Ubiquiti Home Network

[JasonK]

Hi guys,

I currently have an asus AC68U, and my fibre should be completed in about 2 months. The moment uniterm has some stock I want to buy 2 unifi AP LR and one unifi AC lite, put the two long ranges at either ends of the house and the lite in between.

Should I connect the AP's to the Asus 68U or should I donate the modem to my father and buy either a toughtswitch/edge router/ edge switch? Im not sure which one of those I should get?

 

[Muttley]

Hi,

Good choice of gear.. Ive installed dozen's of these are they are absolutely brilliant.

So keep the Asus as it has gigabit Ethernet unless you want to buy yourself a Mikrotik router like this. I'm a complete Mikrotik n00b and managed to set it up with no issues.
I stand to be corrected but the last time I checked, Ubiquiti don't do modems (you won't be able to put username/password for ISP etc into and edgerouter or universal security gateway.

If you opt to keep the Asus, just make sure that all devices are on different channels - well do this anyway but don't forget to change the channel on the Asus.

I have my UniFi controller hosted in the cloud, it was a bit of a mission to setup but it's truly worth it. Once this is setup, it literally takes 3 mins to provision a new UniFi unit to a site using their mobile app. Plus I don't need to pay for a Cloud Key.
You can check out my mates YouTube vid here to set this up.

shout if you get stuck.

 

[Sinbad]

How big is your house?? I have an ap lite serving the whole property... Though I would consider getting one more but more as redundancy than as cover

 

[irBosOtter]

Maybe start off with only two unifi AC lite units. I found adding an AC lite unit to a building with the "non AC" LR AP's the devices rarely connects to the AC lite on 5Ghz as the signal from the other LR units are stronger on 2.4Ghz so they never use the speed increase AC gives...
But your house might be different so up to you I guess

 

[D4N_CPT]

If you opt to keep the Asus, just make sure that all devices are on different channels - well do this anyway but don't forget to change the channel on the Asus.

I would suggest to rather disable the Asus Router's WiFi completely, and use it purely as a router/switch.

And then of course go for an all AC UniFi setup, also keep in mind that the LR in the LR units is only applicable to the 2.4GHz Radios, not the 5GHz.

 

[Muttley]

Maybe start off with only two unifi AC lite units. I found adding an AC lite unit to a building with the "non AC" LR AP's the devices rarely connects to the AC lite on 5Ghz as the signal from the other LR units are stronger on 2.4Ghz so they never use the speed increase AC gives...
But your house might be different so up to you I guess

Have you tried turning down the power on the LR units?

 

[Blu82]

How about the leveraging the new AIMesh capability they added to the RT-AC68U and then just add one more instead of two more devices?

AiMesh

 

[Slootvreter]

Maybe start off with only two unifi AC lite units. I found adding an AC lite unit to a building with the "non AC" LR AP's the devices rarely connects to the AC lite on 5Ghz as the signal from the other LR units are stronger on 2.4Ghz so they never use the speed increase AC gives...
But your house might be different so up to you I guess

Something I have always had a hard time with, is handover. You might walk to a far end of the house, and the device would still be connected to the furthest AP.

 

[irBosOtter]

Have you tried turning down the power on the LR units?

Will try that when the company opens up, only installed the AC unit in December just before they closed. Will change it so long and go there next week to test

 

[Sinbad]

Something I have always had a hard time with, is handover. You might walk to a far end of the house, and the device would still be connected to the furthest AP.

Funny thing with the AC lite - my tenants in the cottage only get 1 or two bars of signal but they still get 30mbps off the internet.

 

[Slootvreter]

Funny thing with the AC lite - my tenants in the cottage only get 1 or two bars of signal but they still get 30mbps off the internet.

You don't need full bars for a good connection. It might affect latency though.

 

[EasyUp Web Hosting]

Something I have always had a hard time with, is handover. You might walk to a far end of the house, and the device would still be connected to the furthest AP.

Same here. I've come to live with it.

 

[Slootvreter]

Same here. I've come to live with it.

So give a buddy advice, install two AP's, and he asks why is my speed test 5Mbps when I am right under the AP /facepalm

 

[Muttley]

Something I have always had a hard time with, is handover. You might walk to a far end of the house, and the device would still be connected to the furthest AP.

As mentioned before, I would suggest turning down the power on the AP's to low, this should force the device to hop onto the other AP instead of hanging on

 

[SauRoNZA]

How about the leveraging the new AIMesh capability they added to the RT-AC68U and then just add one more instead of two more devices?

AiMesh

That seems like a great option if you already have the Asus hardware.

Failing that I would probably have looked at the Ubiquiti Amplifi setup instead which then also replaces the Router factor.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Something I have always had a hard time with, is handover. You might walk to a far end of the house, and the device would still be connected to the furthest AP.

Then your AP's are putting out too much power and overlapping.

More power is not always the right answer as most people seem to think. Balance is where it's at.

 

[Muttley]

That seems like a great option if you already have the Asus hardware.

Failing that I would probably have looked at the Ubiquiti Amplifi setup instead which then also replaces the Router factor.

IMO Amplifi is too expensive and according to Ubiquiti trainers locally, it's designed for countries where homes are build of wood, not brick and mortar like here...

 

[SauRoNZA]

IMO Amplifi is too expensive and according to Ubiquiti trainers locally, it's designed for countries where homes are build of wood, not brick and mortar like here...

Ag there's always a better solution for any particular installation.

Sometimes mounting in ceiling or wiring isn't the simplest option or there is a concrete slab overhead.

It is pricey but at the same time not outrageously different in price from 3 x AP's.

 

[Slootvreter]

As mentioned before, I would suggest turning down the power on the AP's to low, this should force the device to hop onto the other AP instead of hanging on

No that will cause dead spots somewhere else. What needs to happen is the AP has to disconnect any device exceeding the lowest allowed signal strength, forcing the device to connect to the closest one, which is naturally the stronger one. Enterasys devices has this functionality, still looking for it on MikroTik and Ubiquiti.

 

[Bryn]

Surprised to read about people having issues with UniFi handover. I have two LR APs on either end of the house and an Outdoor+ to cover the outbuildings and garden. Handover has never been an issue, although maybe the distance between the APs helps. The outkirts of their coverage only just touch one another, and the outdoor AP's WiFi flies clean over the main house and isn't detectable from most locations within.