Two new APs (Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-LR) to replace the old ones. I now have three of these in total, covering the whole house, and then some. They're controller-based APs (app runs in my server) so any and all configuration settings are always synchronized. ie. Block or restrict the wireless bandwidth of a user, and it's applied globally on all APs.
Is it really too much to ask for a reliable broadband connection? My current home network setup was predicated upon this question. My wife works from home and requires a stable broadband connection. We've also cut the cable cord and now rely on internet services for TV entertainment. So we subscribed to 2 b/band connections and setup hardware to meet the following objectives: 1. load-sharing of broadband connections 2. back-up or fail-over to the 2nd b/band if the main fails. 3. some advanced networking features (e.g., static IPs, IP route filtering) should I need them in the future. I got a 16 mbps SkyCable and a 8 mbps PLDT DSL hooked up to a TL-R470T+ load balancing router which is then connected to an Apple Time Capsule. All our devices – MBA, MBP, 2 iPads, 3 iPhones, Apple TV and an occasional Samsung phone – connect wirelessly to the Time Capsule. We used to have a media server which was a Mac mini with storage extended to a an external hard drive. However, the mini gave up on me. So our media's in the cloud now. Not in the picture, we've since then connected an IP phone to the Time Capsule since the wife needs it for work. We've setup Getflix's DNS, dynamic DNS and static IP routing just for the pure fun of Netflix. However, it's been a hit-and-miss affair so I may just have to give up on it. And even with all this effort, we still get buffering issues when watching HBO Now. Kaya... vote for Duterte. #changeiscoming
I'm considering adding this to my network. How does it compare to the regular AP? I have a problem that's been bugging me for a while now, and thats a cement wall that seems to drop my signal from a Linksys WRT1900AC setup as an AP. I wonder if an enterprise AP will work better.
The 'LR' in UAP-AC-LR means long range. Simply put, it has the strongest radio among their UAP product line. It may help with your situation but I really can't say for certain by how much it would be an improvement. Concrete walls tends to block or attenuate RF depending on their chemical makeup, thickness, and how much rebar is in there. Ideally, for you to have reliable connectivity on either side of the wall, you may need to add more APs. I bought these for their ability to handle many concurrent users, increased signal strength, and the ability to be managed centrally. Previously, I would have to access each AP to make configuration changes. Here, even channel assignments are automatic so the AP's don't contend with the same channel.
oj88: I've been seriously contemplating the Ubiquiti AP after you posted in this thread. Strange timing that my main router/AP Netgear R7000 flashed with dd-wrt is having issues with the 2.4 Ghz antenna. So I turned off both 2.4 and 5 Ghz radios on the R7000 and colocated a Time Capsule right beside it to serve as an AP. In my research of the Ubiquiti, tons of people swear by it, mostly IT pros by day based on how they talk on the videos I watched. However, when I did more research on performance, it seemed that the AC LR and even the Pro had middle of the road performance on both AC and N, at least compared to a 2013 AirPort Extreme, and most especially the high end routers like the Asus units, i.e., the 88, the 68, or the 3200, the Linksys units, i.e., the 1900AC, or the Netgear units, i.e., R8000. I understand that these samples are double to triple the price of the Ubiquiti but if you get a couple of these APs, pricing turns out to be similar. I get that manageability of Ubiquiti is better, but I'd end up deploying only 2 or 3 of these things at most anyway so manageability shouldn't be an issue for me. I live in a two floor loft condo with structured cabling and 50 Mbps fiber. As expected, there are competing wireless transmitters around the area. Policy enforcement for wireless clients isn't an issue yet, but may be in a few years. So I was hoping to get your insights on this. Speed is only becoming a concern because my WAN bandwidth is at 50 and I don't want my LAN to be the performance bottleneck. I'm pretty pissed about the R7000 breaking down so soon. Though I may have fried the 2.4 antenna and I think the culprit is the four IP cameras connected to it streaming recordings many, many times a day. I was also thinking of firing up my old Airport Express and assigning a separate SSID exclusively for devices that are used for home services like the IP cameras, printer, etc. I dunno. Or perhaps I am just drawn to the novelty of having an "enterprise" AP at home. Your wisdom would be much appreciated.
I'm glad to help. The UAPs aren't meant for the speed enthusiast. They're designed for the SMB/Enterprise segment and such, they're made for scale and stability. Unless your life relies on frequently transferring files between just a couple of wireless clients, speed is not everything. Most of my consumer APs are fast (especially the Wireless-N ones), but ALL of them would become unstable or even stop forwarding traffic altogether if the number of connected users gets into the double digits (ie. 12 and up users seems to be the magic number). The UAP-AC-LR, on the other hand, I've already tested a single AP to handle 24 connected users without any apparent sign of struggle (I've ran out of devices to connect). Ubiquiti specified in their datasheet that each unit can handle 200+ concurrent users. That said, even if we stick to a very conservative figure (say, 50 concurrent users), it's still more than what most consumer APs can handle. I've got around 30 wireless devices and another 20 wired devices scattered around the home, including security cams, laptops, a lot of mobile devices, media players, smart TVs, game consoles, IP phones, and my IT lab equipment. As for the 50mbps Internet connection, don't worry about saturating your WiFi bandwidth with that. If the WiFi is designed well, your wireless network will still be faster by AT LEAST a factor of two. To put things into perspective, I have a Plex Media Server which hosts countless Full-HD content. We are a big family and everyone can watch Plex and Netflix content concurrently, wired or wireless, without issues. In fact, prior to upgrading my Plex Media Server hardware, this server would start to balk at transcoding multiple streams before my WiFi ever does. Consider also that not all of my clients are AC, or even supports MIMO. Most are still in N, some still in G, while my really old PDA (Palm Pilot T|X, lol) is still in Wireless-B. That is to say, even with mixed wireless protocols running, I'm not hitting any wireless bottleneck. In closing, you should also have a gigabit wired LAN to connect the UAP to. I think this is self-explanatory. HTH.
oj88: Thanks for your revert. I hear you on scalability + stability. I just got my self a Netatmo Welcome IP camera with facial recognition to augment my current IP camera to Synology Surveillance Station setup. So yesterday, I was demoing my new remote surveillance monitoring workflow: Netatmo detects an unknown face --> check recording on Netatmo --> login to DS Cam via VPN to check where in the house this unknown person is going. Of course, I was able to do steps 1 and 2 without issue. But when I started up DS Cam, all the other IP cameras were disconnected! Ten minutes later, I login to DS Cam again and all cameras are streaming properly. Murphy's Law for demos strikes again! Anyway, did you ceiling or wall mount your UniFi's? I am thinking of mounting options but I didnt provision ethernet ports on the ceilings. I read a review on Ars Technica where the guy did a test with the UniFi's on a desk or floor facing up and he didnt seem to complain about signal strength. Another option I am looking at is to place them behind the TVs, which are wall mounted. But I dont know what all of the TV electronics directly in the AP's signal path will do to stability. Ceiling mounting is clearly the best, with wall mount being second, but neither of these will work for me at this point. I'll probably stick with my Apple network for now as a more urgent project is to fix my backup system for the NAS. I currently just have two external disks connected via USB 3 to the NAS and set it for a 24 to 48 hour RPO depending on content, but one of the external disks broke already. I'll probably just get another low end Synology as the backup target. The AP upgrade project is queued after that. Sheesh, with all of these home IT projects in the pipeline, I might end up needing a ServiceNow subscription soon to track all the CIs, and CRs in the network!
I like those IP cams with face recognition. I saw something similar at a technology event last year. Beyond their obvious security capabilities, the technology is also being used to gather data such as which stall at the event garnered the most number of visitors, or in a supermarket scenario, how many people walked through a particular isle, or how many people with blue shirts, for example, got into a movie theater. It can also tell if the same person (through face recognition) keeps coming back to the same product or section, in a seeming fit of trying to decide whether to buy the product or not, and the system will then change the content of a nearby digital ad display to feature the same or similar product. There were other things being demo'd and it was scary. About UAP placement, I just installed mine desktop style, facing up. Like you, I didn't had the foresight to install LAN cables in the ceiling. The UAP provides the best coverage when installed horizontally (ie. ceiling or desktop). I would not recommend it installed behind the TV, though, unless it's your last resort. The top of an open shelf would be better. My 3 UAPs are situated on top of my home server, NAS, and at the top of a bookshelf, respectively. That's 2 units on the ground floor and 1 on the 2nd flr. Covers the whole compound with no dead spots.
Just curious, is that Netatmo the brand of the IP camera? It's not listed on the compatibility list. Will the Surveillance station accept all sorts of cameras even if it's not o n the list?
Juice, It's not compatible, at least based on my experimentation. I tried to add the Netatmo using the generic OVNIF(?) setting but it was not detected. I am using the Netatmo iPhone app (there is also an Android version) to view activity, and there are push notifications. When I get an unknown face detected and I verify using the Netatmo app that it is indeed a stranger, I will fire up my VPN and launch DS Cam to check where the intruder is going. This works out for me nicely as I already have Surveillance Station coverage in my front door anyway. Furthermore, the camera connects to a Netatmo cloud service so I always get push notifications, even when not connected to my home network by VPN. So essentially, the Netatmo for me is an adjunct system to surveillance station for stranger detection only. Since there are people in the house all day, I'm getting hundreds of false alarms a day on surveillance station, bad enough that I am hitting daily quota on Gmail sending. The downside here is when you have guests, like I did earlier tonight. Netatmo was going wild detecting his unknown face that I just created a profile for him to stop these notifications. It will likely be worse tomorrow night when I get a few more guests in the house. Perhaps there is a setting to suspend these alerts when I'm home. All in all though, I like the product a lot. Integration into my network was seamless, with no port forwarding or other setting needed on the router (and my uPnP is switched off). The biggest issue for me is mounting since it is made to places on a tabletop instead of mounting from the ceiling, which I would have preferred.
Got it. I'm having a hard time looking for compatible devices. So far, I have 2 Dlink 930L. I was planning on expanding with a sweeping cam. On a totally unrelated note, I caught one of our female visitors scratching like a man scratches! Now, I can't un-see it anymore. I should put a sign that says "This room is being monitored".
I have a few Foscam C1 and one DLink 942 cameras and am pretty happy with the Foscam, not so much the DLink. If I expand with a PTZ camera I would likely go with the Foscam as well.
Hi @oj88 , if you don't mind me asking, how much do those UAP-AC-LR cost? I'm thinking of trying one out for one floor in our small office. We have close to 20 desktops and our LAN gets clogged up by lunch time almost everyday. I'm suspecting it's the DHCP server paralleled with a Wifi Internet Router with DHCP Disabled causing this.
Got them from here: http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-UAP-...UTF8&qid=1463034944&sr=8-1&keywords=uap-ac-lr Shipped to me via MSB. Landed price will be in the whereabouts of P5.5k, each.
Ok. Do I still need to use a dedicated DHCP Server, or can I just use the UAP? I saw one at PCHub Edge, not far naman yung price and since I'll use it for work, better for the warranty purposes din.
Sorry, I sorta missed the DHCP part. You will have to setup a separate DHCP server. I don't recall the UAPs having a built-in DHCP server. In fact, the UAPs are configured by default to receive an address from a DHCP server when provisioning them. You can set up your router/firewall to be the DHCP server. But there should only be one DHCP server on your network. If the DHCP server is not your router, make sure the default-gateway is setup to point to your router. Hmmm... I seem to have mentioned "DHCP server" a lot.
