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I'm now a few weeks in to a two site deployment of nine total (6+3) UniFi LR units. My only complaint so far other than a personal dislike of Java (used for the controller) is the non-standard PoE. 802.3af has been around for some time and most of my sites already have it to support IP phones, I'd have paid a few extra bucks a unit to have it. The Pro units have it, but all of them should. Devices roam as well as they can be expected to (I usually drop 2-6 pings on both Mac and Windows 8 laptops, Android devices seem to want to hang on a lot longer and require a full signal loss to switch most of the time). Range is excellent, a single one delivered a signal strong enough to stream HD video two buildings down in my apartment complex. Apparently some had bricking issues with a recent firmware update, but I did not have any trouble and all devices came back up painlessly. I'm buying a Pro for my apartment soon, 5GHz is something I haven't had yet and really want as 2.4 gets worse around here. wolrah fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Nov 15, 2012 |
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Nov 15, 2012 05:15
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Fly posted:You want the Ubiquiti Instant 802.3af Adapter, don't you? Not really. If I'm going to have to deal with a bonus box per device in my network closet anyways the dumb power injectors that come with the things are free. The main benefit of proper PoE to me other than the lack of extra "wire warts" is being able to have PoE wired everywhere and not worry about someone accidentally plugging a computer in to a port with dumb injectors. I like it when everything's just a port number and what that port actually does is defined by switch configuration and what's plugged in to it. For now though all my currently installed units are mounted to drop ceilings so there's little chance of an accident.
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Nov 19, 2012 16:17
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Keep in mind that if you use the captive portal (for a guest WiFi or the like) that part runs on the controller, so in that configuration the users will be hitting the controller intermittently. Bandwidth needs still aren't huge in that case, but it's worth thinking about.
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Nov 24, 2012 06:38
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IT Guy posted:Why does the hidden SSID network drop signal like that? It does this on all 3 APs as you can see. It's not actually dropping though because if you're connected to it, it stays up just fine. What is causing the signal monitor to think these are dropping though? I assume it has something to do with the suppressed SSID? Hidden SSID networks can only be seen when they're in use. Networks that broadcast SSID do so fairly regularly, providing a reasonably constant signal measurement even if they're not actively in use.
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Dec 23, 2012 06:09
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Bluecobra posted:I guess I am too old fashioned because I don't like devices that have to report back to the "cloud" to work. Those AP's look nice, but I just want a dumb AP that has a built in controller that I can just put a static IP on it, configure it, then plug in. I also don't want to be stuck paying for maintenance I don't need for an eternity. If one goes bad, I will just buy another one. I wish the Ubiquiti would just make a UniFi AP that has a built-in controller because those would be perfect. I think we may just end up getting Cisco Aironet 1142's. FYI, the UniFis don't have to report in anywhere to work. The controller is just where the UI lives as well as the captive portal if in use. If you're not using the captive portal, you might not notice if the controller was to go down. Basically it going down is more of a minor nuisance than a problem in most cases. At least up until 2.3.x that was a good thing if using Windows as the server, because it never seemed to get the service install right. It would be nice if there was AirCam-like ability to operate standalone with a minimal featureset (maybe just a basic dumb AP mode), but its really not too big of a deal. Also what are you talking about with maintenance? You run your own controller server, Ubiquiti doesn't charge you to use theirs. It's a Java server so it'll run on literally anything, people comfortably run it on Raspberry Pis. Too bad about the Pro ACs, I had been holding off on getting a Pro for my home with the idea of just going all in on AC, but I guess I'll just get the Pro and supplement with a SOHO unit whenever I get more than a phone that actually supports AC. wolrah fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Sep 22, 2013 |
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Sep 22, 2013 17:31
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Xenomorph posted:The one on the left is the "Long Range" AP. It has *no where* near that much coverage. Its actual range is closer to what the one on the right shows. It's not that it's necessarily inaccurate as to the area the UAP-LRs can get signal out to, the problem with any sort of "long range" WAP is that the client device has to get signal back as well. I've been deploying UAPs in a bunch of nursing homes recently to allow them to start doing electronic records via tablets. The first two sites we did 6-8 UAP-LRs throughout the building and got excellent performance in testing. Fast forward a few months and the users are complaining constantly of the WiFi "freezing up" and failing regularly at one of the sites as well as occasionally at the other. We determined that this was caused by the first site being a bit of an RF nightmare since it's built like a prison combined with weak radios in tablets at the fringes of reception. The UniFi APs would keep retrying to send data to the fringe client and basically get in a loop when the client was too far away for it's ACKs to be seen until they timed out a minute or so later, gave up, and worked again until the next packet destined for that machine came through. Another problem that made the above worse is that Android seems to be very reluctant to switch APs, so sometimes a device would be trying to connect to an AP in another wing because it could barely see that signal rather than properly switching to the nearest one. At the most recent site we doubled the density and used plain old UAPs. They've been operating without problems for nearly a month now, so we plan to go back through the previous sites and basically fill in the gaps. If you have no other options and preferably LoS (say a large outdoor area) a high power access point can work, but more lower power units are almost always the better answer. Here's a shot from the controller at one of the old sites with LR units:  and here's the latest site with non-LR units:  Obviously it's never going to be more than a rough approximation, as the tool has no idea about what walls are where, but I see it as a reasonably accurate estimate of signal strength from the AP. That just doesn't necessarily mean anything for actual usability.
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Nov 6, 2013 20:03
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stevewm posted:Personally I found the controller software to be too much hassle to get and keep working properly on Windows.. Trying to run a java app as a windows service is just asking for trouble. Updates would break it, JAVA updates would break it, and sometimes it would just randomly stop working. I have since moved it to a small Ubuntu 12.04 VM and haven't had a single issue. It just works. It doesn't break with updates, it doesn't randomly stop working, it natively runs as a service on Linux, etc.. My experience as well. I've put probably a solid man-week in to trying to get UniFi's controller to run reliably on Windows, but Java being a piece of poo poo plus Ubiquiti doing a few things weird just makes that not worth the trouble. Anything worth using these days has virtualization support, so as far as I'm concerned the correct answer for UniFi on Windows is to virtualize a minimal instance of your favorite Linux or BSD and go from there. Making a VM start on boot is a lot easier than putting up with UniFi's poo poo. I usually roll a business card install of Debian, add Ubiquiti's repo, and install.
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Apr 18, 2014 17:44
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Someone managed to scam Ubiquiti for over $46 million: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1511737/000157104915006288/t1501817_8k.htm That's a lot of money, anyone more in-tune with the financial world able to comment on how much this is likely to affect them as a company?
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Aug 7, 2015 14:32
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Speaking of UniFi, has anyone had a chance to mess with the new AC models? How are they quality-wise? How's the range compare to an original UAP? I'm thinking about grabbing one of those for home to replace my current UAP, leaning towards the Lite since I have wiring pretty much anywhere I'd ever need performance, it's purely for convenience.
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Dec 18, 2015 01:08
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What kind of clients are you using? Android devices in particular are really reluctant to go looking for another access point, they'll happily hold on to scraps of a signal from half way across the building even though you're standing 10 feet from another one. I've seen this result in entire access points basically going useless while they waste all their air time retransmitting signals to a distant tablet which is barely maintaining a connection. (on that note never use "high power" or "long range" APs unless it's a line-of-sight situation like outdoor where adding more density is just not an option, the AP may be more powerful but if the client can't respond it's all for nought). Ubiquiti added a feature a while back to cause APs to kick low signal clients, forcing them to go looking again and likely find a closer one. I'd imagine most other good WiFi solutions offer something similar. Implementing that cut down my WiFi complaints significantly.
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May 6, 2016 00:59
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I upgraded my home controller last night. I'm not doing anything particularly special with it, but what features are you interested in?
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Jun 3, 2016 01:36
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Calidus posted:Buying unifi gear is one of the best choices I have ever made. This stuff is amazing. I rolled out 3 switches and some APs this week. The unifi AP Edu are super cool. How do you like the switches? I've been eyeing them for customers where I'm installing a lot of their WiFi because of the non-standard PoE. Now that the AP EDU has beta SIP support I'm getting one in for testing, if I can get my system paging properly through it those will be easy sales to a lot of people.
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Aug 15, 2016 20:19
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