new ubiquiti ac ap lite unreliable... buggy firmware...

T

tonyyy

Limp Gawd
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Nov 10, 2009
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new ubiquiti ac ap lite unreliable... buggy firmware...

I brought a few of these to test before I install them for a client and weeks of testing I'm finding these AP's to be buggy and unreliable.

using the latest hotfix 4.7.6 controller/firmware updates and I still see issues with multiple devices are unable to reconnect until I hard power cycle the AP once a week.

so is my next option for a AP wifi network going to be apple airport extreme? I need atleast 3 AP's to cover their house/office.

Any other brand/model suggestions?

they would like to have the latest 802.11a/c

thanks
 
Drop down to the previous model Unifis, they are fantastic.

Most people do not need AC....
 
You're going to be cursed by some members now ;-)
Good to know however!
 
lol dont get me wrong I love the ubiquiti AP 1st gen's but I'm constantly finding issues with these new ac ap lites.

client wants the latest otherwise I would have purchased the 1st gen AP's for him.
 
tonyyy said:
lol dont get me wrong I love the ubiquiti AP 1st gen's but I'm constantly finding issues with these new ac ap lites.

client wants the latest otherwise I would have purchased the 1st gen AP's for him.
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The 1st gen AC APs suck as well :p Though presumably you meant the N APs.
 
yes old uni AP 1st gen.

I stayed far away from the AP N squared housing models.
 
Depending how much you want to hack, perhaps Mediatek's offerings might be worth checking out?
Linksys RE6500 and OpenWRT?
 
are you required to run the ver. 4 unifi manager with the new AC models?

id go back to 3 if given the option
 
I've had decent luck with OpenMesh's MR1750. And they are cloud managed as well. And to be honest, as an early adopter of the flaky 1st gen Ubiquiti AC unit, a buggy 2nd gen doesn't really surprise me. Personally I don't see much point in the Ubiquiti dual band stuff until it's finally stable and they implement band steering.
 
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Nate7311 said:
I've had decent luck with OpenMesh's MR1750. And they are cloud managed as well. And to be honest, as an early adopter of the flaky 1st gen Ubiquiti AC unit, a buggy 2nd gen doesn't really surprise me. Personally I don't see much point in the Ubiquiti dual band stuff until it's finally stable and they implement band steering.
Click to expand...

Allow me to be stupid, please - and yes I tried googling but I didn't really get an answer I liked, can you explain what band steering is, how it works and why it's a good thing? Pretty please?
 
The concept of band steering will push 5Ghz capable client devices to connect to the 5Ghz radio if the signal is good enough. Especially for .11ac devices, this can/will result in higher speed connection rates and reduced load on the 2.4Ghz band. Without that automated process, connection to the higher bandwidth 5Ghz band becomes a completely manual process. Especially for denser WiFi deployments, this reduces the load/pollution in the much more crowded 2.4Ghz Band.

Long winded explanation
 
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Nate7311 said:
I've had decent luck with OpenMesh's MR1750. And they are cloud managed as well. And to be honest, as an early adopter of the flaky 1st gen Ubiquiti AC unit, a buggy 2nd gen doesn't really surprise me. Personally I don't see much point in the Ubiquiti dual band stuff until it's finally stable and they implement band steering.
Click to expand...

I also agree with the OpenMesh suggestion. I use them at a few places, including the ac1750 and I have had great luck. I have 4 ap's at home and love them. I run the beta software at home and just noticed the most recent beta supports band steering.

Something else I like about openmesh is the seamless roaming, it just works. All my ap's are hard wired and seamless roaming still works well.

I have started running the Ac models indoors and the dual band AN models outdoors or in spaces that don't require Ac thruput.
 
Thanks for posting this. Guess I will just get the older 2.4ghz n only ap. I don't need top throughput but stable consistent performance
 
i'm getting on fine with my square Unifi AC AP. Performance isn't what i'd expect from AC but i've not had to power cycle once.
 
  • UniFi AP = oldest model, is rock solid, kinda outdated
  • UniFi LR AP = second oldest model, is rock solid, exchanges radiation in the perpendicular plane for increased radiation in the parallel plane,extremely misused by newbies, rock solid, kinda outdated
  • UniFi Pro AC = third oldest model, poor 5Ghz coverage, inferior 2.4Ghz coverage compared to the UniFi AP, with recent firmware updates is stable.
  • UniFi AP AC = First Gen AC model, [The SQUARE model], (2 hardware releases for this one), the first release ran VERY WARM, plagued with firmware issues, majority of firmware issues have been resolved for the second released version. This model does nothing extremely well,but does have better 5Ghz range than UniFi Pro, Completely obsoleted by newer model.

New APs: Only work well with the 4.x series controller and newest (Beta) firmware, are not feature complete at this time.


  • UniFi AP AC LITE = 2x2 802.11ac draft 2, outperforms UniFI AP AC, in almost all practical scenarios except when standing within 10' of the AP. Appears somewhat stable when using the newest UniFI controller and firmware.
  • UniFi AC LR = 2x2 802.11ac draft 2, highest range AP in the UniFi lineup. exchanges radiation in the perpendicular plane for increased radiation in the parallel plane, Appears somewhat stable when using the newest UniFI controller and firmware.
  • UniFi AC Pro = 3x3 802.11ac draft 2, New flagship AC AP. Appears somewhat stable when using the newest UniFI controller and firmware.
 
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It always blows my mind that people recommend ubiquiti wifi products, those that do usually only have experience with older N models, which were apparently amazing. Everything AC that ubiquiti has touched just turns to shit, it's really quite remarkable just how bad they are at AC access points.

I really hope they manage to pull it together some day but for the time being i've given up on the brand entirely. I replaced them all with aruba IAP's and the difference is truly shocking, I honestly didn't know just how bad I had it with the ubiquiti ac units. But with the HP buyout of aruba I can only guess my relationship won't last beyond this generation of hardware and ubiquiti will be the only ones left in my budget to crawl back to...
 
I upgraded from a last gen LR to an AC LR with fantastic results. Maybe it's the the Lite model?
 
bleomycin said:
It always blows my mind that people recommend ubiquiti wifi products, those that do usually only have experience with older N models, which were apparently amazing. Everything AC that ubiquiti has touched just turns to shit, it's really quite remarkable just how bad they are at AC access points.

I really hope they manage to pull it together some day but for the time being i've given up on the brand entirely. I replaced them all with aruba IAP's and the difference is truly shocking, I honestly didn't know just how bad I had it with the ubiquiti ac units. But with the HP buyout of aruba I can only guess my relationship won't last beyond this generation of hardware and ubiquiti will be the only ones left in my budget to crawl back to...
Click to expand...

Without examples of what your expectations were, details on what you implemented, firmware, software etc.... I can not comment.

That said anyone who deploys the new AC models as an enterprise deployment is rolling the dice.

Home use.... pretty awesome
SMB... usually reliable
Enterprise.... not ready


We recently deployed 10 aruba APs at $650 each. We attempted to use some of the more advanced features and they crapped out on us. We didn't have the budget for the independent Hardware Controller, so we are using the build in self control virtual management system. Even with level 4 tech support they couldn t get everything running smoothly. We disabled band steering and some of the other AP auto load balancing features and it works fairly well now. Avg load 28 users per AP. I may updated in another 18 months and try out those features again.

If I were to do this from scratch I would have probably gone with Meriki or maybe Ruckus.
 
bleomycin said:
It always blows my mind that people recommend ubiquiti wifi products, those that do usually only have experience with older N models, which were apparently amazing. Everything AC that ubiquiti has touched just turns to shit, it's really quite remarkable just how bad they are at AC access points.

I really hope they manage to pull it together some day but for the time being i've given up on the brand entirely. I replaced them all with aruba IAP's and the difference is truly shocking, I honestly didn't know just how bad I had it with the ubiquiti ac units. But with the HP buyout of aruba I can only guess my relationship won't last beyond this generation of hardware and ubiquiti will be the only ones left in my budget to crawl back to...
Click to expand...

AC is a speed test vanity metric in most environments. I recommend Ubiquiti and use their original N models a lot as they are fast, stable and very easy to deploy/manage.

I dont understand people that recommend and put things like AC in environments that will never use it.

For example, i have a client with 30+ devices in their home and a 50/25 internet connection. The uniquiti N aps have fantastic coverage, have yet to need a restart in 2yrs, and max their 50/25 anywhere in the house. They had terrible luck woth a host of consumer APs and router combos in the past, including gear that was more expensive and had fancier specs.
 
I have both the lite and lr APs and don't have issues. Before the turns into a this brand is better this set-up is better post. If the OG poster needs help then let's try to head that direction.
 
Mackintire said:
Without examples of what your expectations were, details on what you implemented, firmware, software etc.... I can not comment.

That said anyone who deploys the new AC models as an enterprise deployment is rolling the dice.

Home use.... pretty awesome
SMB... usually reliable
Enterprise.... not ready


We recently deployed 10 aruba APs at $650 each. We attempted to use some of the more advanced features and they crapped out on us. We didn't have the budget for the independent Hardware Controller, so we are using the build in self control virtual management system. Even with level 4 tech support they couldn t get everything running smoothly. We disabled band steering and some of the other AP auto load balancing features and it works fairly well now. Avg load 28 users per AP. I may updated in another 18 months and try out those features again.

If I were to do this from scratch I would have probably gone with Meriki or maybe Ruckus.
Click to expand...

The aruba system is top notch....with a controller. The instant stuff is not really for enterprise IMO unless you are coupling it with their AirWave system.

We have 400+ AP's on our Aruba setup and it's been fantastic, and their outdoor mesh products work well also.

I'm still perplexed by the unifi love on this forum. I've never considered them an enterprise product and would never use them in a business setting. Maybe I'm in the minority...
 
Eickst said:
The aruba system is top notch....with a controller. The instant stuff is not really for enterprise IMO unless you are coupling it with their AirWave system.

We have 400+ AP's on our Aruba setup and it's been fantastic, and their outdoor mesh products work well also.

I'm still perplexed by the unifi love on this forum. I've never considered them an enterprise product and would never use them in a business setting. Maybe I'm in the minority...
Click to expand...

A lot of us dont use them in an enterprise setting. But they fill a market in between that it does not make sense to put in $$$$ APs and the only other option would be consumer crap.

Jnifi gets you some of the enterprise benefits (controller, easy deploy, denser client support, etc) at a price point that makes it available for more uses.

That is the whole mission of ubiquiti. Like anything, it has its pros and cons and place.

It is stupid to say Ubiquiti is the answer for a 400 AP enterprise just as it is stupid to suggest $10k+ controllers w/1k+ APs for a 5 device deployment for a home or SMB.

I work with Cisco and Aruba systems at work.
 
Eickst said:
I'm still perplexed by the unifi love on this forum. I've never considered them an enterprise product and would never use them in a business setting. Maybe I'm in the minority...
Click to expand...

Depends on the use. For a 400+ AP deployment. Nope.

For a personal home or small business (doctors office, public wifi at a bar, etc.) where you are deploying 5 or less APs, they work great.

Their market isn't massive enterprises. It's small business and "pro-sumers" looking for something better than the $39 Dlink special at Best Buy.
 
have a couple of these lite units deployed now and so far no issues and customer is extremely happy with the speeds.... one of these guys that got 200mbps cable and wanted to see his speedtest on his macbook wirelessly :rolleyes:
 
I had the previous Ubiquiti AC APs, and found it to be a buggy POS. The signal on 5ghz was worse than most consumer devices, no band steering and even 2.4Ghz had problems. I installed AC Pros instead which are N-Only and no more coverage issues. I think I'd be able to get away with a single AP for my 2800sqft house.
 
Ubiquiti does have some large customers.

They have a couple of universities with 200+ APs.

They are on the hook to wire a small stadium for FedEx with an expected load of 8000 users.
 
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