I figured that it would be best to start at the top. My main wifi access point for the house (a two up two down mid-terraced victorian stone walled house) looks a bit weird forward facing, however as I currently live in a rental accomodation, I can’t just screw things into the wall and the ceiling.
I have had mixed opinions about this AP. It was the first to offer wifi 7 support, at 6ghz, and this is where the issues have been notable.
My internet is Virgin Media 1GB down, 100MB up. This has been pretty solid but I think it’s worth mentioning. When I added the AP to the Unifi control centre, I created a single multi-channel SSID for everything to connect to. I basically just wanted the controller to decide whether something should connect to 2.4ghz, 5ghz or 6ghz. My issue with the AP ultimately is that it seemed to me that the connection on 6ghz capable devices would flick between the 5 and 6ghz designations. As such it seemed from devices that the connection was very ‘flaky’ and unstable.
After reading online it seems that the software that backs up the AP is particularly buggy. I fixed the issues by splitting out the three different bandwidths of connection into seperate SSIDs. Right now everything is just connected to a 5ghz SSID and it’s running solid. Current updated firmware versions for the AP seem to have fixed 6ghz to a degree, but I have everything wired that needs it, short of my phone and consoles (I hate running excess cables, it’s fine, they just download updates etc). The wired connection is faultless, the wifi is fine just stuck to the 5ghz connection.
I have no issue upstairs or down, and the management of the AP via the Unifi control software on the UDM Pro is amazing. My biggest complaint about ISP provided hardware is the wifi is so damn shitty. Connections drop, DNS is crap, and devices regularly just dont seem to be able to get to the requested websites without a large loading delay.
Future upgrades would probably be the E7, in the current lineup. Damn, that E7 is sexy. But at over £450 I think it’s overkill anyway for a little homestead like mine but it does make me drool!
I’d give this a 7/10 for my happiness factor. It’s solid, but the 6ghz issues have been a bit of a pain. Ultimately this was an upgrade over the U6 Lite and is much better coverage wise, but still, it’s not a perfect device for me.