UniFi Dream Machine

[bigfatron]

Would the flex hd connect wirelessly to the UDM and then feed that to a switch?

As far as I know you can mesh with it, yes.

 

[Tech Focus]

My current set up for 3800sqft 2 story (basement + ground level) home is 2 x ASUS Ax11000, 2 x 92U in AiMesh setup via wired backhaul to all nodes. Only Wifi 6 device I have right now is iPhone 11 Pro. Previously I owned Orbi (not Wifi 6 version, but multiple satellites) and Eero Pro (3 units). I am still not satisfied with my current set up. With 1Gbps download and 40 Mbps Upload, the best I get right now is 600-700 Mbps but that's very variable. Most of time it's 300-400 Mbps. Far better than Orbi for stability but AiMesh still has stability issue with occasional drop off of devices to the point where sometimes at the location where I get 200 Mbps DL becomes under 10 Mbps. AmpliFi Alien seems an interesting contender but it sold out forever.

So I am really looking for system that's stable, providing near max speed, and customization options. UniFi seems to check stability and customization. Technically, for Gigabit speed, I believe we really don't need Wifi 6, in fact I read current UniFi line supports 1.7 Gbps on 5G band.

Questions:
1. What's the real world speed (in 1Gbps internet condition)?
2. Can you confirm stability/reliability of the system? I.e. No drop out, smooth transition between APs. My Eero had months running without a dropout.
3. Can you use 2 UniFi Dream Machines to create essentially wired backhaul mesh system? (Second unit as AP).
4. How about UniFi APs? What speed are you getting with which version of AP? If APs can give high enough speed, I might actually consider, DM Pro in basement utility room to feed multiple APs in home.

Thank you

 

[PracticalChip]

Questions:
1. What's the real world speed (in 1Gbps internet condition)?
2. Can you confirm stability/reliability of the system? I.e. No drop out, smooth transition between APs. My Eero had months running without a dropout.
3. Can you use 2 UniFi Dream Machines to create essentially wired backhaul mesh system? (Second unit as AP).
4. How about UniFi APs? What speed are you getting with which version of AP? If APs can give high enough speed, I might actually consider, DM Pro in basement utility room to feed multiple APs in home.

Thank you

1. What's the real world speed (in 1Gbps internet condition)?

I have 1000/1000 symmetrical connection using UDM-Base(non-pro), with IPS running with all the options I hit 850/850, without 980/980. Wired that is. That being said, no server that I have found lets me actually use that. Basically i can download something at ~50 megabytes(not bits) per second, while streaming something in 4k and have zero slowdown on my phone/kindle/whoever elses same thing.


2. Can you confirm stability/reliability of the system? I.e. No drop out, smooth transition between APs. My Eero had months running without a dropout.

Its unifi. Yes.


3. Can you use 2 UniFi Dream Machines to create essentially wired backhaul mesh system? (Second unit as AP).

Why would you do this? Get unifi AP's you can use beacon HD's, AP-PRO's, AP AC-Mesh, whatever. Don't get a second UDM.


4. How about UniFi APs? What speed are you getting with which version of AP? If APs can give high enough speed, I might actually consider, DM Pro in basement utility room to feed multiple APs in home.

That would depend on the environment. I have a 1200 SQ Ft flat and I just use the UDM and get full bars throughout.

My boss has a 5k sqft home with a really odd layout with a rather large bit of land and I have a UDM pro, 4AP's, 2 basestation-xg's, 3 AP-mesh's, 2 AP-mesh-pro's, and 2 beacon HD's throughout his house and property for basically 90% "5 bar" coverage of his entire property.

There is no situation where we can definitively say what you need, we aren't in your house.

 

[L&LD]

@Tech Focus your home seems to be currently highly oversaturated with WiFi for its size.

Do you have special requirements because of the construction materials used?

Can you provide a drawing that shows the two levels and the AP placement?

Less is always more when it is just enough.

 

[bigfatron]

@Tech Focus your home seems to be currently highly oversaturated with WiFi for its size.

Do you have special requirements because of the construction materials used?

Can you provide a drawing that shows the two levels and the AP placement?

Less is always more when it is just enough.

Agreed. I'm covering a 3 bed 2 storey house with 1 UDM on its own (that isn't even in an optimum location) and I can still get a stable and workable signal at the bottom of the garden as well. I had intended to get an AP but discovered I didn't particularly need it.

 

[Trip]

@Tech Focus - Besides the fact that it sounds like you're over-saturating your house with too much noise and co-interference, the speeds you're seeings from your clients are probably all that you're going to get, as the limit is most likely the client, not the AP/station. For more insight into actual attainable speeds and best-practice in deploying wifi, I'd highly recommend reading this Duckware article -- that's not to pawn you off; it really is an excellent guidance piece (and does save me the explaining!).

Regarding the UDM/UDM-PRO, they're on the finishing stretch of being truly production-ready. I'd give them by the end of the summer/early fall. That said, they're mostly stable as it is, so probably not a bad choice as your gateway/controller/1-AP if intending on going all-UniFi. But do understand UniFi's strong-suit is scalability of fronthaul via low-power and close proximity, which is basically the opposite of the consumer all-in-one paradigm of high-power, over-amplification. You really have to site-survey properly, get wired drops to where they need to be, and do so with quality cabling and patching -- ie. pro-level work and network design. That's really the only way to "improve" the network, if one can call it that. If all you're equating improvement to be is raw wireless speeds, UniFi likely won't get you there, nor will most any other small business or enterprise system in a like-for-like gear swap, with nothing else overhauled or reevaluated.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[Tech Focus]

Hello guys,

Thank you very much for detailed replies. Here is my home layout.

Main floor

Walkout Basement

A little background. When I originally moved to this home 3 years ago or so, I had R7000 Netgear router. Since this house did not have any Ethernet wiring as it was built in 1950's. So I went for Orbi. I started out with 1 satellite + router combo with router placed in main floor relatively in middle where cable comes in and current Ax11000 router sits. Because change in need and hard to reach signals in basement right and left ends, eventually I ended up adding Wall Plug satellite (first) and later second full size Satellite. Together 9000 sqft worth coverage rated Orbi. But Orbi was never stable despite had really high speed reading for my original 300 Mbps service when connected. But stability was more important, so I went for Eero Pro x3. It was very stable but wasn't as fast as Orbi at its peak speed (by far slower). This is where I probably got addicted to WiFi. I ended up getting Ethernet hardwiring in various place of house with Cat 6a. I then found out we can get 1 Gbps download in my area. With all these, I started look for the best of the best (at least that what I thought at that time). So I ended up choosing AiMesh WiFi 6 set up. Originally, started Ax11000 x 2. Eventually added Ax92U. Right now I would say my coverage is decent except left most basement room, where I get occasional disconnect but when speed is tested it gives over 300 Mbps (not iPerf 3 but using Internet speed test). In reality, I may be really suffering network stability rather than range coverage.

So after owing Ax11000 over an year, I decided to some unofficial official test using internet speed site, again I can do iPerf 3 but I personally like internet speed test. My results were a bit surprise to me, but ended up in concordant with what's on the net. WiFi 6 gave 30% boost at its peak performance i.e. when I'm next to the router. In more practical use e.g. next room with wall, when compared to Wifi 5 devices, it was more of 10+% boost for single device throughput, which again I found out after my result what we would expect fro WiFi 6.

At this point, I made my hypothesis may be with more efficient WiFi5 router/access point, WiFi overhead is lower and it can close the gap of 10% speed boost on my single WiFi 6 device, and rest of my 40+ WiFi 5 device will actually see speed boost. Hence, I ended up arriving to UniFi as a potential setup to try.

In fact, I have now got UniFi UAP-AC-HD. The reason I went for HD is to get extra Ethernet port as most of my Ethernet wall jack are single port. I also wanted to test max possible capability of UniFi system so if this does not provide adequate speed or disprove my hypothesis/hope, I though I could put my obsession to the rest. Basically, I could tell myself my current AiMesh set up with the best I can get and just bite some instability as trade off/side effect. But the test result turned out a huge surprise to me. UniFi actually outperformed Ax11000 AiMesh nodes in every case even iPhone 11 Pro. So very next day or perhaps the night of the test, I ended up ordering Dream Machine Pro and UAP-AC-HD Nano. I tried to move around AP-HD but I feel I would need at least 2 more APs in my home and that would be too much to spend (not that I haven't spent enough already). So I thought I would give a try to Nano which is a half the price. I can save HD to area where I really need local switch. Even though it's been only 3-4 days and I am moving around AP-HD for testing, when my device connected to it, I feel improved stability and speed.

@PracticalTip,

I was thinking DM x 2, it's because DM has multiple ethernet ports, so I was hoping to use like switch + AP combo, which I am more familiar with in AiMesh node. Most of ethernet jack I got installed was a single jack so if I use for AP, I have no other Ethernet port.

 

[bigfatron]

Hello guys,

Thank you very much for detailed replies. Here is my home layout.

Main floor

Walkout Basement

A little background. When I originally moved to this home 3 years ago or so, I had R7000 Netgear router. So I went for Orbi. Started 1 satellite router combo but eventually needed to add wall plug then full satellite (9000sqft worth). But Orbi was never stable enough, so I went Eero Pro x3. Very stable but wasn't as fast as Orbi at its peak speed (by far slower). So I eventually got

Obviously, it didn't cover enough range at all and house was built in 1950's so no ethernet jack. However, I had to use basement room as my work office and needed as high speed as possible. Internet (cable service) came through main floor right in the middle where I currently have Ax11000 router. So at that point I purchased Netgear Orbi with a hope to get best performance. Initial purchase was 1 big Satellite + Router with Satellite placed in the office (left end room). I cannot remember how much ISP speed I had back then, may be 100-300 Mbps but Satellite ethernet did give very good proportion of the speed. However, our bedroom is located main floor right end. In there, I did not get enough WiFi signal to the point I get complete disconnect. So I ended up buying wall-plug mini Satellite which was supposed to give additional 1000 or 1500 sqft coverage. At this point, I think I was already 6000 or so coverage worth of Orbi product. But then right lower end basement room became a problem. That area is essentially surrounded by brick. No matter where I move the wall-plug it won't reach there. So then I got full another full Satellite (now 9000 sqft coverage). Orbi's instability; however, just became annoyance so I went Eero Pro x 3 set (supposed to cover 5 or 6000 if I remember right). It was super stable system. But I was getting only double digit speed in some places while paying for 300 Mbps. And my office basically needed to be changed to now right most basement room which is where getting WiFi signal was impossible. So I finally had contractor install Cat 6A ethernet ports in various places of my home. At this point, our area got 1Gbps download service offering so I went for it.

For AiMesh, I started two Ax11000 first and eventually added Ax92U. I would say coverage is decent except left most basement room, which we starting to use more and needing more consistent internet. Hence, I started look for final... AiMesh node. But then it came to mind, AiMesh system stability has never been as good as Eero, so may be I should just look other. Recently I did some test using Internet Speed (intentionally I did this not iPerf 3). Basically, my results were in concordant with what's on the net. WiFi 6 really gives 30% boost but that's only when really close. Otherwise, it's practically only 10% boost for single device throughput. So I've started thinking may be good WiFi 5 may have less overheads and even be able to compensate the 10% difference. Hence, I arrived to UniFi. Oh and by the way, my attached garage located top of left most room in main floor on the rendering gets "no signal" when I close the door even though it looks so close to router.

In fact, I've got UniFi UAP-AC-HD couple days ago. I wanted to test max possible capability of UniFi system before committing to switch to UniFi system. In fact, I was thinking my AiMesh system is as good as it can get for now and I just have to bite stability and was thinking this test would have just confirmed there is no alternative. (I then was going to return the UAP-AC-HD). But it turned out, UniFi actually outperformed AiMesh nodes in every case even iPhone 11 Pro. If anyone interested in this test result, I plan to make a YouTube video talking about this. But last night I have actually ended up ordering Dream Machine Pro and UAP-AC-HD Nano. I tried to move around AP-HD but I feel I would need at least one more AP in my home but I want to test HD Nano (since it's half the price of HD) and if its does its job, I can save HD to area where I really need local switch.

@PracticalTip,

I was thinking DM x 2, it's because DM has multiple ethernet ports, so I was hoping to use like switch + AP combo, which I am more familiar with in AiMesh node. Most of ethernet jack I got installed was a single jack so if I use for AP, I have no other Ethernet port.

If you want extra ethernet ports then some of the better APs support passthrough and I think the wall mount APs do also.

 

[Tech Focus]

If you want extra ethernet ports then some of the better APs support passthrough and I think the wall mount APs do also.

Ah! Didn’t even think about it. Thank you.