Wi-Fi sends signals out in a 3d notion, not 2d. I wish that these programs/sites that use layouts would be in 3d instead of 2d! it would show more correct signal propagation... especially for people that have multiple levels in their homes/buildings.
Agree - this video is great for the basics, but its hard to understand the radiation patterns of an AP mounted on a basement ceiling, or 2nd floor wall.
I agree that would be nice but right now all you have to do is import a flat image and generate the plan scale. To do what you want, unless you had your house in a raw/universal 3D format (which maybe 0.01% of people do), you'd have to design the house in whatever 3D modeler the program included. Sure, you could make a simple version of your house, but the issue is on the development side (the developers would end up spending 95% of their time designing a 3D modeler and maybe 5% of their time on the actual network optimizer tool, lol).
Not only that. You should also be able to change the orientation of the AP as in most houses they are against the wall rather then the ceiling. That has a big impact on the heat map as well. In my situation with 3 floors and floor heating on the ground and 1st floor... I've chosen to position the AP under the top of the stairs going from ground floor to 1st but I placed it against the wall so the transmission pattern is spreading to all floors rather then just the ground floor when I would have attached it to the ceiling (or underside of the stair). Because of this I have strong/good signal strength throughout my house with a single AP Lite. At one of my neighbors I've still a good signal while at my other neighbors I'm on the shadow side of the AP. For fun I've tested it as well with the AP being in a horizontal position and then at both my neighbors the signal was less. To both neighbors their are 2x 10cm concrete walls.
@@Cypeq it's a bit more complicated than that. Say you have a 3-storey house. On the second floor, the AP may well overlap with the ones on floor 1, and, just the same, the AP on floor 3 might overlap with the one on the second floor. It will be even more complicated if you have multiple aps per floor. Channel juggling will become a large problem, if you want to set them manually to reduce interference.
Missed concepts: How to handle two floor homes? How to handle AP orientation? How to debug devices hanging on to the wrong AP (AP switching). Also in the case for your example where there was only one offending (competitor) AP, maybe a bit of checking power at different corners of home to plan your channels around the general direction they are broadcasting from. Hate for your channel one to be nearest thier channel one of you can easily test and plan to avoid the condition in just two minutes.
I just wanted to thank you for this video! I have a lot of neighbors with 2.4GHz networks so mine was almost unusable. I changed the channel width to 20MHz and not only the 2.4GHz network became usable, but the 5GHz also gained a bit more coverage (don't ask my why). I'll definitely apply this setting to my future network setups.
Nice vid Chris! Have you played with the RF Environment tool ? Click on an AP, then go to Insights, RF Environment, You will see an expanded view of all the WiFi channels and their utilisation/noise. Clicking Scan Channels will then take the selected AP off the air (you can do multiple scans on different APs simultaneously),for about 5 to 10 mins, to scan the WiFi channel spectrum, and then report back on the utilisation, and interference on each channel, with nice graphical representation. I've found it quite useful when selecting which channel to set my APs to. This may also make a good video too !
So as I was tweaking I found Enable Minimum RSSI which you do not cover in this video. As this is not a one size fits all setting you should discuss this setting. Basically it kicks a device off of an AP when the signal gets low to force it to find a stronger AP. In a multi AP setup this could help prevent devices from getting stuck on the old AP...
Pretty good video overall. The one thing you may want to revisit is Tx Power settings. It all starts there actually and it is determined primarily by the weakest client devices you will need to support in the network and the gain of the antennas in the AP. Once you have that, then you can go ahead and figure out number of required APs and proper placement. This means that more often than not you'll be either entering custom Tx power values or using one of the pre-defined ones, but never "Auto". Also it would be good to keep in mind that when it comes to UniFi there's nothing "auto" in the Auto Tx power setting. Most Wi-Fi problems related to roaming, sticky clients, and the like usually can be traced back to inadequate Tx Power settings. Hope this helps.
I was going to leave a reply about this as well before I read your reply. I have really bad experience with "Auto" setting on Tx Power settings in general, as leaving it on "Auto" will leave too many clients clinging onto an AP because the signal quality is "too good" on the neighboring AP. However, from professional experience this can seldom be completely fixed with TX Power settings alone. You'll need to play around with "Min. RSSI" in order to get "the perfect roaming" (if that exists...)
@@Cyndariel Proper Tx power settings and the right AP placement should be enough most of the time, but I agree in that it will not always be perfect. Min RSSI is problematic in my opinion. Look for "Wireless LAN Roaming FAQ" in the UI Community. I explained a bit more there.
@@Cyndariel I'm confused with what you are saying with a neighboring signal being too good. Probably what I deal with when I go down to zero bars but my device won't switch to the AP right above me. Is that what you meant? And how do you fix that? Another issue I have is where my IP calls glitch out while standing 10 feet from an AP, 30 feet from another through a wall, and 60 feet from another through a couple walls. I'm not sure if my device is roaming between them or what. I can't figure out that issue. Any suggestions for those scenarios?
@@JacksonCampbell the best way to refer to what he’s talking about is signal saturation. If the signals coming in very loud (saturated )from the AP, the device won’t connect to it. Sort of like going to a concert and it’s so loud you cover your ears and it doesn’t sound good or makes you want to leave. I hope that makes sense.
I’d like to see some more advanced discussion on the minimum RSSI options. I’ve had issues with devices hoping back and forth between APs causing connectivity issues.
You have too much power going to your APs. Lower the TX power and disable the lower tier connection speeds from your bands. This will stop your device from having too many nice connection options. Unless you use a mesh wireless then this is expected. But your device wont do the hopping, the system will move your device without it knowing.
Hey Chris, I live in a small rural town and I set all my 5ghz ap's to DFS channels and have had no problems. The nearest airport is 15 miles north. I also use Unifi and when I run the wifi insights I get a lot of 2.4ghz channel interference but very little 5ghz interference. LIke you said, the 5ghz doesn't propogate as well as the 2.4ghz.
This is still a valid video 2 years on, but with one change. Use HE80 on 5GHz channels. HE40 will only get you around maximum 570mbps in good signal areas. That's the same as 2GHz with 40 channel width. Obviously you will need to check where the channels overlap with other channels at the higher bandwidth. 5GHz doesn't travel well through walls, so you are not really being a "channel hog" by using 80MHz and taking advantage of near gbps speed (good signal areas). I wouldn't be using 160MHz as that will pretty well kill your own choice of channels to use for very little advantage as far as bandwidth goes. If you only have 2 access points, then maybe in the US you can get away with 160MHz where you have 2 available 160MHz channels, but in other countries you may not have that. In Australia we only have one 160MHz channel available in the 5GHz band due to spectrum restrictions here.
I've been a UniFi owner for long and have set up multiple networks already in the past. One thing that I still cannot explain with UniFi is that when I do exactly as explained in this video, so I examine the spectrum and pick channels based on theoretical knowledge, the WiFi quality is always unreliable and unstable. From the spectrum analyzer all looks optimal, but in reality it isn't. Until I saw many professional UniFi installers on RUclips vastly mention to go with auto channel and transmit power selection. At first I still didn't want to believe this would be smart and went with auto channel and manual power. Still a mess. Then I budged and went with auto for both. Have never had such awesome and stable WiFi ever before. It's perfect. Weirdly enough from the spectrum analyzer it looks a mess. It places multiple access points controlled by the same UniFi controller in the same site overlapping each other. From theory what I see totally makes no sense but in practice it works better than ever before. Never could explain this to myself, let alone anyone else. Has been working flawless for two years already like this.
Quick note on the BROADCOM_GUEST_0_3 ssid: I had this same SSID appear seemingly randomly. However, I have found that this is a Comcast business modem issue that persists when a silent error occurs after turning off the modems built in wifi radios. You should try factory resetting your modem and it will go away. This only happens with Comcast business modems in my experience. I’m not sure why and even Comcast doesn’t have any answers but I found that factory resetting solved the issue! Hope this helps!
Good video! A shame though that you didn’t talk about band steering, minimum RSI and such. Question: how do you take into account neighboring ISP routers that have auto channel selection? For this reason we use the WiFi ‘AI’ to do 3 AM scans and adjustments.
@@Mr2greys it depends on who the other person is if they are approachable I offer to give them a free half hour of my time with the “I noticed that your WiFi could be underperforming as it is broadcasting on the same frequency as your neighbours “ show them my card and offer to tweak their settings for free. Many do not even bother to change the default passwords to something easier to remember. People love free stuff they usually accept.
@@stephenlipton525 Do share why UI doesn't recommend using the AI feature? We've heard lots of folks say not to use it, but WHY should we not use it? If the option is there why would UI tell us not to use? Thanks much!
Can someone please tell me why my UniFi AP Lite are only showing channels 1,2,3 on 2.4GHz and channels 36,40,44 on 5GHz? Many thanks in advance for any info and advice you can share with me. BTW, this is a great channel.
I would never use auto for power. auto in Unifi used to mean Max. Has that changed? I use low for 2.4 and medium for 5. I also thought you would discuss RSSI etc?
One thing I would add is minimum RSSI! I have found this to be extremely useful, especially in Apple environments as they are sticky and will hang on to an out-of-range AP like it's the last internet connection on earth.
Q #2, you didn't use WifiMAN in your optimization but though i'm not nearly at the same skill level as you I tried walking around the house with it on and found it to be quite useful.
Excellent tutorial, I will look into those WIFI adjustments, I’ve been having problem setting up my second AP. I’m having poor performance from. Your videos are always very informative.
Covers well all the basics. For complex installations (like 6 to >100 AP, multiple levels construction,....) you could do a video about Power Output (in fact 'Auto' = max) / RSSI / Interference reducing (not clear from Unifi what it does). Also interesting is the changes by placing the AP vertically or horizontally (radiation diagram are not a 360 sphere) - even sometimes horizontally 'upside down'. Also if your customer has a really fast internet (fiber optic >500 Mb/s) you must use 80 Mhz channels in 5 Ghz, otherwise you're pretty limiting bandwith. In your exemple I would personnaly add a 4th interior AP to have better 5G coverage and at least 1 outside (or 2 or 3 depending on the outside zone of your property) - I like to have >-65 dBm everywhere, I'm not at all satisfied with some -75 dBm. I mostly have customers with 600 Mb/s or 1000 Mb/s and I try that they can have >200 Mb/s anywhere. 1Another factor is that in Europe 90% of inside walls are brick / concrete / block and almost never wood / placo / .... so much more attenuation between rooms. And today all windows / sliding outside doors are with double or triple layers with a metallic coating between layers - you open terrasse door and you have a good signal outside, you close it and signal disappear (at least 20 dBm below). Thank you for the great work!
@@Blackfeet Well, I'm not in London, not even in UK. Living mostly between Ibiza (yuppie!) and Brussels (Beurk!).... Inside walls are usually minimum a 'grey concrete block' of 20 cm thick, sometimes filled with cement (and sometimes iron poles as well). Old typical houses in Ibiza have walls of 60 to 100 cm thick (yes, up to 1 meter!) and there absolutely nothing pass, you need an AP in every single room
This Very good Video for WIFI design Question: If we already set the Channel without interference with the all of our AP and our neighbors AP. but in view month letter there are new AP form our neighbor that use the same Channel with us, in this case do we need to change our AP Channel again. What is the advantage of the Auto Channel. is this feature will change our AP channel automatically when our AP sensing interference channel ? Next question when the channel is change automatically. Do client (PC. notebook) that already connected to the AP will have lost connection and then reconnect with new Channel ?
What about different floors? I have 1 in my basement, 1 outdoors in the eve of my garage 2nd floor and 1 in the office inside right in front of a window. I'm trying to reach inside and my yard entire yard.
You missed the *testing* phase. For example, many houses have a lot of forced air ducts, which interfere like crazy, and you aren't always completely sure exactly where they are. You may need to move an AP to avoid having ducts shadow your signal.
I love it…… I just new to this brand and I am losing my mind to optimize it… I will try your advice, I have in a small hotel about 40 Access points, I should go through each one? Or there is a way to group them!
Excellent video. I learned a lot. As a note, it's important to have your access points on the correct bandwith for your devices (smartphones and laptops etc) as many devices ONLY work with a 20 Mhz channel and won't connect on a 40 Mhz channel at all. I use a 40 Mhz channel for a wifi bridge between two buildings for example where no client connections are required.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been trying to figure this out for a school that I work at with over 70 AP's and having issues with coverage where clients don't hand-off to a closer AP as expected. I'll give this a go and hope for the best.
I've always had that issue with Unifi, and it drives me crazy. I can be in a totally differnt building standing under an AP, and my devices choose to keep a zero bar connection.
First question ... floors, I'd be keen on knowing how much interference a floor (in US and/or UK) provides versus a wall. I guess the answer to most questions is "it depends" but i'm just trying to get a sense for how to best cover a two story house in the US and a three story house in the UK.
Yes I agree, not easy to demonstrate, ideally you’d setup a system in a 2 or 3 story “display home” which would allow to demonstrate this and other variables.
It is definitely not easy to demonstrate. Personally I have seen where cheap Home Depot wood flooring (IOW Chinese manufacturer) where they have aluminium in the shellac causes significant interference
Good info on the video. One thing to mention with Unifi is to disable Wireless Meshing when directly wired to a switch. Had to figure that out the hard way because my U6-LR kept trying to search for a wireless mesh connection even when hardwired.
Thank you for this video. Watching it now as I have been trying to resolve wifi performance issues. Made changes as shown in the video. Very well explained and helpful.
The best videos on Unify Systems. Great and clear explanation. I would be interested on some comments on ceiling mounting versus wall mounting. Is there any difference?
Beamforming technology (e.g. Ruckus wireless) - this is the answer to all your wifi needs. You don't need many access points, much power, sensitivity or channel exclusivity if you use a directional adaptive radio.
I have a lengthy two-story brick home. My Wireless Router was setup in the back of the house and the signal was a bit patchy when you got to the front of the house. To fix this, I initially set up a second WAP (wired) in the front of the house. However, the issue I had, was the mobile devices could still see both access points. So, after walking in the front door, the mobile device would logon to the closest and strongest WAP (the one at the front of the house), but then wouldn’t move over to the second access point when you went to the back of the house, even if the signal was much stronger. Someone had suggested using the same SSID and Password for multiple WAPs, which I tried. However, that didn’t seem to work too well. What’s your thoughts on a setup like this? So, in a situation like this, would it all be down to your TX power? If so, how weak does the signal need to get, for a mobile device to drop one WAP and reconnect to another? In addition, would there be a dead zone between the two WAPs? I ended up fixing this issue with a Mesh Network, which seems to work quite well. However, you were advising not to use a Mesh Network, unless it was really needed, due to some of the throughput of the Mesh Network being used to wirelessly connect up to other WAPs. Could we have a wired Mesh Network, and then use the Mesh technology only for the user’s Wi-Fi? Hopefully, this could then allow the WAPs to hand off users (similar to a Mobile Cell Network) when there was a stronger/better signal available. Or am I still not understanding how a Mesh Network works?
From an enterprise RF engineer (me), here are the wireless rules. 1. Trim off all lower connection speeds from your list of available connection speeds. like 1mbps, 2mbps, 5 and so on. Two, lower your TX power to the point you create a hole. Then fill that hole with another AP. Third, do the rest of what this video says in terms of channel planning. 1,6,11 only for 2.4 and only use the DFS channels if you are farther than 250 miles from an airport or weather station. 20mhz is fine for 2.4 and 40/80 is good for 5ghz. And if you have no legacy devices that need 2.4, then disable it all together. Thats basically it.
Is 80/120 ever better than 40? What about an environment where the only signals you're dealing with our your multiple APs? Does the lower bandwidth help connections roam instead of keeping a weaker signal?
DFS channels aren't reserved for radar... Things like radar have priority. So your AP can use the frequency but if it noticed a radar transmitting on that frequency it has to stop (transmitting on that freq). The AP listens passively on a channel before it starts transmitting which makes DFS channels a little flakey as the AP might be listening to see if a channel is empty before it starts operating there.
I live a few miles from a major airport, so that's something I may have to worry about. It would be nice if the Insights or Statistics could identify things such as radar. If it has to detect them anyway, why not report it?
@@James_Knott I haven’t checked for it in the Unifi logs but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it logged on other platforms. If you have a WiFi network using 2+ bands your clients should roam silently/seamlessly. The config that really drove me nuts was when I just had a network on a single DFS band and it would take DFS related cigarette breaks and just go dark eg reboot and have to wait minutes for wifi
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh My understanding is the reason those channels shouldn't be used is to protect radar, not Wifi users. I live right under a flight path for Toronto's Pearson airport and between 5G Wifi and C band 5g cell, I wouldn't want to knock a plane out of the sky. It might hit me! 😉 However, if I knew what channels would interfere with the radar, I could avoid them.
@@James_Knott Your AP might look at using DFS channels (ch. 52-144) according to your channel selection but it won't transmit on that channel if it hears radar using it. I live near multiple airports and ship ports and just leave channel selection to "Auto".
I have been watching your RUclips channel for years about unifi and it's been a great source of information. I do have a question though as it differs from what others say but many suggest not using auto for power, so I am curious as to why you do.
What makes no sense to me is that Unifi knows all about the AP's. It also knows about all the neighbors SSID's and channels. Why Unifi CAN'T figure out how to manage the channels on each of the AP's it controls to auto assign a suitable channel that is not being used on it's own network. Unifi will routinely assign the SAME channel to two AP's it controls when set to auto mode.
Each time an ap is restarted it scans to pick the best channel. In a large deployment if there is a major power outage then there is a chance that all AP’s come up on the same channel. Initial deployment it’s not a problem as you add anAP it looks around and sees what channel is best as you install. But if they are all coming on at once then they all see approximately the same environment.
Excellent, simple and straight to the point! What about if I have Zigbee and/or Z-Wave ? Since they both use 2.4GHz I guess I would have to use the same methodology to separate WiFi AP(s)/Zigbee/Zwave from each other … ? Any general recommendations for such case?
Almost 2 years with the UDM Pro, with the worst WiFi experience I ever had! And here you go with Chris, coming to save my life, since I just moved in to my very first new build house, planing to have two AP’s. THANK YOU SO MUCH CHRIS!!!! I will definitely use you’re affiliate link to buy my switch, my second AP, my NVR and all the camera’s I need, as a thank you for the info you provide!!!
Unless I am incorrect, each device can have a different name since client devices do not connect to “the AP name” they connect to a SSID. Niw, the SSIDs should be the same if you want to roam from AP to AP. The only situation that I could think of where you would use different SSIDs if you want to limit who uses which AP or if you wanted to step different WiFi network groups. However, there are different ways to handle that with UniFi.
The biggest problem I have is devices not handing off - the lock on and refuse to switch between my 3 WAPS. Need more RSSI and other tips - this was too basic.
Chris do you ever turn off all but one access point when checking the environment for interference? The interference in the garage may not be the same as the interference in the living room, I guess
Advanced settings configuration would be good topic, but also I see many have examples of a single floor layout. How about for homes that are multi-level? I agree about common obstacles like plumbing and hvac and other electrical. But again seems a lot of videos go on the simple single level setup. Just my thought. But otherwise good content!
Great video, but I have what will hopefully be a quick question. You mentioned in your example that all 3 APs are hard wired yet at the end of the video, I noticed that the "enable meshing" setting is turned on. Shouldn't this be turned off because everything is hard wired? Thxs!
Yes, I would recommend turning it off. I just started using UniFi and I didn’t know why meshing was turned on for a wired AP’s, so I ignored the setting thinking it was useless. One of my AP’s got bricked trying to run an RF scan and I had to do a manual reboot to fix it. When it came back online instead of using the wired connection, it decided to link (mesh) to the other AP for some reason. Even thought it was getting POE from the wire it was ignoring. Remembering I saw the mesh setting earlier, I disabled mesh and rebooted. It then sat stagnant for like 5 minutes, so I rebooted again and it then came back online using the wired connection. Save yourself the headache, turn off mesh if you’re using an Ethernet wire.
Good video, thanks. I made some adjustments to my setup. I have 4 AP-Pros covering a 2800 sq ft house. I'm thinking of going with WiFi 6. Which AP's are you now recommending?
You could use the design feature on your own imported floorplan and play around with the 3 different U6 APs in different locations, much like Chris explained here. I'd start with the U6-Pro and if that seems overkill, de how the U6-LR performs.
Would love to see an instruction video about Geofencing from UniFi. It just keeps failing on me all the time and I can't get it working properly. Thanks in advance :-)
I live in a rural area with several users on Ch. 6 at 20 MHz and two on 1 at 40 MHz. I use two AP Lites in my home now and wonder if I should change to 11 just to keep me separate. Not an issue but wondering. Nobody has any traffic in the 5 GHz area. Very good info for a novice tinkerer. ;)
When I am using channels 1, 6 and 11 for my 3 APs, then there should never be interference between them, no matter how high the transmit power or how near they are to each other, right?
So where do I get the WIFI Insights as my UI menu only shows the current devices and nothing about wifi signals. Another UI fail where they removed a helpful tool because "they" determined a security risk or no users are smart enough to use it? I use the most current updates provided by UI so its has to be there or removed. Only view is by device nothing showing the graph in your example and I do have a USG a Cloud key (v1) and 2 UI access points. So enough of a UI network that it should work
Great tutorial on using Insights on the UDM SE. I had not really looked at that prior and now makes perfect sense. Will re-calibrate all my wifi now and quit this auto channel hoping!
So I noticed that - much like yours - my neighbors are all parked on channels 1, 6, and 11. Does that mean that I would want to avoid those channels and go in between them, or does it not matter as long as I’m not overlapping with MY OWN access points?
Any in between channel will overlap with those so I try to avoid that if possible. It really depends on what equipment is popular in your area. In areas where the ISP hands out equipment that automatically picks the least busy channels I try to set all of my own APs to the channel with the weakest interference (1, 6 ,or 11) with the intention of encouraging the neighbors to stay off that channel.
You never really want to use channels other than 1, 6, and 11. The reason is these 3 do not overlap with each other at all. If you pick a channel in the middle of those say 3 you would then be overlapping and getting interference from both channel 1 and channel 6 so your best bet is to try and avoid the nosiest one but mainly not over lap your own.
Hi Chris, I've been following your series for setting up the udm pro. It has helped me a lot; thank you and excellent work! Quick question, I'm setting up APs around the house, would it be possible to name the wireless network with the same SSID and password of the existing wireless network these APs are replacing? The idea (if this is possible) is to avoid the trouble of reconnecting all my smart devices to a new wireless network (i.e. smart switches, alexa, door bells, smart hub, etc.) and tricking them into believing the wireless network is the same or in other words, nothing has changed. Will appreciate your comments!
15:00 isn’t it better to let UDR to auto-select channels via nightly band optimization it does automatically? I fear this tweaking will never end as one would constantly need to monitor the interference on manually set channels. Manual ‘hard-coded’ settings cant be the best option here.
I have two access points walls mounted as the ceiling is too high to get to. Works alright but had to turn RSI limit to about -70 so devices transition to the correct access point
Great Video + the knowledge you give in mesh video let me understand my mistakes i've done on my site & my custommers sites. So many thants for that One more issue i'd like to undersand. I plan to buy mower robot as ambrogio, what needs to hve wifi in the garden to create map and do its job. Unlees i saw your video i was thinking the best is ONE 2,4ghz cannel on whole garden to provide one network to the robot, but now i have a question if the robot will understand he is still in the same wifi network, when 3 access points i need in my garden are set up on different channels? probably yes but please describe it why he will understand :) i'd like also to understand ths :) BR
What about in 2 or 3 story house? Would it be okay to have an AP in the basement then another one in the main living room (on top of the basement AP)? Or can I just use the AP that it is sitting in the basement?
I don't understand why the heatmaps won't allow the ap to be set at different power settings, it seems to me that it's one of the main things, even more than wall materials, that affects signal/range.
Hi Chris. We have an Access system between our church and the minister's house were the router is situated. We are trying to install a card reader paystation. Although the paystation can log on to the Ubiquity nano, it cannot access the internet. If we take the paystation near the router, bypassing the nano system, the paystation which, uses an Andriod based tablet, logs onto the internet. My question: Is there a timeout function on the nano setup which is not giving the Google Andriod time to log onto the internet. Thanks for all your informative videos on the Ubiquity products they have been helpful.
Any suggestions as it relates to roaming throughout the house? Would you turn fast roaming on or off? And what about the transmit power overlapping too much with another nearby access point? Doesn't having the transmit power too high cause the device to hold on to the previous access point too long before hopping over to the next access point even if your channels are properly separated? Also, what about RSI?
Roaming: It is all about using sensible Tx power settings and proper AP placement. Fast Roaming (FT) on or off: Search for "Wireless LAN Roaming FAQ" in the Ubiquiti Forums Transmit Power: Yes, you are correct. Too high of a transmit power will cause the issues you pointed out and more. Don't use "Auto". Instead go with very conservative power levels based on the client devices you have.
Great video. Concepts simply and clearly explained. I can’t fault anything you said, Your videos really helped me get my Ubiquiti wireless admin certification. Thank you Chris!
Thanks for the video. I've been using the setting "Nightly Channel Optimization" thinking it was doing the work of picking the best channels to use. Do you not recommend using that setting?
Great video. I'm a few weeks away before I start purchasing my Unifi bundle. Quick question...? Once you have the access points setup and installed. How do you set up them so you don't have to join a new wifi every time you travel around the house closer and further to access points? Thanks!
Please remake this video explaining the UPDATED Radios section, with full explanation of the Coverage tab! There is lack of labeling/discussion/docs/support to know what the details are showing. Why devices are showing up on multiple APs when a single is selected what the time frame references when the map spiratically updates and devices come and go. The fine details that can help use this as a troubleshoot step for Wi-Fi performance….
Logical, but two things. 1st do you monitor your WIFI neigbors for new upcoming APs? Otherwise maybe some new AP is using the same channels you use. 2nd Why is Auto such a bad choice? He monitors and changes channels automatically. And he knows his APs, the channels and how far they are away from each other.
Hello, Crosstalk Solutions, thank you for the demo, very good idea in terms of setting up wired APs on a flat area, I understand that this is a simple way to explain and see the benefits of placing the APs across the rooms, etc, but would you make an example of how to place three or more devices in a 5 story building for example, instead of horizontally example as that is the only ones I see in RUclips I haven't found an example in which the location is a building with different floors. I look forward to the next video and thanks again.
When delving in to the insights option for surrounding Wi-Fi, the problem is that most ISP routers and Wi-Fi configs are set to Auto everything blasting maximum power on auto channels. Very few people know how to configure good Wi-Fi and many think that bigger is better i.e. more power is good Wi-Fi. In my Office I have 112 yes 112 Wi-Fi devices in the immediate neighbourhood. Printers broadcasting for direct print, even cars parked outside are now broadcasting Wi-Fi. BMW seem to be the worst culprit.
Chris, nice video, but you didn't mention the channel scanning tool on the access points. I've always used this to select channels. Is that a waste? I like the Neighboring Access Points tool in the new version of UniFi, but I'm not sure whether one of these tools is more accurate than the other. Also, I really would like to deploy more 5gHz access points, but I can't figure out an easy way to turn off the 2.4 gHz radios. So, I end up causing a big mess 2.4 gHz while still having coverage issues at 5gHz. Suggestions? Thanks for posting content like this.
Brad, you can adjust the power on the 2.4GHz band from automatic to low to eliminate interference between you APs. Also if you really want to turn off the 2.4GHz signal, you can go to Settings--> WLANS-->WLANS Groups and switch from default to off.
@@mkam730 I think that's the way I used to do it back before this latest big upgrade to the UniFi controller software. Since then, I've not been able to find these settings. What little I've read makes me think that I need to setup special SSID names, apportion them to 2.4 and 5 gHz, create access point groups with specific SSIDs, then assign access points to groups. That sounds like a big ole PITA for a new installation, and I don't see how it's viable for a new installation. Maybe I'm just confused? Just looking for a better way.
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
I absolutely adore that even though neighbouring WiFi names are blurred on the list, they show up as soon as you hover over the graph.
Wi-Fi sends signals out in a 3d notion, not 2d. I wish that these programs/sites that use layouts would be in 3d instead of 2d! it would show more correct signal propagation... especially for people that have multiple levels in their homes/buildings.
Ubiquity is a US company and in the US they have not yet mastered the art of building multi-storey houses. This is why they only offer 2D.
Agree - this video is great for the basics, but its hard to understand the radiation patterns of an AP mounted on a basement ceiling, or 2nd floor wall.
I agree that would be nice but right now all you have to do is import a flat image and generate the plan scale. To do what you want, unless you had your house in a raw/universal 3D format (which maybe 0.01% of people do), you'd have to design the house in whatever 3D modeler the program included. Sure, you could make a simple version of your house, but the issue is on the development side (the developers would end up spending 95% of their time designing a 3D modeler and maybe 5% of their time on the actual network optimizer tool, lol).
@@geraldh.8047 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Not only that. You should also be able to change the orientation of the AP as in most houses they are against the wall rather then the ceiling. That has a big impact on the heat map as well.
In my situation with 3 floors and floor heating on the ground and 1st floor... I've chosen to position the AP under the top of the stairs going from ground floor to 1st but I placed it against the wall so the transmission pattern is spreading to all floors rather then just the ground floor when I would have attached it to the ceiling (or underside of the stair).
Because of this I have strong/good signal strength throughout my house with a single AP Lite.
At one of my neighbors I've still a good signal while at my other neighbors I'm on the shadow side of the AP. For fun I've tested it as well with the AP being in a horizontal position and then at both my neighbors the signal was less.
To both neighbors their are 2x 10cm concrete walls.
Thank you for the video. I would love to see someone do a multifloor video - I have 3 AP's on the first floor, 1 on the 2nd, and 1 on the 3rd.
Can you do another one of these that covers a multiple storyhouse.
Every floor should have Ethernet wiring and at least one access point in a central location or room that needs fast wifi. Covered.
@@Cypeq it's a bit more complicated than that. Say you have a 3-storey house. On the second floor, the AP may well overlap with the ones on floor 1, and, just the same, the AP on floor 3 might overlap with the one on the second floor. It will be even more complicated if you have multiple aps per floor. Channel juggling will become a large problem, if you want to set them manually to reduce interference.
Missed concepts: How to handle two floor homes? How to handle AP orientation? How to debug devices hanging on to the wrong AP (AP switching). Also in the case for your example where there was only one offending (competitor) AP, maybe a bit of checking power at different corners of home to plan your channels around the general direction they are broadcasting from. Hate for your channel one to be nearest thier channel one of you can easily test and plan to avoid the condition in just two minutes.
I just wanted to thank you for this video! I have a lot of neighbors with 2.4GHz networks so mine was almost unusable. I changed the channel width to 20MHz and not only the 2.4GHz network became usable, but the 5GHz also gained a bit more coverage (don't ask my why). I'll definitely apply this setting to my future network setups.
Nice vid Chris! Have you played with the RF Environment tool ? Click on an AP, then go to Insights, RF Environment, You will see an expanded view of all the WiFi channels and their utilisation/noise. Clicking Scan Channels will then take the selected AP off the air (you can do multiple scans on different APs simultaneously),for about 5 to 10 mins, to scan the WiFi channel spectrum, and then report back on the utilisation, and interference on each channel, with nice graphical representation. I've found it quite useful when selecting which channel to set my APs to. This may also make a good video too !
17:00 would still rec the opposite actually. move tx power to lowest. if running into handoff or coverage issues, then increase in increments.
That's what I should try to figure out my switching issues. Problem is, I want WiFi far from the APs, but don't want issues when close to several.
So as I was tweaking I found Enable Minimum RSSI which you do not cover in this video. As this is not a one size fits all setting you should discuss this setting. Basically it kicks a device off of an AP when the signal gets low to force it to find a stronger AP. In a multi AP setup this could help prevent devices from getting stuck on the old AP...
Pretty good video overall. The one thing you may want to revisit is Tx Power settings. It all starts there actually and it is determined primarily by the weakest client devices you will need to support in the network and the gain of the antennas in the AP. Once you have that, then you can go ahead and figure out number of required APs and proper placement. This means that more often than not you'll be either entering custom Tx power values or using one of the pre-defined ones, but never "Auto". Also it would be good to keep in mind that when it comes to UniFi there's nothing "auto" in the Auto Tx power setting.
Most Wi-Fi problems related to roaming, sticky clients, and the like usually can be traced back to inadequate Tx Power settings. Hope this helps.
I was going to leave a reply about this as well before I read your reply. I have really bad experience with "Auto" setting on Tx Power settings in general, as leaving it on "Auto" will leave too many clients clinging onto an AP because the signal quality is "too good" on the neighboring AP. However, from professional experience this can seldom be completely fixed with TX Power settings alone. You'll need to play around with "Min. RSSI" in order to get "the perfect roaming" (if that exists...)
@@Cyndariel Proper Tx power settings and the right AP placement should be enough most of the time, but I agree in that it will not always be perfect. Min RSSI is problematic in my opinion.
Look for "Wireless LAN Roaming FAQ" in the UI Community. I explained a bit more there.
@@Cyndariel I'm confused with what you are saying with a neighboring signal being too good. Probably what I deal with when I go down to zero bars but my device won't switch to the AP right above me. Is that what you meant? And how do you fix that?
Another issue I have is where my IP calls glitch out while standing 10 feet from an AP, 30 feet from another through a wall, and 60 feet from another through a couple walls. I'm not sure if my device is roaming between them or what. I can't figure out that issue. Any suggestions for those scenarios?
@@JacksonCampbell the best way to refer to what he’s talking about is signal saturation. If the signals coming in very loud (saturated )from the AP, the device won’t connect to it. Sort of like going to a concert and it’s so loud you cover your ears and it doesn’t sound good or makes you want to leave. I hope that makes sense.
I’d like to see some more advanced discussion on the minimum RSSI options. I’ve had issues with devices hoping back and forth between APs causing connectivity issues.
You have too much power going to your APs. Lower the TX power and disable the lower tier connection speeds from your bands. This will stop your device from having too many nice connection options. Unless you use a mesh wireless then this is expected. But your device wont do the hopping, the system will move your device without it knowing.
About time someone took the time to truly explain how to tweak your Unifi APs. Thank you Chris!
Hey Chris, I live in a small rural town and I set all my 5ghz ap's to DFS channels and have had no problems. The nearest airport is 15 miles north. I also use Unifi and when I run the wifi insights I get a lot of 2.4ghz channel interference but very little 5ghz interference. LIke you said, the 5ghz doesn't propogate as well as the 2.4ghz.
Great video and very informative. How about a follow up covering multi level properties?
This is still a valid video 2 years on, but with one change. Use HE80 on 5GHz channels. HE40 will only get you around maximum 570mbps in good signal areas. That's the same as 2GHz with 40 channel width. Obviously you will need to check where the channels overlap with other channels at the higher bandwidth. 5GHz doesn't travel well through walls, so you are not really being a "channel hog" by using 80MHz and taking advantage of near gbps speed (good signal areas). I wouldn't be using 160MHz as that will pretty well kill your own choice of channels to use for very little advantage as far as bandwidth goes. If you only have 2 access points, then maybe in the US you can get away with 160MHz where you have 2 available 160MHz channels, but in other countries you may not have that. In Australia we only have one 160MHz channel available in the 5GHz band due to spectrum restrictions here.
I've been a UniFi owner for long and have set up multiple networks already in the past. One thing that I still cannot explain with UniFi is that when I do exactly as explained in this video, so I examine the spectrum and pick channels based on theoretical knowledge, the WiFi quality is always unreliable and unstable. From the spectrum analyzer all looks optimal, but in reality it isn't. Until I saw many professional UniFi installers on RUclips vastly mention to go with auto channel and transmit power selection. At first I still didn't want to believe this would be smart and went with auto channel and manual power. Still a mess. Then I budged and went with auto for both. Have never had such awesome and stable WiFi ever before. It's perfect. Weirdly enough from the spectrum analyzer it looks a mess. It places multiple access points controlled by the same UniFi controller in the same site overlapping each other. From theory what I see totally makes no sense but in practice it works better than ever before. Never could explain this to myself, let alone anyone else. Has been working flawless for two years already like this.
Quick note on the BROADCOM_GUEST_0_3 ssid:
I had this same SSID appear seemingly randomly. However, I have found that this is a Comcast business modem issue that persists when a silent error occurs after turning off the modems built in wifi radios. You should try factory resetting your modem and it will go away.
This only happens with Comcast business modems in my experience. I’m not sure why and even Comcast doesn’t have any answers but I found that factory resetting solved the issue! Hope this helps!
Good video! A shame though that you didn’t talk about band steering, minimum RSI and such.
Question: how do you take into account neighboring ISP routers that have auto channel selection?
For this reason we use the WiFi ‘AI’ to do 3 AM scans and adjustments.
I am a Ubiquiti certified installer. The training course does not recommend AI or auto channel selection.
@@stephenlipton525 that doesn't really answer the OP question.
What do you do if you have others who chose to leave auto setup?
@@Mr2greys it depends on who the other person is if they are approachable I offer to give them a free half hour of my time with the “I noticed that your WiFi could be underperforming as it is broadcasting on the same frequency as your neighbours “ show them my card and offer to tweak their settings for free. Many do not even bother to change the default passwords to something easier to remember. People love free stuff they usually accept.
If your neighbours have theirs set to auto, normally that would be fine for you as their end would avoid your channels most probably.
@@stephenlipton525 Do share why UI doesn't recommend using the AI feature? We've heard lots of folks say not to use it, but WHY should we not use it? If the option is there why would UI tell us not to use? Thanks much!
Can someone please tell me why my UniFi AP Lite are only showing channels 1,2,3 on 2.4GHz and channels 36,40,44 on 5GHz? Many thanks in advance for any info and advice you can share with me. BTW, this is a great channel.
Same here.
I would never use auto for power. auto in Unifi used to mean Max. Has that changed? I use low for 2.4 and medium for 5. I also thought you would discuss RSSI etc?
One thing I would add is minimum RSSI! I have found this to be extremely useful, especially in Apple environments as they are sticky and will hang on to an out-of-range AP like it's the last internet connection on earth.
I find the opposite. Better to adjust transmission power down to accommodate instead. Min rssi tends to kick clients off unnecessarily.
Q #2, you didn't use WifiMAN in your optimization but though i'm not nearly at the same skill level as you I tried walking around the house with it on and found it to be quite useful.
Excellent tutorial, I will look into those WIFI adjustments, I’ve been having problem setting up my second AP. I’m having poor performance from. Your videos are always very informative.
Thanks, I really appreciate your coverage of the Unifi products, I use them extensively in my consulting business.
Covers well all the basics. For complex installations (like 6 to >100 AP, multiple levels construction,....) you could do a video about Power Output (in fact 'Auto' = max) / RSSI / Interference reducing (not clear from Unifi what it does). Also interesting is the changes by placing the AP vertically or horizontally (radiation diagram are not a 360 sphere) - even sometimes horizontally 'upside down'. Also if your customer has a really fast internet (fiber optic >500 Mb/s) you must use 80 Mhz channels in 5 Ghz, otherwise you're pretty limiting bandwith. In your exemple I would personnaly add a 4th interior AP to have better 5G coverage and at least 1 outside (or 2 or 3 depending on the outside zone of your property) - I like to have >-65 dBm everywhere, I'm not at all satisfied with some -75 dBm. I mostly have customers with 600 Mb/s or 1000 Mb/s and I try that they can have >200 Mb/s anywhere. 1Another factor is that in Europe 90% of inside walls are brick / concrete / block and almost never wood / placo / .... so much more attenuation between rooms. And today all windows / sliding outside doors are with double or triple layers with a metallic coating between layers - you open terrasse door and you have a good signal outside, you close it and signal disappear (at least 20 dBm below).
Thank you for the great work!
I'm not sure what part of London you live in but my walls are made of paper mâché. I am literally the "if walls could talk" guy.
@@Blackfeet Well, I'm not in London, not even in UK. Living mostly between Ibiza (yuppie!) and Brussels (Beurk!).... Inside walls are usually minimum a 'grey concrete block' of 20 cm thick, sometimes filled with cement (and sometimes iron poles as well). Old typical houses in Ibiza have walls of 60 to 100 cm thick (yes, up to 1 meter!) and there absolutely nothing pass, you need an AP in every single room
What are your findings about the "changes" of vertical vs horizontal vs upside down mounting options? Id love to hear more
After reading other articles, I am going to follow your suggestions in this video. I am using 5 Ubiquiti U6-LRs in a 6000sqft house.
Been waiting for a video like this a long time. Thanks for this video.
This Very good Video for WIFI design
Question: If we already set the Channel without interference with the all of our AP and our neighbors AP. but in view month letter there are new AP form our neighbor that use the same Channel with us, in this case do we need to change our AP Channel again.
What is the advantage of the Auto Channel. is this feature will change our AP channel automatically when our AP sensing interference channel ?
Next question when the channel is change automatically. Do client (PC. notebook) that already connected to the AP will have lost connection and then reconnect with new Channel ?
What about different floors? I have 1 in my basement, 1 outdoors in the eve of my garage 2nd floor and 1 in the office inside right in front of a window. I'm trying to reach inside and my yard entire yard.
You missed the *testing* phase. For example, many houses have a lot of forced air ducts, which interfere like crazy, and you aren't always completely sure exactly where they are. You may need to move an AP to avoid having ducts shadow your signal.
I mounted my AP on the bottom side of an air duct, just to avoid them. I live in a single floor condo, with air ducts at the top.
I love it…… I just new to this brand and I am losing my mind to optimize it… I will try your advice, I have in a small hotel about 40 Access points, I should go through each one? Or there is a way to group them!
Excellent video. I learned a lot. As a note, it's important to have your access points on the correct bandwith for your devices (smartphones and laptops etc) as many devices ONLY work with a 20 Mhz channel and won't connect on a 40 Mhz channel at all. I use a 40 Mhz channel for a wifi bridge between two buildings for example where no client connections are required.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been trying to figure this out for a school that I work at with over 70 AP's and having issues with coverage where clients don't hand-off to a closer AP as expected. I'll give this a go and hope for the best.
I've always had that issue with Unifi, and it drives me crazy. I can be in a totally differnt building standing under an AP, and my devices choose to keep a zero bar connection.
@@JacksonCampbell I have the exact same issue. Did you find a solution? Thx
@@nicofonce BSS Transition and Fast Roaming. Both together seem to solve the problem.
First question ... floors, I'd be keen on knowing how much interference a floor (in US and/or UK) provides versus a wall. I guess the answer to most questions is "it depends" but i'm just trying to get a sense for how to best cover a two story house in the US and a three story house in the UK.
Yes I agree, not easy to demonstrate, ideally you’d setup a system in a 2 or 3 story “display home” which would allow to demonstrate this and other variables.
It is definitely not easy to demonstrate. Personally I have seen where cheap Home Depot wood flooring (IOW Chinese manufacturer) where they have aluminium in the shellac causes significant interference
Walls and floors don't provide interference. They cause attenuation, which is just a weakening of the signal.
Good info on the video. One thing to mention with Unifi is to disable Wireless Meshing when directly wired to a switch. Had to figure that out the hard way because my U6-LR kept trying to search for a wireless mesh connection even when hardwired.
What about "Nightly Channel Optimization" option ?
Thank you for this video. Watching it now as I have been trying to resolve wifi performance issues. Made changes as shown in the video. Very well explained and helpful.
Love the flipper in the background
Exactly what I was looking for with my (too many) APs in my Unify smart home. Love all your videos, very helpful
The best videos on Unify Systems. Great and clear explanation. I would be interested on some comments on ceiling mounting versus wall mounting. Is there any difference?
Damn man you always explain these things so well, love watching your videos. Thanks for everything you do.
Any thoughts on UniFi Nightly Channel Optimization?
Great video Chris, best explanation I have seen on this subject.
Beamforming technology (e.g. Ruckus wireless) - this is the answer to all your wifi needs. You don't need many access points, much power, sensitivity or channel exclusivity if you use a directional adaptive radio.
I have a lengthy two-story brick home. My Wireless Router was setup in the back of the house and the signal was a bit patchy when you got to the front of the house. To fix this, I initially set up a second WAP (wired) in the front of the house.
However, the issue I had, was the mobile devices could still see both access points. So, after walking in the front door, the mobile device would logon to the closest and strongest WAP (the one at the front of the house), but then wouldn’t move over to the second access point when you went to the back of the house, even if the signal was much stronger.
Someone had suggested using the same SSID and Password for multiple WAPs, which I tried. However, that didn’t seem to work too well. What’s your thoughts on a setup like this?
So, in a situation like this, would it all be down to your TX power? If so, how weak does the signal need to get, for a mobile device to drop one WAP and reconnect to another? In addition, would there be a dead zone between the two WAPs?
I ended up fixing this issue with a Mesh Network, which seems to work quite well. However, you were advising not to use a Mesh Network, unless it was really needed, due to some of the throughput of the Mesh Network being used to wirelessly connect up to other WAPs.
Could we have a wired Mesh Network, and then use the Mesh technology only for the user’s Wi-Fi? Hopefully, this could then allow the WAPs to hand off users (similar to a Mobile Cell Network) when there was a stronger/better signal available. Or am I still not understanding how a Mesh Network works?
From an enterprise RF engineer (me), here are the wireless rules. 1. Trim off all lower connection speeds from your list of available connection speeds. like 1mbps, 2mbps, 5 and so on. Two, lower your TX power to the point you create a hole. Then fill that hole with another AP. Third, do the rest of what this video says in terms of channel planning. 1,6,11 only for 2.4 and only use the DFS channels if you are farther than 250 miles from an airport or weather station. 20mhz is fine for 2.4 and 40/80 is good for 5ghz. And if you have no legacy devices that need 2.4, then disable it all together. Thats basically it.
Is 80/120 ever better than 40? What about an environment where the only signals you're dealing with our your multiple APs? Does the lower bandwidth help connections roam instead of keeping a weaker signal?
DFS channels aren't reserved for radar... Things like radar have priority. So your AP can use the frequency but if it noticed a radar transmitting on that frequency it has to stop (transmitting on that freq). The AP listens passively on a channel before it starts transmitting which makes DFS channels a little flakey as the AP might be listening to see if a channel is empty before it starts operating there.
I live a few miles from a major airport, so that's something I may have to worry about. It would be nice if the Insights or Statistics could identify things such as radar. If it has to detect them anyway, why not report it?
@@James_Knott I haven’t checked for it in the Unifi logs but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it logged on other platforms. If you have a WiFi network using 2+ bands your clients should roam silently/seamlessly. The config that really drove me nuts was when I just had a network on a single DFS band and it would take DFS related cigarette breaks and just go dark eg reboot and have to wait minutes for wifi
@@MichaelSmith-fg8xh My understanding is the reason those channels shouldn't be used is to protect radar, not Wifi users. I live right under a flight path for Toronto's Pearson airport and between 5G Wifi and C band 5g cell, I wouldn't want to knock a plane out of the sky. It might hit me! 😉
However, if I knew what channels would interfere with the radar, I could avoid them.
@@James_Knott Your AP might look at using DFS channels (ch. 52-144) according to your channel selection but it won't transmit on that channel if it hears radar using it. I live near multiple airports and ship ports and just leave channel selection to "Auto".
Perfect approach, step by step, helped me a lot. Thank you so much!
I have been watching your RUclips channel for years about unifi and it's been a great source of information. I do have a question though as it differs from what others say but many suggest not using auto for power, so I am curious as to why you do.
Could you please do a video on how to set up a VPN on a UniFi home network with a UDM? Thank you
The channel setup helped a lot. Thank you! Can you cover the Minimum RSSI?
What makes no sense to me is that Unifi knows all about the AP's. It also knows about all the neighbors SSID's and channels. Why Unifi CAN'T figure out how to manage the channels on each of the AP's it controls to auto assign a suitable channel that is not being used on it's own network. Unifi will routinely assign the SAME channel to two AP's it controls when set to auto mode.
Each time an ap is restarted it scans to pick the best channel. In a large deployment if there is a major power outage then there is a chance that all AP’s come up on the same channel. Initial deployment it’s not a problem as you add anAP it looks around and sees what channel is best as you install. But if they are all coming on at once then they all see approximately the same environment.
Excellent, simple and straight to the point! What about if I have Zigbee and/or Z-Wave ? Since they both use 2.4GHz I guess I would have to use the same methodology to separate WiFi AP(s)/Zigbee/Zwave from each other … ? Any general recommendations for such case?
Zwave operates at 868.42 MHz in Europe, and 908.42 MHz in North America so it only competes with cell phones.
Almost 2 years with the UDM Pro, with the worst WiFi experience I ever had!
And here you go with Chris, coming to save my life, since I just moved in to my very first new build house, planing to have two AP’s.
THANK YOU SO MUCH CHRIS!!!! I will definitely use you’re affiliate link to buy my switch, my second AP, my NVR and all the camera’s I need, as a thank you for the info you provide!!!
Question: do you set up three different wifi names for each of the APs? Do you breakout the 5ghz wifi name as well?
I'd like to know the answer to this as well.
Unless I am incorrect, each device can have a different name since client devices do not connect to “the AP name” they connect to a SSID. Niw, the SSIDs should be the same if you want to roam from AP to AP. The only situation that I could think of where you would use different SSIDs if you want to limit who uses which AP or if you wanted to step different WiFi network groups. However, there are different ways to handle that with UniFi.
The biggest problem I have is devices not handing off - the lock on and refuse to switch between my 3 WAPS. Need more RSSI and other tips - this was too basic.
A big thank you, from the Netherlands.
Learned a lot and have some to do now!!
Chris do you ever turn off all but one access point when checking the environment for interference? The interference in the garage may not be the same as the interference in the living room, I guess
Advanced settings configuration would be good topic, but also I see many have examples of a single floor layout. How about for homes that are multi-level? I agree about common obstacles like plumbing and hvac and other electrical. But again seems a lot of videos go on the simple single level setup. Just my thought. But otherwise good content!
Indeed my house has 4 floors and I find very little information about penetration of the signal from floor to floor.
Great video, but I have what will hopefully be a quick question. You mentioned in your example that all 3 APs are hard wired yet at the end of the video, I noticed that the "enable meshing" setting is turned on. Shouldn't this be turned off because everything is hard wired? Thxs!
Yes, I would recommend turning it off. I just started using UniFi and I didn’t know why meshing was turned on for a wired AP’s, so I ignored the setting thinking it was useless. One of my AP’s got bricked trying to run an RF scan and I had to do a manual reboot to fix it. When it came back online instead of using the wired connection, it decided to link (mesh) to the other AP for some reason. Even thought it was getting POE from the wire it was ignoring. Remembering I saw the mesh setting earlier, I disabled mesh and rebooted. It then sat stagnant for like 5 minutes, so I rebooted again and it then came back online using the wired connection.
Save yourself the headache, turn off mesh if you’re using an Ethernet wire.
@@nodd85 thanks nodd85,I’ll give it a try. Appreciate it!
OMG finally, thank you I have been looking for a video for this setup.
Good video, thanks. I made some adjustments to my setup. I have 4 AP-Pros covering a 2800 sq ft house. I'm thinking of going with WiFi 6. Which AP's are you now recommending?
You could use the design feature on your own imported floorplan and play around with the 3 different U6 APs in different locations, much like Chris explained here.
I'd start with the U6-Pro and if that seems overkill, de how the U6-LR performs.
@@Bobtb Got it, thank you.
Really great walkthrough! Thank you so much.
Do you ever use the RF-scan function?
Thanks for this video. I'm just waiting on the EAP690E HD from. TP-Link to come out and I'll be putting 3 in my new house. This was really helpful
So you want AUTO for transmit power? So 2G/5G are all blasting basically on HIGH? Roaming must be horrible.
Would love to see an instruction video about Geofencing from UniFi. It just keeps failing on me all the time and I can't get it working properly. Thanks in advance :-)
I live in a rural area with several users on Ch. 6 at 20 MHz and two on 1 at 40 MHz. I use two AP Lites in my home now and wonder if I should change to 11 just to keep me separate. Not an issue but wondering. Nobody has any traffic in the 5 GHz area. Very good info for a novice tinkerer. ;)
I would like to know how to have the best signal coverage on a 2 floor house. Is it possible using Unifi floor plan?
Is that a pot plant behind you? It looks awesome but, I think it needs better light. Thanks for the video!
Thanks for the info. Just a suggestion, for future videos, try using dark mode for better viewing or not it's your channel. Great video.
When I am using channels 1, 6 and 11 for my 3 APs, then there should never be interference between them, no matter how high the transmit power or how near they are to each other, right?
Correct.
You might get issues with roaming though, since your device could have multiple average signals to choose from.
So where do I get the WIFI Insights as my UI menu only shows the current devices and nothing about wifi signals. Another UI fail where they removed a helpful tool because "they" determined a security risk or no users are smart enough to use it? I use the most current updates provided by UI so its has to be there or removed. Only view is by device nothing showing the graph in your example and I do have a USG a Cloud key (v1) and 2 UI access points. So enough of a UI network that it should work
Great tutorial on using Insights on the UDM SE. I had not really looked at that prior and now makes perfect sense. Will re-calibrate all my wifi now and quit this auto channel hoping!
So I noticed that - much like yours - my neighbors are all parked on channels 1, 6, and 11. Does that mean that I would want to avoid those channels and go in between them, or does it not matter as long as I’m not overlapping with MY OWN access points?
Any in between channel will overlap with those so I try to avoid that if possible. It really depends on what equipment is popular in your area. In areas where the ISP hands out equipment that automatically picks the least busy channels I try to set all of my own APs to the channel with the weakest interference (1, 6 ,or 11) with the intention of encouraging the neighbors to stay off that channel.
You never really want to use channels other than 1, 6, and 11. The reason is these 3 do not overlap with each other at all. If you pick a channel in the middle of those say 3 you would then be overlapping and getting interference from both channel 1 and channel 6 so your best bet is to try and avoid the nosiest one but mainly not over lap your own.
@@JasonLehmann1 Thank you so much for explaining that!
Hi Chris, I've been following your series for setting up the udm pro. It has helped me a lot; thank you and excellent work! Quick question, I'm setting up APs around the house, would it be possible to name the wireless network with the same SSID and password of the existing wireless network these APs are replacing? The idea (if this is possible) is to avoid the trouble of reconnecting all my smart devices to a new wireless network (i.e. smart switches, alexa, door bells, smart hub, etc.) and tricking them into believing the wireless network is the same or in other words, nothing has changed. Will appreciate your comments!
15:00 isn’t it better to let UDR to auto-select channels via nightly band optimization it does automatically? I fear this tweaking will never end as one would constantly need to monitor the interference on manually set channels. Manual ‘hard-coded’ settings cant be the best option here.
I have two access points walls mounted as the ceiling is too high to get to.
Works alright but had to turn RSI limit to about -70 so devices transition to the correct access point
This will be fun for my 50+ U6-LR deployment…..
Great Video + the knowledge you give in mesh video let me understand my mistakes i've done on my site & my custommers sites. So many thants for that
One more issue i'd like to undersand. I plan to buy mower robot as ambrogio, what needs to hve wifi in the garden to create map and do its job. Unlees i saw your video i was thinking the best is ONE 2,4ghz cannel on whole garden to provide one network to the robot, but now i have a question if the robot will understand he is still in the same wifi network, when 3 access points i need in my garden are set up on different channels? probably yes but please describe it why he will understand :) i'd like also to understand ths :)
BR
Hi Chris, would have been good to see the interference maps again after the re provisioning
The designer doesn't take channels used into account, so it would still show you the same image.
What about in 2 or 3 story house? Would it be okay to have an AP in the basement then another one in the main living room (on top of the basement AP)? Or can I just use the AP that it is sitting in the basement?
hi Chris, always great video for years, speaking specifically to UniFi is there value in a the nightly channel optimization automation?
I don't understand why the heatmaps won't allow the ap to be set at different power settings, it seems to me that it's one of the main things, even more than wall materials, that affects signal/range.
Because they are usually set by AP groups or by bands. Not individual APs.
Hi Chris. We have an Access system between our church and the minister's house were the router is situated. We are trying to install a card reader paystation. Although the paystation can log on to the Ubiquity nano, it cannot access the internet. If we take the paystation near the router, bypassing the nano system, the paystation which, uses an Andriod based tablet, logs onto the internet.
My question: Is there a timeout function on the nano setup which is not giving the Google Andriod time to log onto the internet. Thanks for all your informative videos on the Ubiquity products they have been helpful.
Any suggestions as it relates to roaming throughout the house? Would you turn fast roaming on or off? And what about the transmit power overlapping too much with another nearby access point? Doesn't having the transmit power too high cause the device to hold on to the previous access point too long before hopping over to the next access point even if your channels are properly separated? Also, what about RSI?
Roaming: It is all about using sensible Tx power settings and proper AP placement.
Fast Roaming (FT) on or off: Search for "Wireless LAN Roaming FAQ" in the Ubiquiti Forums
Transmit Power: Yes, you are correct. Too high of a transmit power will cause the issues you pointed out and more. Don't use "Auto". Instead go with very conservative power levels based on the client devices you have.
Great video. Concepts simply and clearly explained. I can’t fault anything you said, Your videos really helped me get my Ubiquiti wireless admin certification. Thank you Chris!
Thanks for the video. I've been using the setting "Nightly Channel Optimization" thinking it was doing the work of picking the best channels to use. Do you not recommend using that setting?
The Broadcom Guest is coming off the Comcast CBR. You need to factory reset the modem to get rid of them.
Great video. I'm a few weeks away before I start purchasing my Unifi bundle. Quick question...? Once you have the access points setup and installed. How do you set up them so you don't have to join a new wifi every time you travel around the house closer and further to access points? Thanks!
Please remake this video explaining the UPDATED Radios section, with full explanation of the Coverage tab! There is lack of labeling/discussion/docs/support to know what the details are showing. Why devices are showing up on multiple APs when a single is selected what the time frame references when the map spiratically updates and devices come and go. The fine details that can help use this as a troubleshoot step for Wi-Fi performance….
Usually unifi have good algorithm for selecting channels. So mostly I just set it at auto and in most cases everything works well.
I have "Nightly Channel Optimization" enabled on all my APs. Are you saying you don't trust this setting?
I am curious about this as well. I also have "Nightly Channel Optimization" set on all my APs.
Good video thanks for sharing. Love the Star Wars shirt!
I spot a flipper zero in the background! Do you plan on making a video about it?
No - it's just a fun toy to play with.
Please do 😇
Logical, but two things. 1st do you monitor your WIFI neigbors for new upcoming APs? Otherwise maybe some new AP is using the same channels you use. 2nd Why is Auto such a bad choice? He monitors and changes channels automatically. And he knows his APs, the channels and how far they are away from each other.
If you need 3 high-end AP's for a 2000 sq ft home you're doing something wrong.
Hello, Crosstalk Solutions, thank you for the demo, very good idea in terms of setting up wired APs on a flat area, I understand that this is a simple way to explain and see the benefits of placing the APs across the rooms, etc, but would you make an example of how to place three or more devices in a 5 story building for example, instead of horizontally example as that is the only ones I see in RUclips I haven't found an example in which the location is a building with different floors. I look forward to the next video and thanks again.
When delving in to the insights option for surrounding Wi-Fi, the problem is that most ISP routers and Wi-Fi configs are set to Auto everything blasting maximum power on auto channels. Very few people know how to configure good Wi-Fi and many think that bigger is better i.e. more power is good Wi-Fi. In my Office I have 112 yes 112 Wi-Fi devices in the immediate neighbourhood. Printers broadcasting for direct print, even cars parked outside are now broadcasting Wi-Fi. BMW seem to be the worst culprit.
Hi, great video. I have a story and a half house with a basement, how do you plan for access points across floors?
Chris, nice video, but you didn't mention the channel scanning tool on the access points. I've always used this to select channels. Is that a waste? I like the Neighboring Access Points tool in the new version of UniFi, but I'm not sure whether one of these tools is more accurate than the other. Also, I really would like to deploy more 5gHz access points, but I can't figure out an easy way to turn off the 2.4 gHz radios. So, I end up causing a big mess 2.4 gHz while still having coverage issues at 5gHz. Suggestions? Thanks for posting content like this.
Brad, you can adjust the power on the 2.4GHz band from automatic to low to eliminate interference between you APs. Also if you really want to turn off the 2.4GHz signal, you can go to Settings--> WLANS-->WLANS Groups and switch from default to off.
@@mkam730 I think that's the way I used to do it back before this latest big upgrade to the UniFi controller software. Since then, I've not been able to find these settings. What little I've read makes me think that I need to setup special SSID names, apportion them to 2.4 and 5 gHz, create access point groups with specific SSIDs, then assign access points to groups. That sounds like a big ole PITA for a new installation, and I don't see how it's viable for a new installation. Maybe I'm just confused? Just looking for a better way.