Or their clients) is likely minimal. The advantage is that this discourages neighbors from using that channel.
Is it possible to setup the new U7 outdoor AP as a mesh device? A customer of mine wants the U7 outdoor to essentially extend their home wifi into their backyard. Any ideas?
I would love to see a video on optimizing multiple hardwire Unifi AP at a residential setup. I have a UAP AC Pro, Lite and M and scratching my head on getting the best settings.
Crosstalk Solutions did an amazing job laying out a real life situation and has helped me understand some new concepts. So I was trying to find more information on this too. I just came across a fantastic video helping me understand how it would all work specifically for seamlessly transitioning a device from one AC to the next AC without virtually no interruption. ua-cam.com/video/gf4XuGK4N5Q/v-deo.html
Bit late i know but found this video after getting two Aps myself and trying to fathom out how to do this... couple of questions. 1.) I assume the AP's you meshed together all have the same SSID? 2.) Can Unifi AP's work without a hard wired connection as long as there is one hard wired into a UDM or Switch that been adopted? I already have 1 AP hard wired and about to get a second to serve downstairs/back of the house, so All i need to supply it with is power?
When you displayed the heat map the Wi-Fi 6 did not appear to be able to get to the chicken coop and the guest house. You mentioned that the mesh Network only broadcasts on the Wi-Fi 6 band. If the heat map does not show the Wi-Fi 6 mesh access points overlapping then how do they communicate?
Good job on the video , easy to understand. Sigh perfectly good fence on the side of the property, would have been trivial to just wire the coop and guest house :)
@crosstalk solutions I have the same question: are all of the Access Points using the same SSID? That is: are the APs of the mesh network using the same SSID of the Front House wired AP? What happens to a client device that connects to the Patio AP and then moves to the left most part of the house: will it connect without user intervention to the Front House AP?
Hi Chris. As laid out "temporarily fixed", would you be able to hang a small switch to the AP in Guest House to provide connectivity to a few wired clients?
Great video, thanks. I have a quick question about the order for setting channels. I have 10 x U6 mesh with only 2 being able to be wired. It's a large resort, and I'm wondering. Do I need to set the Chanels on the furthest meshed AP's first? Im concerned, I'll lose connectivity if I work wired side outwards.
Thank you for the very informative video, please may you also do a video on the new early release unifi ap firmware - UAP Firmware 6.2.9 that improves wireless roaming
Just wondering ... Due to the long distance between Patio (Mesh Master) and Guest House and less coverage @ 5GHz the uplink might be weak and slow. Maybe the experience score does not reflect this but a speed test does. Would it make sense to have an alternative uplink: @ Coop AP: enable “Downlink - allow other APs connect to this AP” and @ Guest House AP: Priority 2 = Coop AP (or even swapped priorities) ?
Chris....sorry if this was asked below but did that help the Sonos issues and what is the maximum internet speed if you hardwired a computer direct to the router? The 30mb mesh speed test doesn't sound bad if the residence was only paying for a 100mb package from his cable provider.
Chris, thank you for the video. I recently setup a business with the UAP-nanoHDs. I have 5 in our open workspace areas and in the large conference rooms at the ends of the building I have the AP Beacon HDs. We have a 1Gb fiber network and we get amazing speeds, but the wifi after your video is still about 100mb average down. What can I do to speed up the wifi? I did tune them to what you said in the video and only meshed the beacons with the nearest AP.
So curious i see using ht20 and ht40 - with channel 1 and 136 no one is using, but the meshing your saying is for devices not on hardwire, all my devices are UAP-HD are hardwire so I should not have meshing on then - correct? on the new version it has (Night Channel Optimzation enabled by default) could you make a video and cover this
Hey Chris, what did I do wrong meshing two U6 APs outdoors at a pool. Settings in primary AP are manual mesh, downlink enable, and uplink disable. Mesh AP has manual mesh, downlink disable, and uplink enable. Priority is set to 5G band. Channels for 2.4G at 20 Mhz are ch 1 & 6 since no meshing on this band. Both primary and mesh APs were set to same 5G channel. Speed delivered to mesh AP wirelessly is excellent at 200 Mbps, but mesh ap is only delivering 60M. I expected over 100M at close distances. What mistakes could I have made?
My new UAP-AC-M Service menu, dont have any commands where i can SWITCH OFF the MESH function from my hardwired UAP-AC-M . nothing like you showed in your video....
I have only discovered Chris’ videos recently. So, a naive question for anyone who knows the answer (not just Chris). Can I set up multiple APs hardwired to a central point but have them act as a mesh, i.e., use a single SSID and allow devices to connect to the strongest signal? If so, how is that configured in UniFi? If not, then a mesh system has a definite reason to exist if the objective is to be able to move around without having to select different SSIDs. Thanks.
What about minimum RSSI? If a client walks into the front door, connects to the HD, then goes out the pool, they could be still connected at a low signal strength to the HD. When I first installed unifi on campus this was a big problem.
I haven't found that to be much of an issue in smaller installs, but jumping from AP to AP also has a lot to do with the client device...sometimes there isn't much you can do. Definitely something to think about though!
Minimum RSSI settings can often cause premature and constant drops and reconnections. I avoid them unless I have a special situation. I prefer either letting the device make the choice or setting minimum data rates, instead.
hated RSSI, i have a deadzone and rssi would drop between the two AP. I just had different SSID for different areas. Guest-50mbps wifi goes to all APs 2.4ghz. Personal 5GHZ network has separate SSIDs for just me for each zone.
Chris, do these only have one 5G band? Therefore, ch149 is shared for backhaul to the master mesh AP and clients. If these had two 5G bands, one could be dedicated to backhaul on a different channel. Do you think that would increase performance significantly? But, I still prefer the wired concept if you can run the cable.
If you wanted to provide free access within a 200 home village and were planning to scatter a dozen or so mesh access points, would it help each homeowner if they were to place a separate/their own access point beside their own home
Chris, (or anyone who wants to answer), what do you think about a hardwired U6-Pro with a couple of U6-Mesh (provided that they're in stock) around the house (about 1400 sq ft and hardwiring is not possible). Looking for the best wireless (and wired connections through the mesh access points like the U6-Mesh spread around the house). Is it a little overkill for our house? If so, what do you guys suggest for a simple but effective wired and wireless setup? Thanx
Chris, did you ever find any technical documentation of UniFi mesh from UniFi? I found their "support" pages really lacking from that perspective. I know when I was doing the Netgear Orbi RBS solutions for a few homes I found that the mesh backhauls would use the DFS bands for backhaul and then the U-NII-1 and U-NII-3 for wireless devices. I was wondering if this is possible with UniFi?
Chris, thanks for the video. Here's a topic for you. I really want to get where I can deploy access points that serve 5 GHz channels only. That used to be easy, but that process has gotten convoluted in UniFi with Access Point groups. Is there an easy way to deploy 5 GHz only access points without going through the mess and smell of setting up a bunch of access point groups? Maybe I'm just missing the point, but I find the process very confusing. As a result, I've been over-covering on 2.4 GHz just to get good 5 GHz coverage. Suggestions welcome.
Great video, what about nightly optimization, where you just let the system spread the channel numbers. I’ve selected channel width, but the rest i leave to the system. I have two wired and a mesh AP out in the garage.
Why would you not place the patio in front of building so they would all be in line of site? Im just learning and still don't understand this stuff. thank you
Question: Are there any issues including a SONOS, AppleTV as part of the IoT WLAN when it comes to App control? I understand my iPhone can be on "House WLAN" and if prioritized within the firewall it can see devices on the IoT WLAN...but do devices on the IoT WLAN need to communicate back to my iPhone or App controller?
Trying to use the Netgear NIGHTHAWK, and it is inconsistent to a point where the product says the signal is sound, but, Speedtest shows multiple failures.
I am having a major issue where I have two wired Access Points, but for some reason they are trying to mesh together wirelessly and the one will not connect wired even though it is. I have no idea how to solve this, it is driving me CRAZY!
Recently did a Unifi 6 Lite setup for a house and all the APs are hardwired. Do I need to do any additional uplink / downlink settings in order to optimise it?
Very interesting. Any advice on a system to have Wi-Fi at a dock that is about 500’ from my house. There is about 40’ of elevation and line of sight to the house. Looking to have Wi-Fi at the dock and also add security camera at the dock. Also there 37348s no power on the dock. Any help would be great..
So funny enough - after a couple of days of my buddy running his UniFi system after I made these improvements, we discussed it and I may NOT have to go down there to do the extra improvements that I recommended. Funny how that works...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it! He's going to live with it for a bit and see what it's like...but wanted to mention that there may never be a follow-up video here.
Were you planning on doing PTP links?
Aun queremos aprender, excelente trabajo saludos desde México
So what was the plan going to be for hard wiring these AP's?
okay aask
Would these same rules (wifi channels) apply to say a mesh system on the tp link Omada?
Hey Chris. Have you ever thought about doing a video on how to layout access points in multi story homes? I live in a two story house with a basement and am racking my brain trying to figure out the best layout so the wifi APs don’t interfere with each other. In a squarish house, makes sense to put them in the middle but then they are stacked on top of one another. UniFi design centre doesn’t work in 3D. Think about it! Keep up the great work.
Please - I'm in a similar situation and would love a video like this!
@@keithprokasky4285 Glad you agree. I've found loads of videos showing you Design Centre and talking about how to space them out across one floor, but what about when they are stacked. How does that work? Should I stack them and lower the output? Should I stager them? Do I have to buy a bunch of wifi APs and experiment with Wifi Man to find the answer? Or can Chris add this to his amazing list of videos? 😉
From my office experience mount one AP on the celling of the top floor and see how it does.
triangle
I just bought 4 APs for my two story house. Isn't the radio beam focused more on spreading wide "XY" so they wont interfere that much between levels, i.e. in the "Z" direction? I would like a video on it too of course! Edit: I'm going for all wired APs tho (WiFi 6 Lite) , including two outdoor APs (AP AC Mesh) but I'm still interested in possible interference problems that can occur.
Man you explained it so much better than an old teacher I had years ago, well done again my friend.
Absolutely the clearest explanation on mesh networking logic and fundamentals that I have found. Excellent all around. Kudos and please keep doing what you do!
I'm a networking noob with a bunch of Ubiquity stuff in his house, trying to understand how his meshing setup should look like.
This video is pure gold for me. Thank you soo much
I delayed use of the Unifi auto optimization feature based on your comments. However with (17 switches) 19 APs over 16 acre campus and 165 wifi devices regularly connected - doing what you did was driving me crazy. I finally turned on auto optimize and it has dramartially improved the entire network wifi. All APs are above 90% incluing three meshed access points. It would be interesting if you compared your results to the auto optimize feature.
I have an AC mesh on the side of my metal barn. From there I hard-wired an AP-lite on the inside of the building. The AC mesh is more of a bridge.
I love this stuff and you make it fun and easy to learn how to make it better. Have a beer or coffee on me...
Thank you SOOOOO much for this video. The mesh only via 5Ghz was a lightbulb moment and while after you explained some of the manual mesh settings, they seem quite intuitive. I can't believe its taken me this long to find this video. I added a Beacon HD in my house were I cant add a wire. I turned "auto" mesh on my two hardwired access points thinking they both had to have mesh turned on. Its been a mess until your video explained the 5Ghz meshing and the manual settings. Thx so much for all your vids.
finally videos where I don't need subtitles, thanks for being clear in your explanations, greetings from Italy
I've been doing my own home project and started only wired uplink, and eventually relocating old APs as meshed APs this video helped me understand what I was intuitively doing. As knowledge evolves, I realize I have too many APs. Now I will start doing fun projects
That was excellent and it made me realise I’d got an uplink configuration error in my own setup. Thanks very much 👍
Looking forward to your "on-the-road" episode.
I like your editing style. Getting your videos to present smoothly is key. And you do it well.
Chris,
I'm installing a couple of these UAP-AC-M-PRO on the outside of a new home. The home is new construction so we're installing all of the wring inside the house in a "rough-in" stage of preparation for insulation and drywall. The "standard thought" is to simply drill a hole in the siding and bring the roughed-in wiring into the AP directly. The exterior of the house is clapboard/lapped siding and to make for a nicer install, the carpenter is putting a block in the siding to allow for flat-mounting the AP to the outside of the home. I'm using the UI Tough cable and it's a bit stiff to bend up and into the bottom of the AP where the input is. It's also black wiring and will be exposed for the homeowner to see. My thought is to install a single-gang old work box flush-mounted into the siding block, oriented horizontally and then screw the mount to the single-gang box screws of the cover and include a keystone jack in the cover, too. This allows the rough-in wiring to be terminated int eh box and then a short jumper cable to be installed from the keystone to the AP (color of choice and a more flexible cable) with the intention of making a neat/clean installation. You and your staff have installed several, I'm sure (and maybe some of your followers) and I wanted to know if anyone has ever done this type of installation that I've described - or if there are any suggestions for a better/cleaner outcome.
Thanks in advance. Matt
Thinking of replacing my current nighthawk mesh with UniFi and this video helped tons with my decision to pull the trigger. I love the flexibility and configurability options. Love the explanations and advice.
Even without hardwiring, the situation could be improved by relocating the patio AP a bit more "north" in the map to put it into the line of sight to the two downlink APs. That should also render the "Mesh" AP even more useless, so that it can be decomissioned.
Exactly. I was just about to suggest the very same thing and then i saw your post. Moving the patio AP “North” as you say, will.put it in the opposite corner of the front House HD, providing better coverage in the main House, and line of sight with the guest House for a better Uplink. The “Mesh” could then be eliminated or redeployed if needed elsewhere.
@@edvinsroze5388 oi
Best advice ever for Wi-Fi I seen to date and on a side note wide fingers don’t play nice with share button next to other items.
Fantastic Video - Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. Understood well, really well presented.. Thanks Chris (once again!) I currently live in a 1200 year old house in the UK with 35inch (90cm) stone walls in-between every room. Spent 3 weekends wiring outdoor ethernet (not ideal but only real solution without drilling for oil (holes)) lol - Really love your videos and you convinced me to buy Unif! 1 x UDM SE, 4 x Wifi 6 Pro and 4 x G4 Bullets - Think I've finally got a robust network across the house. I'm pretty lucky to have 1Gbit connection plumbed into a rural old property, may look at consultancy to setup IOT, Guest Networks, let me know if interested and fees - Thanks
Stone walls and WiFi definitely don't mix, but glad you found a good solution!
Your house sounds like it deserves its own video!
@@futurecactus Yeah we want to see that
When I lived in the UK I installed a mesh wifi (not Unifi) in a granite built hotel in Falmouth, Cornwall. It was an absolute nightmare! I would get it working then the customer complained of no WiFi. There was no plausible explanation and I was getting frustrated so I asked my boss for a fresh set of eyes and another tech went and could not work it out either. The WiFi would work one day but not the next. BTW, the hotel reputed to be haunted!! Work it out 👻
I really enjoy these Chris. They're fun and informative. Thanks for all your work in presenting these videos.
Chris, just fantastic, thanks man! This is like the icing on the cake for me 😎
Thanks!
Well done! I understand so much more about meshing now, im about to do a tiny mesh at home and know how im going to set it up for best performance. THANK YOU!
What a helpful video. Just understanding how to better manually select Channels was what I needed.
Related to Sonos- if you hardwire one sonos device, it will create a separate wireless mesh network where all sonos speakers connect to. Truly is a game changer for houses like mine with many Sonos speakers.
That was such an eye opening video ... THANKS Chris for doing so! Key was that meshing is happening only/based on the 5GHz band only #yikes
Truly fantastic information, presented in an easily understood manner. I'm really looking forward to the follow up!
really very useful explanation.
Thanks for the video and the time you took to make it.
The hypothetical example at 27:00 isn't using uplink and downlink unless you leave the guest house meshed to the patio to protect against a wire failure. The example is really just showing the coop wap using a secondary uplink.
Totally agreed on the hardwiring, but even then, it is odd to have two APs basically near each other, and even more so, the regular AP outside and the 'mesh' on in the bedroom. I would have put the APs inside (looks nice and tidy), then the hardwired Mesh AP on the outside, or remove it totally. I actually found having a mix of old APs and the 5GHz ones really kicked the performance down too. I wasn't aware meshing was only on 5GHz band, but I guess that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the detail in the video, very handy!
One thing I've noticed about these unifi mesh networks is that if you find them doing something strange such as taking multiple hops when a single good one is available it usually implies interference or some other unknown problem that is worth looking into.
Would love to see a similar settings video for PTMP set ups. With nano stations or nano beams. Something that talks about the spectrums and best practices.
As always another great video which is clear (one of the best on youtube) and very informative, Sometimes too much as I have lost clients by mentioning your youtube channel.
Personally I didn't learn anything new here but I know MANY!!! that would. Huge thanks for your wonderful content Chris and keep up the good work. look forward to your next release.
I recently took down a full Unifi Mesh system that consisted of a UAP-AC-M-Pro as ROOT and 3 UAP-AC-M REMOTE. At the head is a UDM-Pro. Each AC Mesh was linked to the AC MESH Pro and set up to connect only that way. I had no issues with client connectivity and performance. My issue was the MESH would not reestablish after rebooting the UDM-Pro. I did that intentionally to see if the MESH would come back up. One of the remotes came back up but was flakey. In the end it required forgetting each remote, resetting each remote and then readopting each remote. I already had things set basically as you recommended. RSSI between remotes and the ROOT AP are all in the -58 top -62 range. Interference on 5Ghz is minimal to non existent. As stated, connectivity and speeds were very good. My only problem was the MESH not coming back up, something we cannot have since we can't have someone onsite to go through the tedious process of setting it back up again. With the exception of the UMD-Pro, I returned all the equipment and put our TP-Link Omada back in place. I want to give it another shot but will start with just the AC Mesh Pro and one AC Mesh. I do require a total of 3 AC Mesh so if the MESH is stable with the one, I will add another, and so on. Any ideas on why the MESH would fail like that?
Big thanks. Did not know the mesh used 5GHz and that the channels for the meshed devices had to be the same for mesh to work. I was trying to space the 5GHz similar to what you do with the 2.4ghz. Huge help !
What I actually once did and it worked pretty well in such a Meshed cenario was the following: So there was a "Master" Access Point which was wired in and one Access Point should mesh to it. It was really far away and only got a very weak signal but was able to connect and stay connected just fine until a device connected to it (also via 5 GHz). Then it got unstable. I ended up disabeling 5 GHz for my WiFi network on only that AP. With the older version of Unifi that was possible. You could disable the 5 GHz part of a Network on just one single AP. Now in the newer version you have to do it for all APs. But it's not really an issue because they only have 60 Mbit/s internet and it really isn't a high client density deployment. With the 5 GHz for only the Backhaul it works really well and they now get 50+ Mbit/s throught the meshed Access Point because seperate radios are used for takling to client and talking to uplink AP
That actually makes a ton of sense. You were probably running into hidden node problems.
I really love your videos. Thanks. 😊
As I understand it, mesh networking has two functions. The first is to give a backup wireless rout, in case a node goes down. The second (which is my favourite) is having the ability to share the same SSID, and then being able to pass a connection, on to the next access point, as you move around (much like a Cell Phone service).
I have a long house, and I was using two WAPs (with separate SSIDs), one at each end of the house. However, the problem with that setup was you could still see both Assess Points at the same time, so your device would never automatically move over to the stronger Assess Point when you went from one end of the house, to the other.
Now I’m running a Mesh Network, that’s no longer an issue. As I move around my house, my Wi-Fi signal seamlessly gets handed over to the next Access Point.
Unfortunately, the Mesh Network I currently have (which was supplied by my Service Provider) gets its mesh signal from a base unit and the Mesh satellite units don’t have the ability to be hard wired.
So, if I was to move over to a Unifi (or similar) Network, I could theoretically have all of my Mesh Access Points Hard wired, and this way I could still use the one SSID, while maintaining the best speeds that a wired connection can supply?
You don't need mesh to consolidate SSIDs. Unifi will do this with a wired backhaul also, but you could theoretically do this with access points from different manufacturers. You just have to give them the same SSID and the same authentication credentials. If the access points are all hard wired, then it's technically not mesh anymore.
@@smithophoto, I did try that quite some time ago, and it didn't end well. I'm not sure what was going wrong, but when I tried that, neither WAP seemed to work well. 😞
That's exactly what I'm trying to solve too ! Being able to move around and have my laptop or phone switch to the nearest AP seamlessly, without having to wait for it to lose the first AP entirely.
I thought about using exactly the same SSID and wifi config on all APs, but it doesn't work very well...maybe each of them need to be on separate channels too ?
I thought Mesh would help with it but it seems it's not the best way to handle this ^^
@@overtechnc3462 This is exactly what I need answered too.
@@overtechnc3462 so If you device is not "roaming" correctly from AP to AP, then you need to look at "WHY?" your device - cell phone laptop etc. will only try to lock onto a new AP if it's signal gets to weak. Which the devices are not that good at. SO, you decrease the power output from one AP or more. or set minimum RSSI levels in the AP to force the device to -- "go away" , therefore look for a closer stronger wifi signal.
What you are doing will work, setup the SSID's all the same with the same password. If these devices are connected to the same LAN then it will work. IF you use a TPLINK or Netgear or Unifi AP. etc. If one AP says "your signal is weak, kick it." then you will be forced to connect to a stronger wifi signal. if it's ALL unifi then this is easy in the controller.
Chris, I think you need a vacation to the beautiful Black Forest in Germany. I live 20 minutes from Switzerland and 30 minutes from France. I have a horse farm here so you could bring your kids and they could ride all day. You, well, I could keep you busy setting up my network so you don't get bored. My home is 15,000sq ft. , three stories with 80cm thick stone walls. A few hardwire ethernet cables. It is beautiful this time of year!
WHEW.... You BURIED THE LEAD by not telling us that "uplink" fixes would be covered in this video!
LMFAO
YOU are AWESOME! Thank you.
Please follow up with the new ONVIF camera options...
"Pretty please... with sugar on top, school us in new Unifi ONVIF camera options!" {in Winston Wolf voice} LOL
Wow. Great video! Been waiting for one like this.. thanks !!
this is why good consumer mesh has triband with a dedicated channel. why unifi doesn't do this is beyond me. The difference in performance is amazing.
money, per usual.
Because they're sold as hardwired access points the fact that they can mesh is just a secondary function, it'll be interesting to see if the Wi-Fi 6 enterprise line whether or not you'll be able to use the 6 gigahertz as a mesh
thought auto-transmit power just meant high all the time as well?
I haven't seen or heard that - do you have any links that confirm that 'Auto' = always high power?
@@CrosstalkSolutions It’s always been that way. On auto if you look at the AP settings you will see it’s transmit power is always at its max for its selected channel.
It usually starts that way, but I have seen units set to Auto reduce their power level in densely populated (APs within the same network) scenarios.
@@joevining2603 I don’t think that is true. The way UniFi APs work is that auto makes a decision on boot only (as channel works). I often see people forget different AP channels have different max DB; so they think one AP is at a different power than another when both on AUTO
@@chrisjames7489 I'll have to check, but I'm talking about a complex with about 30 APs, all the same model, all on auto, and only a few having lower than max power showing, but you could be right. I've never heard of a different power limit for any of the three main 2.4 GHz channels, though.
Great setting up an already messed up setup. Very nice house, hope you share with us the the WIFI remake.
Great video with very well put together information! I would just run pvc pipe at the edge of the property and paint/burry it to conceal the cables to feed each AP. Mesh is a last resort or if it isn’t mission critical IMHO. (Especially in a saturated Wi-Fi area)
Yea - that's basically the plan moving forward, but we have to decide if that's even going to be necessary now.
These days mesh works so well it's hard to justify the expense of digging and direct burial cable.
@@sonictech1000 you have to be kidding. Mesh is almost a joke compared to proper wired connectivity.
I have a reasonably large double story property on just 2 AP’s and using mesh and getting fantastic up/down speeds.. I find it’s a combination of lots of testing and not relying on the nice uniFi colourful mappings, some of that including the topology drawings are just marketing to sell you more gear than you might really need, because everyone goes into hyper mode on coverage and strength of signal. It’s a blend and trade offs of low .db no.s latency, actual up down speed testing, channel selection relative to other households, channel width.. selection… low TX retries.. not making the fateful assumption of just increasing power signal on the AP’s because it does not automatically translate into better speeds. In my office area I lose only 5mb of download relative to my external service cap. Over the rest of the house it depends on NICs and specific device hardware capabilities but I can say uniFi is nothing short of fantastic, just be careful with your eco system selection in the design phase. Too many variables can result in more complexity. I now have that corporate level speed and stability I always wanted for working remotely and built it all myself. I am not a tech these days… 😂 I just focus on block architecture and keeping it minimal and specific to needs.. ❤😂 A great video with emphasis on mapping your AP mesh traffic flow. ❤
as a HAM Radio Operator, I understand why the MESH device was given link priority, its Antennas are usually mounted vertically and may be a better signal to the ap at the rear of the property, vertical antennas often have a better ground plane effect and travels a longer distance - while MIMO antennas in a round configuration on a MIMO device is often using 2x2 and 3x3 and even 4x4 to waveform a beam-ish at an antenna, nothing beats the real deal. 1x1 that is using a full-length antenna is typically going to beat out a round AP that is aimed at a strong, shorter distance. - it has the benefits of using the area to reflect off trees, homes, and other objects and often catch less interference, a round AP is better at grabbing all the smaller signals around it at a shorter distance... their app does not show a REAL signal performance but a simulated one. If you want coverage on the same plane (same floor, for a house), vertical is typically better for distance. If you want coverage above and below the router, horizontal is better, which is why we mount the Round APs flat on a ceiling and not flat on a wall. (And the antennas on the connected devices, even if they’re internal, and you can’t see them, have to be parallel to the router antenna. If they’re at right angles, you lose most of the signal. At intermediate angles, you lose more or less signal.) sometimes when dealing with a large system it is good to have a mix of both
I would have used the MESH Device to backbone the House at the back of the property and not let small devices use it at a local level. And I would have spaced it at least 10 feet from the other AP
No doubt if you can CABLE it; do so! I've also used a couple PTP (bridged) solutions to create dedicated pathways for camera systems in the past. For now; most ONVIF compliant cameras are only 100MB. Love wireless products and systems...BUT they should always compliment a cabled solution. Thanks for your videos/channel as its very informative and helpful.
I'd like to hear more about why you chose 'auto' for all the power settings... With your manual selection of channels, thoughtful separation of AP's, and longer distances, why not select high power for at least the key AP's on 2.4Ghz? Do you trust the UI 'intelligence' to make the right choices for power any more than you (don't) trust it to make the right selection for channels? I never do...
Auto (unfortunately) means high on Ubiquiti gear
Thanks for all your videos, great info!
Hi Chris. One thing I noticed was you said the HD and mesh pro were powered by a US 60W. That switch is only Poe AF but the HD alone requires Poe AT. Add the mesh pro and that connection could end up flapping under load
Saw this too. That is the wrong switch to use.
Also, Chris needs to know that auto power level equals high power. Junk unifi labelling.
Sonos mesh uses a 1 or 6 or 11 channel, configure on sonos app. Do not use this in the unifi system.
2.4ghz should change to all low power, that is a very small place.
Thanks Chris, now I get mesh wifi.
This is actually incredibly useful, thank you!
Very good video, many thanks for the good understandable explanation.
Question: I have a detached garage that is 150 feet from my house, and a wired connection is not an option. In your property, my cable modem would be located roughly at the Patio AP, my garage would be the Guest AP, and then I would like another mess point near the front driveway. Can I plug a switch or a desktop computer directly into the wireless access point? ... Also, we have no cell service where I live, so Wi-Fi is a must.
Hi Chris, great video. Quick question: I have 2 storey house with wire points in 3 different rooms. 2 rooms on same floor and 1 room upstairs. Thinking to use 3 AP’s in mesh configuration and connect them wired from main switch, so wired connection for AP’s would be used as backhaul connection. Would would be your advice for this solution? Or I should use AP’s without mesh? Thank you
I also have this same question. All AP's are hardwired. Since they're hardwired they would be considered Backhaul. What benefits would their be or not be for setting them as Mesh, since they're all hardwired?
Nice vid Chris. Very informative!
have you uploaded the video to elimniate the mesh waiting for it have the same issue for. a cliernt all devices are hardwire and meshing is happening.
I’m confused as to why you wouldn’t set the Meshed AP’s to Auto for the channel and set the Priority to Patio. This way, they would all connect to the Patio AP when it's available. But, when the Patio AP is down (for an update or anything else), you wouldn’t take down the entire mesh network with it. When the Patio AP was down, all the mesh AP’s would move over to the Front House AP until the Patio AP was back up. What am I missing?
I set up my 8 port switch a couple years ago along with litebeams to my shop. I added a u6+ to the shop end. I only get signal from the house. when shop door is closed all signal is lost. Im worn out mentally working with this. my cloud has expired and cant acess settings anymore.
Great video, it's always good to see how other people do things. Personally I usually try to set all 2.4 APs to the same channel when possible. My reasoning is that since clients tend to roam to the strongest APs then interference with other APs (Or their clients) is likely minimal. The advantage is that this discourages neighbors from using that channel.
Is it possible to setup the new U7 outdoor AP as a mesh device? A customer of mine wants the U7 outdoor to essentially extend their home wifi into their backyard. Any ideas?
If all the unifi access points are wired, should I disable meshing on them, as I do not have any mesh access points?
Yea - no reason to have mesh features enabled if your system isn't using any mesh functionality.
Great video Chris. Much appreciated.
I would love to see a video on optimizing multiple hardwire Unifi AP at a residential setup. I have a UAP AC Pro, Lite and M and scratching my head on getting the best settings.
Crosstalk Solutions did an amazing job laying out a real life situation and has helped me understand some new concepts. So I was trying to find more information on this too. I just came across a fantastic video helping me understand how it would all work specifically for seamlessly transitioning a device from one AC to the next AC without virtually no interruption. ua-cam.com/video/gf4XuGK4N5Q/v-deo.html
Bit late i know but found this video after getting two Aps myself and trying to fathom out how to do this... couple of questions. 1.) I assume the AP's you meshed together all have the same SSID? 2.) Can Unifi AP's work without a hard wired connection as long as there is one hard wired into a UDM or Switch that been adopted? I already have 1 AP hard wired and about to get a second to serve downstairs/back of the house, so All i need to supply it with is power?
When you displayed the heat map the Wi-Fi 6 did not appear to be able to get to the chicken coop and the guest house. You mentioned that the mesh Network only broadcasts on the Wi-Fi 6 band. If the heat map does not show the Wi-Fi 6 mesh access points overlapping then how do they communicate?
Good job on the video , easy to understand.
Sigh perfectly good fence on the side of the property, would have been trivial to just wire the coop and guest house :)
Thanks for a great video Chris. I would like to ask, If one cables all ap's could one still use the same ssid to handle smooth handover?
@crosstalk solutions I have the same question: are all of the Access Points using the same SSID? That is: are the APs of the mesh network using the same SSID of the Front House wired AP? What happens to a client device that connects to the Patio AP and then moves to the left most part of the house: will it connect without user intervention to the Front House AP?
Could this be the only USG and HD installation?
Haha - I doubt it, but maybe.
Thank you for this video, I have learn a lot from it.
Hi Chris. As laid out "temporarily fixed", would you be able to hang a small switch to the AP in Guest House to provide connectivity to a few wired clients?
Great video, thanks. I have a quick question about the order for setting channels. I have 10 x U6 mesh with only 2 being able to be wired. It's a large resort, and I'm wondering. Do I need to set the Chanels on the furthest meshed AP's first? Im concerned, I'll lose connectivity if I work wired side outwards.
Thank you for the very informative video, please may you also do a video on the new early release unifi ap firmware - UAP Firmware 6.2.9 that improves wireless roaming
Just wondering ... Due to the long distance between Patio (Mesh Master) and Guest House and less coverage @ 5GHz the uplink might be weak and slow.
Maybe the experience score does not reflect this but a speed test does.
Would it make sense to have an alternative uplink:
@ Coop AP: enable “Downlink - allow other APs connect to this AP” and
@ Guest House AP: Priority 2 = Coop AP (or even swapped priorities) ?
Chris....sorry if this was asked below but did that help the Sonos issues and what is the maximum internet speed if you hardwired a computer direct to the router? The 30mb mesh speed test doesn't sound bad if the residence was only paying for a 100mb package from his cable provider.
Chris, thank you for the video. I recently setup a business with the UAP-nanoHDs. I have 5 in our open workspace areas and in the large conference rooms at the ends of the building I have the AP Beacon HDs. We have a 1Gb fiber network and we get amazing speeds, but the wifi after your video is still about 100mb average down. What can I do to speed up the wifi? I did tune them to what you said in the video and only meshed the beacons with the nearest AP.
So curious i see using ht20 and ht40 - with channel 1 and 136 no one is using, but the meshing your saying is for devices not on hardwire, all my devices are UAP-HD are hardwire so I should not have meshing on then - correct? on the new version it has (Night Channel Optimzation enabled by default) could you make a video and cover this
it helped me. Thanks for a great review
This was a huge help. ❤
Hey Chris, what did I do wrong meshing two U6 APs outdoors at a pool. Settings in primary AP are manual mesh, downlink enable, and uplink disable. Mesh AP has manual mesh, downlink disable, and uplink enable. Priority is set to 5G band. Channels for 2.4G at 20 Mhz are ch 1 & 6 since no meshing on this band. Both primary and mesh APs were set to same 5G channel. Speed delivered to mesh AP wirelessly is excellent at 200 Mbps, but mesh ap is only delivering 60M. I expected over 100M at close distances. What mistakes could I have made?
My new UAP-AC-M Service menu, dont have any commands where i can SWITCH OFF the MESH function from my hardwired UAP-AC-M . nothing like you showed in your video....
I have only discovered Chris’ videos recently. So, a naive question for anyone who knows the answer (not just Chris). Can I set up multiple APs hardwired to a central point but have them act as a mesh, i.e., use a single SSID and allow devices to connect to the strongest signal? If so, how is that configured in UniFi? If not, then a mesh system has a definite reason to exist if the objective is to be able to move around without having to select different SSIDs. Thanks.
What about minimum RSSI? If a client walks into the front door, connects to the HD, then goes out the pool, they could be still connected at a low signal strength to the HD. When I first installed unifi on campus this was a big problem.
I haven't found that to be much of an issue in smaller installs, but jumping from AP to AP also has a lot to do with the client device...sometimes there isn't much you can do. Definitely something to think about though!
Minimum RSSI settings can often cause premature and constant drops and reconnections. I avoid them unless I have a special situation. I prefer either letting the device make the choice or setting minimum data rates, instead.
hated RSSI, i have a deadzone and rssi would drop between the two AP. I just had different SSID for different areas.
Guest-50mbps wifi goes to all APs 2.4ghz. Personal 5GHZ network has separate SSIDs for just me for each zone.
Chris, do these only have one 5G band? Therefore, ch149 is shared for backhaul to the master mesh AP and clients. If these had two 5G bands, one could be dedicated to backhaul on a different channel. Do you think that would increase performance significantly? But, I still prefer the wired concept if you can run the cable.
If you wanted to provide free access within a 200 home village and were planning to scatter a dozen or so mesh access points, would it help each homeowner if they were to place a separate/their own access point beside their own home
Why not connect the Guest AP to the Coop AP?
Hi Cris, what is the best mesh setup for Apartments, like in 1 Floor multiple flats and 1 Flat having 4 rooms?
Chris, (or anyone who wants to answer), what do you think about a hardwired U6-Pro with a couple of U6-Mesh (provided that they're in stock) around the house (about 1400 sq ft and hardwiring is not possible). Looking for the best wireless (and wired connections through the mesh access points like the U6-Mesh spread around the house). Is it a little overkill for our house? If so, what do you guys suggest for a simple but effective wired and wireless setup? Thanx
Chris, did you ever find any technical documentation of UniFi mesh from UniFi? I found their "support" pages really lacking from that perspective. I know when I was doing the Netgear Orbi RBS solutions for a few homes I found that the mesh backhauls would use the DFS bands for backhaul and then the U-NII-1 and U-NII-3 for wireless devices. I was wondering if this is possible with UniFi?
Chris, thanks for the video. Here's a topic for you. I really want to get where I can deploy access points that serve 5 GHz channels only. That used to be easy, but that process has gotten convoluted in UniFi with Access Point groups. Is there an easy way to deploy 5 GHz only access points without going through the mess and smell of setting up a bunch of access point groups? Maybe I'm just missing the point, but I find the process very confusing. As a result, I've been over-covering on 2.4 GHz just to get good 5 GHz coverage. Suggestions welcome.
Great video, what about nightly optimization, where you just let the system spread the channel numbers. I’ve selected channel width, but the rest i leave to the system. I have two wired and a mesh AP out in the garage.
Great information. I'm assuming your revised setup for this client will be pTp bridge. Does the frequency the bridge uses affect 5g?
Why would you not place the patio in front of building so they would all be in line of site? Im just learning and still don't understand this stuff. thank you
Love this video. Thank you!
Question: Are there any issues including a SONOS, AppleTV as part of the IoT WLAN when it comes to App control? I understand my iPhone can be on "House WLAN" and if prioritized within the firewall it can see devices on the IoT WLAN...but do devices on the IoT WLAN need to communicate back to my iPhone or App controller?
Do you have a guide to import a Google map with design center,?
Thanks for your video Chris. If I keep my Mesh Pro an auto channel (on the 5Ghz band) will it work or do I have to set a specific channel ?
Do these Mesh devices have distinct 5GHz band for connection between them i.e. is it so called tri-band system?
Trying to use the Netgear NIGHTHAWK, and it is inconsistent to a point where the product says the signal is sound, but, Speedtest shows multiple failures.
I am having a major issue where I have two wired Access Points, but for some reason they are trying to mesh together wirelessly and the one will not connect wired even though it is. I have no idea how to solve this, it is driving me CRAZY!
Recently did a Unifi 6 Lite setup for a house and all the APs are hardwired. Do I need to do any additional uplink / downlink settings in order to optimise it?
Very interesting. Any advice on a system to have Wi-Fi at a dock that is about 500’ from my house. There is about 40’ of elevation and line of sight to the house. Looking to have Wi-Fi at the dock and also add security camera at the dock. Also there 37348s no power on the dock. Any help would be great..