Want to move away from Asus routers, Ubiquiti? advice needed

[user1234567890]

I was under impression you do have Ethernet around the house. If you don't - this changes the game.



Was this old router enough to cover the place? If yes or almost - you better get a new All-In-One router. I would try RT-BE88U, it's dual-band, but it has expected better range and all the ports you need in one reasonable priced device. It may have some firmware quirks, but based on user feedback works well. You have to set some realistic expectations and find the balance between cost and speed. If you go for speed in this thick brick walls house the cost of the project including new Ethernet infrastructure may jump sky high.

Thanks. There's no ethernet in any part of the house, apart from the room where the router is, and it is all connected in relatively short 3m runs, and all hidden and tidied behind a big AV cabinet, and normally it is pristine, but at the moment, it's a mess, because I keep changing routers and other devices. It's easy enough for me to run a cable from downstairs to upstairs, but it will mean running it outside.

So, regarding the 2.5gbe question. I was thinking that with the faster wifi 6e speeds, two of us connected at once working (zoom, teams etc), plus daughter on YouTube may saturate a 2.5gbe?

The old router was ok. it wasn't outstanding as far as coverage goes. Upstairs was obviously much less and there was nothing at all outside in the garden, and there is now with the BE98. I would like to keep that strength of signal if possible, all over the house. I saw the U7 Pro Wall, and that has a 2.5gbe, and ticks all the other boxes, do you reckon that would be enough for a busy family/working from home setup, or add a second one upstairs? I do have realistic expectations, but this is all new territory for me, so if it seems like I don't, it's just lack of knowledge on this subject, which is why I'm here

As for ideal conditions, well, no. It's an unusual house, in that the main supporting wall through the centre, is also a chimney, which is about 4 or 5 bricks thick, so that can cause wifi problems if the signal is not that great to start with. It's fine with the BE98 all over the house and in the garden. With the RT-AC68U, the ring doorbell would sometimes disconnect. and the signal was not the best on the back bedroom, but it was useable.

 

[user1234567890]

Ethernet infrastructure may jump sky high.

It would be just a single cable, as far as I can tell for the AP? everything else that needs to be wired is in the same room as the router.

 

[degrub]

Thanks. There's no ethernet in any part of the house, apart from the room where the router is, and it is all connected in relatively short 3m runs, and all hidden and tidied behind a big AV cabinet, and normally it is pristine, but at the moment, it's a mess, because I keep changing routers and other devices. It's easy enough for me to run a cable from downstairs to upstairs, but it will mean running it outside.

So, regarding the 2.5gbe question. I was thinking that with the faster wifi 6e speeds, two of us connected at once working (zoom, teams etc), plus daughter on YouTube may saturate a 2.5gbe?

The old router was ok. it wasn't outstanding as far as coverage goes. Upstairs was obviously much less and there was nothing at all outside in the garden, and there is now with the BE98. I would like to keep that strength of signal if possible, all over the house. I saw the U7 Pro Wall, and that has a 2.5gbe, and ticks all the other boxes, do you reckon that would be enough for a busy family/working from home setup, or add a second one upstairs? I do have realistic expectations, but this is all new territory for me, so if it seems like I don't, it's just lack of knowledge on this subject, which is why I'm here

As for ideal conditions, well, no. It's an unusual house, in that the main supporting wall through the centre, is also a chimney, which is about 4 or 5 bricks thick, so that can cause wifi problems if the signal is not that great to start with. It's fine with the BE98 all over the house and in the garden. With the RT-AC68U, the ring doorbell would sometimes disconnect. and the signal was not the best on the back bedroom, but it was useable.

Not a chance of saturating a 1 Gbit/s line.
Remember, link rate does not equal bandwidth being used.

i ran a household for years with 2 work at home corporates, 3 kids including 1 gamer, on a 38 Mbit/s ADSL ISP line. No issues at all. The only slowdown was occasional slowdown if i was downloading large files and a little extra latency for the gamer that hardly noticed.

And many web servers limit client bandwidth to around 100 Mbit/s anyway.

 

[user1234567890]

Not a chance of saturating a 1 Gbit/s line.
Remember, link rate does not equal bandwidth being used.

i ran a household for years with 2 work at home corporates, 3 kids including 1 gamer, on a 38 Mbit/s ADSL ISP line. No issues at all. The only slowdown was occasional slowdown if i was downloading large files and a little extra latency for the gamer that hardly noticed.

And many web servers limit client bandwidth to around 100 Mbit/s anyway.

Excellent, thanks

 

[Tech9]

So, regarding the 2.5gbe question. I was thinking that with the faster wifi 6e speeds, two of us connected at once working (zoom, teams etc), plus daughter on YouTube may saturate a 2.5gbe?

May get to 25-50Mbps... if your daughter is watching YouTube at UHD 4K resolution.

I have a family of four and our usual daily online activities rarely exceed 100Mbps bandwidth. The reason I have no need of faster than Gigabit ISP lines and faster than Gigabit home network. What you see in my signature is Gigabit equipment, does around 940Mbps wired and around 800Mbps wireless on 5GHz 80MHz non-DFS. Don't overpay for hardware.

 

[Tech9]

The old router was ok.

Seriously, get an RT-BE88U and call it a day. There is always something better, but in some cases the cost and extra complication doesn't make sense. If an RT-AC68U was almost there - all you need is a newer All-In-One home router. It's £275 on Amazon UK.

 

[oldguy]

Use UniFi Design Center to find out how many APs you may need and what type.

UniFi Design Center

Simulate a complete UniFi system with our powerful visualization and planning tool.

design.ui.com

If you draw your place accurately including wall materials the resulting heat map will be very close to expected real life results.

U6-Enterprise 10-stream AP with 600 clients support... may be overkill for home application. Otherwise there is no cooling fan inside, they are PoE powered, but you have to select the right switch with enough PoE power budget. U6-Enterprise is a 22W PoE+ device. Multi-AP systems work best with more APs on low power. The difference in resulting Wi-Fi quality is described here.

I find Network Application in UniFi OS actually easier to manage than later complications in Asuswrt with better structured UI and Apple-like one button on/off options doing whatever you need automatically in background. It is made user-friendly enough and with some not too advanced networking knowledge an entire UniFi system can be setup quickly just using built-in help tips.

I wouldn't count phones/tablets as devices needing Wi-Fi 6E/7 connectivity. In my opinion paying extra for shorter range 6GHz band for eventual futureproofing increases significantly the project initial cost with minimal user experience improvements.

I used the Unifi design center to position my Wifi access points when I transitioned from dual ASUS AX89X mesh system and it has been super successful
The one thing that has amazed me about the Unifi network equipment is that its uptime is 120 days with no issues unlike the AX89X which required reboots every 28 days as Apple Home clients issues developed
There is also a great community support to help with any issues
Good luck with what ever option you go for

 

[user1234567890]

I'd rather not have another Asus, to be honest. It's £331 for me, as well.

 

[user1234567890]

I used the Unifi design center to position my Wifi access points when I transitioned from dual ASUS AX89X mesh system and it has been super successful
The one thing that has amazed me about the Unifi network equipment is that its uptime is 120 days with no issues unlike the AX89X which required reboots every 28 days as Apple Home clients issues developed
There is also a great community support to help with any issues
Good luck with what ever option you go for

Thanks for that, sounds perfect!

 

[Tech9]

I'd rather not have another Asus, to be honest.

Okay... in this case form Ubiquiti hardware UCG-Max with 2x U6-Mesh will give you 2.5GbE wired and close to Gigabit wireless per AP (or close to 2Gbps aggregate wireless if you have 2x 80MHz wide channels available, in the UK one has to be in DFS), APs come with PoE injector in the box and indoor/outdoor mounting hardware. You need to pull single Ethernet wire to the second AP and eventually add USW-Flex-2.5 5/8-port switch for more 2.5GbE ports. The APs are omnidirectional, waterproof, can be desktop placed, very small physical size. I have one similar system running with UCG-Ultra gateway and it has uptime forever. It will cost you around £574 + VAT (5-port switch included), not the latest and greatest (Wi-Fi 6), but tested and working great. Compared to your RT-AC68U it will be night and day difference in user experience and won't break the bank. The cost is close to single GT-BE98 router.

 

[Tech9]

You may want to replace the APs with U7-Pro for Wi-Fi 7 capable system, the cost is about the same, 2x extra PoE+ 2.5GbE power injectors needed, £15/each. The APs need to be wall/ceiling mounted though and have slightly directional radiation pattern. Get wife's approval first. U7-Pro may also come with cooling fan inside, may not be dead silent under load. They had a few design changes over time, not sure what the latest hardware revision has inside. Users say most Wi-Fi 7 quirks are solved, you are about to find out.

 

[oldguy]

You may want to replace the APs with U7-Pro for Wi-Fi 7 capable system, the cost is about the same, 2x extra PoE+ 2.5GbE power injectors needed, £15/each. The APs need to be wall/ceiling mounted though and have slightly directional radiation pattern. Get wife's approval first. U7-Pro may also come with cooling fan inside, may not be dead silent under load. They had a few design changes over time, not sure what the latest hardware revision has inside. Users say most Wi-Fi 7 quirks are solved, you are about to find out.

I might be tempted by the U7 Pro XG as it is only slightly more expensive than the U7 Pro and doesn’t seem to have as much negative sentiment

 

[Tech9]

You guys can go ahead. For new SMB hardware I would give them 6 months to figure it out. For new consumer hardware perhaps 1 year even though it may eat usually shorter support period. For Asus in particular - 2 years or some time past 50% lifetime of current firmware development cycle. Right now Asus is in the beginning of new firmware development cycle. New Wi-Fi 7 AIO router - sometime in late 2025 or mid 2026 and popular model. This usually means not the expensive GT ones, but the best price/performance RT model.

Many people around use and recommend RT-AX86U Pro and RT-AX88U Pro for a reason. They are cheaper, compatible with the new 3006 firmware and with Plan B 3004 firmware. Makes it easier to find what works best today with option to move forward tomorrow.

 

[user1234567890]

You may want to replace the APs with U7-Pro for Wi-Fi 7 capable system, the cost is about the same, 2x extra PoE+ 2.5GbE power injectors needed, £15/each. The APs need to be wall/ceiling mounted though and have slightly directional radiation pattern. Get wife's approval first. U7-Pro may also come with cooling fan inside, may not be dead silent under load. They had a few design changes over time, not sure what the latest hardware revision has inside. Users say most Wi-Fi 7 quirks are solved, you are about to find out.

Right, yes that looks good. I was just looking at the U7 Pro Wall, which seems to be more favourable, visually, to the Mrs and can be mounted on a stand, which would be ok for us. Also has 6e, so we are doing good here Total cost, if it can be within, or not much over what the BE98 cost (£659), everyone is happy. Ceiling mounting isn't an option, but wall mounting is.

Some items come up as not in stock, the injectors. They have the 10gbe ones, but 3 times the price.

I might be tempted by the U7 Pro XG as it is only slightly more expensive than the U7 Pro and doesn’t seem to have as much negative sentiment

Thanks, what is the negative sentiment around the U7 Pro, and does it include the U7 Pro Wall?

 

[Tech9]

what is the negative sentiment around the U7 Pro

You may want to look at Ubiquiti Community forums. Early U7 series APs had issues mostly with 2.4GHz band serving IoT devices, then Ubiquiti made multiple software updates and even hardware revisions. The number of complaint went down, but there is no guarantee a brand new product will be flowless right from the start. The issue I see - you don't want to find out current version of the product is better than your same product early version. No vendor will give you money back for the inconvenience.

 

[Tech9]

U7 Pro Wall

We have a happy SNB Forums member with UCG-Max and 2x U7 Pro Wall. Similar to your story, returned GT-BE98 Pro (in the US). Keep in mind though your Wi-Fi regulations in the UK are different and the same model APs in a different materials house may produce different results. You may make accidentally a mistake to set them up for a different region, but this is totally unrelated conversation.

 

[oldguy]

Some items come up as not in stock, the injectors. They have the 10gbe ones, but 3 times the price.

There are lots of POE injectors on Amazon that cost less than Ubiquiti, just look at the comments
that is

1. no comments steer clear of the product
2. Look at the 1 through 3 star ratings before making a decision
3. Make sure that the feedback is from someone who paid for the product

 

[tgl]

Yeah, PoE injectors are fairly generic. You only need to steer clear of ones that claim 100 Mbps, as those will have just 4 cable wires connected not all 8. If it promises 1Gbps, it will certainly handle 2.5Gbps (I have some generic ones off Amazon that I've used that way), and most likely 10Gbps too though I have no personal experience with that case. What's more important to worry about is the power rating (PoE/PoE+/PoE++).

 

[oldguy]

On the question of power draw: the U6-Ent has a max draw of 22W per its spec sheet, and what I see mine actually drawing when idle/loafing is 12W-13W according to my PoE switches.

the steady state power is not the primary reason for a devices POE requirements, it is the startup power where you can’t afford a power rail collapse or surge requirements which the power monitor won’t see but may cause unusual access point behaviour

 

[Tech9]

I would wait for Ubiquiti original PoE adapters and avoid no-name from Amazon. The APs are not cheap.

Purchasing Ubiquiti products may be similar to purchasing concert tickets. Many people set notifications and act fast the moment the product becomes available. One hour later may be too late. New hot products arrive in truckload and go in truckload the same day. Ubiquiti Community is kind of crazy with very high Gear Acquisition Syndrome. This Apple-style marketing makes them run and spend thousands without thinking twice just like people waiting in front of Apple stores when a new iPhone is released. Go figure.