How do you guys like Unifi AP?

tangoseal

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I am asking about the regular 2.4ghz version. I do not want to pay $200.00 for all the tri band triple MIMO stuff. Just need a regular wireless N high quality AP.

What do you guys think of the regular AP model? They are going for about $79.00 on Amazon and prices vary in other areas.
 
I've been looking at these more and more as well. I'm thinking about picking a couple up to play with. Most people seem to rave about them.
 
They have a good reputation around here. I am actually looking to try them out for the first time, too, but they are OOS everywhere. I've got a customer that's getting a little antsy because they've been waiting for a month now.
 
Like in what ways?

- Price
- Features
- Ease of Deployment
- Controller software works on OS X, Windows, and Linux
- Can have multiple sites all use one controller over Layer 3
- Look of them
- Incredible Range

If it's made by Ubiquiti, you know that it's good gear.
 
We've been using them at clients over the past year....they've been strong performers. Solid, good range, good stability.
 
streakwave has them, just the single units, 3 packs are OOS. I just ordered 6 =)
 
I bought one from Amazon and got it quickly (technically it's some vendor). I bought it to replace a router I had since I use pfsense now. Not the fastest N ever, but this one actually hits decent N speeds and I run two ssids b/c of sharing with a neighbor so the vlan capability and multiple ssids is fantastic.
 
They don't do ap roaming well, not a replacement for a situation where you woul normally use an access point controller. Devices like cisco's wlc controllers hand off the session Tate between radios as you roam around a large area.
 
They don't do ap roaming well, not a replacement for a situation where you woul normally use an access point controller. Devices like cisco's wlc controllers hand off the session Tate between radios as you roam around a large area.

They roam the way they were designed to roam. Seamless roaming/handoff isn't cheap. However when I roam on these, it's only a 1-2 ping drop when I test with an active ping. So it's not even noticeable, these are not for VoIP; that's noticeable.
 
Count me as another who likes the Unifi. The range is fantastic, even in the all metal buildings I have deployed them. My only complaint is the proprietary PoE design. You have to buy an adapter to hook into 802.3af compliant switches.
 
Count me as another who likes the Unifi. The range is fantastic, even in the all metal buildings I have deployed them. My only complaint is the proprietary PoE design. You have to buy an adapter to hook into 802.3af compliant switches.

^This, I forgot about this. But those adapters are easy to tuck into your cable organizers unseen. So it's not the end of the world I guess. What's ugly is trying to use the damn PoE injectors. Just pay for the 802.3af adapters and be done with it. :)
 
Wireless N rarely hits 10 MB/s so 100 meg ports are fine. If you want dual gigabit, the Unifi pro is out with dual radios.

I have Wireless N and can easily hit 200Mbps. If you are not getting 10Mbps something is very wrong. You should expect to hit 100Mbps easily for the shorter range clients with good signal.
 
I have Wireless N and can easily hit 200Mbps. If you are not getting 10Mbps something is very wrong. You should expect to hit 100Mbps easily for the shorter range clients with good signal.

Don't confuse Mb and MB, 200Mbps = 25MB/s~

So 10MB/s would be about 80Mbps
 
^This, I forgot about this. But those adapters are easy to tuck into your cable organizers unseen. So it's not the end of the world I guess. What's ugly is trying to use the damn PoE injectors. Just pay for the 802.3af adapters and be done with it. :)

It's not easy to tuck them in if you have 100's of access points.


I think these unifi's are great for small business but they really can't compare on a larger scale.
 
It's not easy to tuck them in if you have 100's of access points.


I think these unifi's are great for small business but they really can't compare on a larger scale.

Agreed, and to be honest. I would rather pay the extra $20 per AP vs. putting an 802.3af adapter on them.

The alternative for enterprise is to put them in the wall or ceiling right before the AP connection. That way they are not stuck in the patch panel room. Granted it would still be much nicer if I could just plug the damn things in. :(
 
Testing a three pack of them at work and so far so good. Doing a load test next week to see how they handle 30-60 people on them at once.
 
Even if you negotiate at 300mbps on your wireless connection:

A) Wireless is full of retransmits, error checking, lost frames, etc etc, so you will never see any where near 300mbps of data

B) Wireless is half duplex, while your 100mbps ethernet connection is full duplex.

In conclusion: 100mbps port for 802.11n is more than enough.

Now, when you throw in dual radios, both serving up 300mbps, or in our case with our aruba AP's, 450mbps, then a gigabit port makes sense.

But a single 100mbps wired port is enough for a single 300mbps radio.
 
Agreed, and to be honest. I would rather pay the extra $20 per AP vs. putting an 802.3af adapter on them.

The alternative for enterprise is to put them in the wall or ceiling right before the AP connection. That way they are not stuck in the patch panel room. Granted it would still be much nicer if I could just plug the damn things in. :(

Yes but then you have to run power to the AP's location. That cost is considerably more than just using an injector or a real access point with REAL PoE.
 
Yes but then you have to run power to the AP's location. That cost is considerably more than just using an injector or a real access point with REAL PoE.

I'm guessing I did not word that properly:

Here's the unit that takes the power from the PoE switch and down converts it in line.
http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=I8023AF-ID&eq=&Tp=

So no other power sources or cables, think of it working like a cable coupler works.

PoE Switch > Cable > 802.3af Adapter > Cable > Access Point.
 
Yes but then you have to run power to the AP's location. That cost is considerably more than just using an injector or a real access point with REAL PoE.

With how small the adapter is and for how cheap, why could they not just integrate it into the AP?

At least the new Pro model will use normal POE like practically every other POE device.
 
We have deployed it in house, and for a few customers - They work great. As pointed out before they don't do fast roaming, so the time for switching to one ap to another is purely a device thing, some are fast, some are slower than others.
 
Not using standard PoE would be a deal breaker for me. Why would they use a non-standard PoE when the standard has been out for some time now and many manufacturers support it.
 
Ah, ok. That makes sense, I did misunderstand you previously.

I still wished they put the cost of this adapter into the damn AP's. But it's still more elegant than a bunch of injectors in your switch room. At least these can be tucked away in a patch panel organizer, in a wall, drop ceiling, etc. So it's not terrible, just not as nice as it could (or should) be.
 
What kind of transfer speeds do you guys see with the Unifi? I'm wondering if it would be fast enough to stream blu-rays over the wireless. When is the Pro version available and at what price?
 
What kind of transfer speeds do you guys see with the Unifi? I'm wondering if it would be fast enough to stream blu-rays over the wireless. When is the Pro version available and at what price?

I see around 7.5-8 MB/s on my Lenovo with a Wireless N card connected at 150.
 
Is that when you are using it alone or while serving other clients?

This is at home. There's a couple phones and my wife's laptop on there, but they are doing nothing serious. Maybe watching YouTube.
 
I have recently deployed this in my home after being fed up with consumer solutions that are clearly not designed to serve more than 4-6 high bandwidth clients.

My setup:
- ~2500 sq. ft - 1 AP per floor, so 3 APs
-Controller SW on my Windows Server 2003 box. Works fine.
-Always at least 10 simultaneous clients. As many as 20-25 during peak times (typically late afternoon and evening)

My Observations
-As others have said, AP roaming is bizarre. It will sometimes auto disconnect some clients and put them on an AP with lower signal strength. I find that using "load balancing" is best in keeping clients connected to the strongest AP. The feature basically has an AP dump clients with low signal strength to another AP that will provide higher signal strength if it exceeds its client limit

-Streaming works well with moderately sized files but if you have 15+ gb rips, prepare for choppiness. Services such as Netflix HD work just fine

-Coverage is the key to having a fast reliable connection. The closer you are to an AP, the better signal you can get out of it as well as the more throughput. So far my setup has done a decent job of keeping all clients at 70+%

-Having multiple SSIDs and the ability to sandbox VLANs is cool. You can even charge the people who connect to your guest network for using your internet. :D

So far I'd say that my setup performs very well and blows my E3000 out of the water in terms of throughput. (Although in fairness, you've got 3 APs vs. 1) If you have a few heavy users and lots of light users, the UniFi APs will perform well. Just remember that placement is key and if you have less than 70% signal, do not expect to stream any big files. An alternative could be to buy the new AP they are releasing for your high bandwidth needs.

Can't really comment on use for corporate networks. The fact that they use a non-standard form of POE is BS. I don't know why they would do that if they want IT admins to take a serious look at the system. I will say that it is MUCH cheaper than some of the Cisco setups I was looking at.
 
I Recently put two of these in at work. We had a Cisco Wireless G WAP that the previous admin had put in. It was not enough for our Building Size so i ordered and installed 3 of the unifi AP's and now everyone has perfect signal all the time :D
 
We're using Unifi AP's now in 2 sites. One site has 3 APs and 30 employees, while another site has 13 APs and very high density access (a few classrooms, each with 30 iPads.) So far we've been very impressed with the Unifis. The cost, effective load balancing (compared to no load balacing) and lack of recurring support fees are major wins.

The power thing is an annoyance. Availability is another issue. Hard to find a place that isn't sold out and then will also take PO's rather than just direct credit card sales. The 100mbit port speed and 2.4ghz only are other things that aren't too great.

Overall, very happy with them. They're pretty light on features, but they have the ones that count the most. Will probably be buying a lot more..
 
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