Ubiquiti Replacement
Discussion
Have been running 3 x UAP and 1 x UATP-LR for 8 years and they have been fab. Unfortunately they are now end of life and as 2.4ghz devices I should
really look at an upgrade. Currently I have 3 in the house and 1 in the garage, and I think I could drop to 2 in the house plus 1 garage.
At the moment the Wifi6 stuff is expensive and on back order but if I go like for like with 3 x UAC Lite I'm worried they might be EOL soon.
Are there alternatives I should look at Zyzel, Netgear, TPLink etc? TPLink EAp 225/245 for example? I'm after PoE stuff, ideally wall/ceiling mounted.
This is for a home setup so please don't recommend Ruckus or similar expensive stuff.
really look at an upgrade. Currently I have 3 in the house and 1 in the garage, and I think I could drop to 2 in the house plus 1 garage.
At the moment the Wifi6 stuff is expensive and on back order but if I go like for like with 3 x UAC Lite I'm worried they might be EOL soon.
Are there alternatives I should look at Zyzel, Netgear, TPLink etc? TPLink EAp 225/245 for example? I'm after PoE stuff, ideally wall/ceiling mounted.
This is for a home setup so please don't recommend Ruckus or similar expensive stuff.
What's making you upgrade? Is there anything wrong with 2.4GHz? I have TP-Link Deco M5 units, and have turned off the 5GHz. Few people need the close-range speed of 5GHz wifi and many IOT devices don't work with it anyway. The Deco mesh units can still use 5GHz to mesh amongst themselves, though all units have ethernet backhaul anyway.
NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
biggiles said:
What's making you upgrade? Is there anything wrong with 2.4GHz? I have TP-Link Deco M5 units, and have turned off the 5GHz. Few people need the close-range speed of 5GHz wifi and many IOT devices don't work with it anyway. The Deco mesh units can still use 5GHz to mesh amongst themselves, though all units have ethernet backhaul anyway.
NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
Upgrade reason - Shiny tech of course NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
I'm running POE from a switch, as the house is network cabled I don't need mesh devices in the traditional sense, that was my point. Mine are wall mounted, but I wanted to avoid the bookshelf type approach.
Bikerjon said:
There's nothing wrong with installing AC-Lites and 3 units is hardly a big investment! Keep them 4 or 5 years then replace with Wi-Fi 6 units, by which time the bugs will be ironed out and you may own a few client devices that can exploit the extra features that Wi-Fi 6 provides.
Yup, probably the most sensible approach. I'll probably leave it for a few months and see if the AC devices come down even more. My Draytek router is old too and the last firmware was 3 years ago. Have my sights set on that as well!biggiles said:
What's making you upgrade? Is there anything wrong with 2.4GHz? I have TP-Link Deco M5 units, and have turned off the 5GHz. Few people need the close-range speed of 5GHz wifi and many IOT devices don't work with it anyway. The Deco mesh units can still use 5GHz to mesh amongst themselves, though all units have ethernet backhaul anyway.
NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
2.4G is prone to interference and there are very few channels to chose from so is busy environments performance can be very poor.NB you can get POE-to-9/12v adapters for a tenner, which would tuck into a ceiling hole, so you should be able to use almost any mesh/AP device within reason, not just POE models.
I live in the centre of a town and the 2.4G wifi airspace is extremely noisy and performance is very poor. The solution is to force all clients that are 5G capable to use 5G, performance and connection stability is vastly better throughout the house (three bedroom semi) and I'm only using one AP, previously I was doing the same but with an ASUS router. No buffering on Netflix/YouTube and no connection drops, ever.
It's not just about the bandwidth, 5G has better airtime sharing and fairness so when there are a lot of wireless clients active the performance with 5G is far superior to a congested 2.4G network. Another thing to consider is that for many applications data throughput is not an issue but poor latency and jitter are, both are things that 5G wifi address.
I had the same debate as you, but rather than wait for the Wifi 6 devices to become available/debugged/stable, I've just upgraded my two original UAPs to UAP-AC-LITEs. They're about £68 on Amazon this week. I figure these will be supported for several years yet.
I'm very impressed with the new APs, the performance and signal strength is actually much better as I've configured a couple of 5Ghz bands that no-one nearby is using. Wondering why I didn't do it ages ago actually !
xeny said:
why not run the existing stuff until the supply situation with the Unifi 6 stuff improves?
That's what I know a couple of sites are doing, it isn't as if it will suddenly stop working.
I'm doing this too...That's what I know a couple of sites are doing, it isn't as if it will suddenly stop working.
I think the Wifi6 AP Lites are going to be sub-£100. LRs are largely unnecessary.
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