So Long, Thanks For All The Help

[ATLga]

Okay, didn't mean for my questions to come across as I'm a complete noobie hahaha. I've used Asus, Netgear, GLInet's for years no issues. Never went up above those consumer grade options till now, thus my questions about the POE, etc.

I don't think I'll have any issues setting things up, just wanted to understand things a bit more, but you've done this before so I'm game to listen, so here's the info:

Current is AX86u, SSID's one main, one guest.
New Ubiquiti equipment arriving sometime tomorrow: 1 Cloud Gateway Max, 2 U6 Mesh ap's.

Thanks again.

Looks like my stuff shipped from Memphis warehouse and is in Atlanta as of 11 am. Delivery tomorrow.

 

[Tech9]

This is what you can do starting from already running RT-AX86U (or something else in my case):

- connect the gateway to the existing router in double NAT and power it up
- use Ethernet or Bluetooth to start the setup process, let it update the software
- register it to your account, follow the screen instructions, get to the Network screen
- play with the entire UI to get yourself familiar with it, the UniFi system is behind your Asus, your family sees no change
- adjust DHCP range, DNS server, security features, etc. whatever you want, take your time
- power up the APs, connect them to the gateway (or switch), adopt them, let them update the software as well
- in AP settings set your known working well channels, bandwidth, power on High for now, LED light color/brightness if you want
- In main screen Settings, WiFi - make the same SSID(s) as on your Asus router with added "-1" at the end
- adjust the settings for the SSID(s) - what band(s), what security, band steering, captive portal, etc.

- play with it for few days if you want and when you're ready remove "-1" from the SSID(s)
- power down your Asus router and move the WAN cable from the Asus to the UniFi gateway
- wireless network clients will reconnect to your new APs, if some don't - forget the connection and reconnect manually
- move the wired clients to the gateway and configure whatever they need to work just as before, plus you have port VLAN option now
- you can do the switch with already created networks, assigned DHCP ranges, reservations, clients names... whatever you already configured
- your family will see up to 10 seconds reconnection time only and the life goes as usual

From single RT-AX86U to 2x U6 Mesh - you may have to dial down the power on the APs or move them further away from each other to extend the coverage area. In my tests single U6 Mesh had similar or better coverage than RT-AX86U with better throughput to the same clients at the same distance.

Overall performance - on RT-AX86U you had 4x CPU cores, 1GB RAM and 2x radios. Now you have total of 12x CPU cores, 5GB RAM and 4x radios. The gateway does routing only on separate CPU/RAM, the APs do wireless bridging only on separate CPU/RAM. You'll notice the difference.

 

[thecheapseats]

...Best example of an AI hallucination that I've seen yet...

+5000 points for the phrase, "AI hallucination"...
appropriately funny when describing the context of your dead-end search for help...

hilarious - thank you...

 

[ATLga]

This is what you can do starting from already running RT-AX86U (or something else in my case):

- connect the gateway to the existing router in double NAT and power it up
- use Ethernet or Bluetooth to start the setup process, let it update the software
- register it to your account, follow the screen instructions, get to the Network screen
- play with the entire UI to get yourself familiar with it, the UniFi system is behind your Asus, your family sees no change
- adjust DHCP range, DNS server, security features, etc. whatever you want, take your time
- power up the APs, connect them to the gateway (or switch), adopt them, let them update the software as well
- in AP settings set your known working well channels, bandwidth, power on High for now, LED light color/brightness if you want
- In main screen Settings, WiFi - make the same SSID(s) as on your Asus router with added "-1" at the end
- adjust the settings for the SSID(s) - what band(s), what security, band steering, captive portal, etc.

- play with it for few days if you want and when you're ready remove "-1" from the SSID(s)
- power down your Asus router and move the WAN cable from the Asus to the UniFi gateway
- wireless network clients will reconnect to your new APs, if some don't - forget the connection and reconnect manually
- move the wired clients to the gateway and configure whatever they need to work just as before, plus you have port VLAN option now
- you can do the switch with already created networks, assigned DHCP ranges, reservations, clients names... whatever you already configured
- your family will see up to 10 seconds reconnection time only and the life goes as usual

From single RT-AX86U to 2x U6 Mesh - you may have to dial down the power on the APs or move them further away from each other to extend the coverage area. In my tests single U6 Mesh had similar or better coverage than RT-AX86U with better throughput to the same clients at the same distance.

Overall performance - on RT-AX86U you had 4x CPU cores, 1GB RAM and 2x radios. Now you have total of 12x CPU cores, 5GB RAM and 4x radios. The gateway does routing only on separate CPU/RAM, the APs do wireless bridging only on separate CPU/RAM. You'll notice the difference.

Thanks for taking the time to write up this detailed and interesting idea. Lots of useful info.

 

[ATLga]

Looks like my stuff shipped from Memphis warehouse and is in Atlanta as of 11 am. Delivery tomorrow.

Package updated this morning to Lost...ugh.

 

[Tech9]

Interesting… they’ll resend it.

 

[ATLga]

Package updated this morning to Lost...ugh.

This is typical in Atlanta Midtown. Gets scanned into the facility and then goes into a black hole and they deny it was ever at the facility. Really, how did it get an Atlanta scan?

 

[ATLga]

This is typical in Atlanta Midtown. Gets scanned into the facility and then goes into a black hole and they deny it was ever at the facility. Really, how did it get an Atlanta scan?

Before I moved to Midtown many years ago, I lived in Dunwoody (where I lived is now called Sandy Springs) and my neighbor was an executive at UPS. Their world headquarters is located in Sandy Springs. We’ve stayed friends for 30 years and I called him earlier. He had someone in the distribution center look into this and they’ve located one of the two packages and they are confident they’ll find the other one. He said it would be here today lol. Funny how customer service can’t grease the wheels like that /sc

 

[Tech9]

This is what happens when you update your signature before the equipment has arrived.

 

[ATLga]

This is what happens when you update your signature before the equipment has arrived.

Hahaha that’s why I hid it this morning

 

[ATLga]

Before I moved to Midtown many years ago, I lived in Dunwoody (where I lived is now called Sandy Springs) and my neighbor was an executive at UPS. Their world headquarters is located in Sandy Springs. We’ve stayed friends for 30 years and I called him earlier. He had someone in the distribution center look into this and they’ve located one of the two packages and they are confident they’ll find the other one. He said it would be here today lol. Funny how customer service can’t grease the wheels like that /sc

Everything is here, got other things to do though so can't get to it till tomorrow morning.

 

[ATLga]

This is what happens when you update your signature before the equipment has arrived.

So I'm wondering about something. As I've said I live here in Atlanta. Worlds Busiest Airport. I've always had the DFS turned off on the asus routers to prevent them channel hopping. With that was the AX features disabled on 2.4 and 5.0. 2.0 I had limited to 20mhz and the 5.0 was set to 80mhz; both with fixed channels. Thoughts on this. Should I just leave most at default and go with it or set it the same as I've always done with my other routers; set channels, set bandwidth, guest network, etc. Thinking out loud...

 

[ATLga]

Had a couple minutes so did the unboxing. As stated by @Tech9, the packaging is very Apple like, or some would say google like. Boxed nicely and everything wrapped or covered. Documentation is scarce with some things to scan and pull up web info. I had to google the Poe injector to figure out the symbols, lightning bolt goes to ap and side arrows goes to gateway. I will also say the included Ethernet cables are the tiniest I’ve ever seen. I bought some extra cables as well and those are also super slim.

More later when I get a minute to setup

 

[Tech9]

With that was the AX features disabled on 2.4 and 5.0. 2.0 I had limited to 20mhz and the 5.0 was set to 80mhz; both with fixed channels.

You can experiment with different channels and find better working ones. Broadcom vs Qualcomm radios, different hardware and software, may perform differently. I would stick to non-DFS options on 5GHz band. Don't bother with 160MHz because U6 Mesh have Gigabit links and can do ~860Mbps at 80MHz wide channel. Gigabit Ethernet is up to 940Mbps and for such a small difference to single client - no point. More channel bandwidth may have advantages to multiple 160MHz capable clients served from different APs, in theory. Real life experience improvement - perhaps close to none.

With that was the AX features disabled on 2.4

This is Asus compatibility to IoT advice. I don't see such thing for UniFi APs. U6 Mesh in particular have AX support for both bands with no option to disable. The settings are also Apple like. When something needs no changing - it's not present as an option in the UI.

 

[ATLga]

You can experiment with different channels and find better working ones. Broadcom vs Qualcomm radios, different hardware and software, may perform differently. I would stick to non-DFS options on 5GHz band. Don't bother with 160MHz because U6 Mesh have Gigabit links and can do ~860Mbps at 80MHz wide channel. Gigabit Ethernet is up to 940Mbps and for such a small difference to single client - no point. More channel bandwidth may have advantages to multiple 160MHz capable clients served from different APs, in theory. Real life experience improvement - perhaps close to none.



This is Asus compatibility to IoT advice. I don't see such thing for UniFi APs. U6 Mesh in particular have AX support for both bands with no option to disable. The settings are also Apple like. When something needs no changing - it's not present as an option in the UI.

On your last point, yep, definitely noticed that already. The help advice is accurate. If you try to change something and it doesn't like it, it will tell you.

Had some issues adopting the ap's. Right now it's double natted into the asus.
Gateway is connected to a netgear unmanaged switch. Plugged in the ap to the netgear and it lit up but the adopt message did not pop up in the gateway. Tried different cables, checked connections, etc. Finally plugged the ap directly into the gateway and the adoption worked (on both).
When I rip out the asus tomorrow morning and plug things in, I'll see if there is still an issue going through these switches.

Guest network.
So first I created a a virtual network in the network settings. I toggled it to manual and changed one setting; toggled on Guest Network. There is also isolate network but you can't toggle them both, it's one or the other (asus would have let me turn them both on ). Then in my wifi settings I added another network - gave it a name/password and for the network I chose the Guest Network VLAN in the drop down I had created in the virtual networks. Changed the auto to manual and made one change - Toggle on the Client Device Isolation.

I have no idea if I've done any of this right and it's kinda hard to tell with the double nat messy setup I've got going on and can't test properly with the household.

For 2.4 I set it to 20 and hard channel. 5.0 set to 80 and hard channel.



Hope this jumbled mess I've written isn't to confusing...

 

[Tech9]

Gateway is connected to a netgear unmanaged switch. Plugged in the ap to the netgear and it lit up but the adopt message did not pop up in the gateway.

Of course. You had the APs on the WAN side of the Gateway...

 

[ATLga]

Of course. You had the APs on the WAN side of the Gateway...

Right of course. That's something I missed doing my double nat setup in the home office. Just plugged it all in and didn't think about that.

 

[ATLga]

created a a virtual network in the network settings. I toggled it to manual and changed one setting; toggled on Guest Network

This page leaves out this step that I did and it seems relevant since it's a guest network?

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/23948850278295-Best-Practices-Guest-WiFi

 

[Tech9]

I believe the UI help is pretty clear.

In Networks:

In WiFi:

 

[Tech9]

You perhaps noticed already the settings are per network and may be different.

Guest Network with Content Filtering and Main Network without it, for example:

When Content Filtering is active the Gateway will do DNS interception and redirection in order to prevent common avoiding techniques.