Looking for opinions re. Ubiquiti or something else

[Tech9]

The same here, I have 2x UX units used as wireless bridges to wired devices. Current firmware has no screen control options, hours on/off or brightness. They follow default night time schedule 10pm-7am on 100% brightness. Not a deal breaker, I saw it reported on Ubiquiti Community forums, perhaps will be fixed at some point. Otherwise UX units work well, hold steady 1.2Gbps links (I use 80MHz wide channel), wired devices get >900Mbps throughput... no complaints. Limitation - LAN ports are on the main VLAN, no option to change at the moment.

 

[Mittenz]

Is going with a Ubiquiti a better option over Asus at this point?

Wifi 7 pro wall AP x2 without a controller, and only a POE switch - will this be a superior solution vs asus?

 

[tgl]

Is going with a Ubiquiti a better option over Asus at this point?

Depends a lot on what you're looking for. Asus is targeting maybe a slightly-savvier-than-average consumer. UniFi is targeting small-business type setups (and trying to move into larger businesses). This shows up for example in the minimal documentation and hand-holding that you get with UniFi ... they tend to assume you already know something about networking. Another example is that UniFi doesn't sell all-in-one router+wireless-AP units, except for a couple of bottom-of-the-line models that I wouldn't recommend. They sell separate routers and APs, with the expectation that you want more than one AP. For that matter, the APs are really designed to be wired. There's some support for wireless backhaul a/k/a mesh, but if that's what you need I'd have to recommend buying something else.

Mind you, I like UniFi's gear and use it myself. But it's not for everybody.

Wifi 7 pro wall AP x2 without a controller, and only a POE switch - will this be a superior solution vs asus?

Don't buy UniFi's U7 (or E7) series yet. They are still getting the bugs out of it. Anything currently sold in the U6 series is recommendable. If you must have wifi 6E support, the U6-Enterprise APs are very solid kit (I own several) but are a tad pricey. (I think the U6-Ent-IW units are the same chipset in a different form factor, if you want an in-wall unit. No personal experience with them though.)

UniFi APs do not have a built-in web control GUI. You need something else to control/configure them. If you just intend to run some of their APs and not buy into a whole UniFi-based network, the most plausible option is to run UniFi Network Server on your own PC; it's a free download for Windows, macOS, or Linux. The Linux version seems to be a bit of a management headache (dependency problems, mostly) but I've not read complaints about the others.

PoE switch feeding all the APs is definitely the neatest, fewest-wires solution. Pay attention to total power budget, otherwise it doesn't have to be fancy --- unless you want an isolated guest SSID, and then you need VLAN support.