Unifi Mesh Pro

[Tech Savvy]

Hi All,
Im doing some sub work for a security company(cameras, key fobs, hospital doors..etc). They are trying to install cameras at one of their customers sites and are looking to setup cameras over wifi so they asked me to beef it up a bit.

The property isn't huge, but its not small. The house was built in 1906 so running wires is a pain, although I have full access to an unfinished basement. So I was thinking of adding two access points outside via the basement. So one going out to the front and one going out to the back.

I picked up a pair of AC Mesh Pros, but I am running a hardline... is it possible for these puppies to be put into a full AP mode rather than a mesh AP? I've never used one before and honestly I was really surprised at the size of it, its a lot bigger than I thought. In other words, I want the uplink to be the hard line rather than wifi.

I was going to use the Unifi AC Mesh, with the directional antennas, but the pro has the 3x3. I recently saw that the regular Unifi AC Pro is outdoor rated too, but I didnt know that until after I purchased these two AC Mesh Pros.

Thanks!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

They will defer to using the ethernet first, if a connection is detected. Then will not try to wireless uplink when they detect they are hard wired.

BUT, when in the Unifi controller, for each site...there's a check enabled by default to "Enable wireless uplink connectivity monitor". IF your site does NOT have any wireless uplinks being used, you gain some performance for all the APs by disabling this setting (unchecking it). Because, leaving that enabled, each AP will send out regular heartbeats....looking for neighboring isolated APs sending out heartbeat/beacons. This causes use of airtime. Not a lot. But..if you don't have wireless uplinks being used, turn off that feature per site.

 

[Tech Savvy]

Finished with the install, all went well, but I wanted to report back for anyone here that is thinking of using the AP Mesh Pros. They seemed to be EXTREMELY directional. I was shocked at how directional they were.

My original mounting location was horizontally along the trim on the side of the house, just around the back left corner of the house. Even though I needed a strong WiFi signal in the back yard, I placed it on the side and horizontally on the white trim so that it was out of the way and blended in. I thought that just going around the corner wouldnt really affect it to much, but boy was I wrong! After I mounted it there got it all configured up an ready to go, I did a quick test and my signal in the far back of the backyard was "okay", but speeds were sluggish! I was like this cannot be. Same if I started to go towards the front of the house along the side yard,... better, but still kind of sluggish in comparison to the rest. For giggles I went to the big open lot next door... this was almost a football field away in direct line with the AP and I was gettting phenomenal signal and speed.

Needless to say I rotated the AP so that it was vertical again and mounted on the white corner trim of the house, very high above their deck. I retested and had great coverage and speeds all the way down to the dock, they'll be getting close to 400mbps on their boat now, but I was not expecting that at all. Im glad I left enough line to go around the corner and up the side of the house.

P.S. House is raised, so the original location was about 8ft off of the ground. Now its about 15 ft off the ground.