U6-LR Review and Benchmarks 

Agree they state on the website it has 2x the range of the old AC LR. Still searching for a video that can back this statement up.

I have one that is covering the space between cabin and barn on a ranch. I haven't tested the full range, but the barn is around 250 yards and gets a nice signal still.

@@gerhardoosthuizen4191 Where do they say that?

@@theeclectic6015 This is at least something to go off of. I have heard so little about actual range on these things. I care about connectivity for messages and calls, not speed. Either way, if it reaches farther it will be faster farther away.

Has maybe half the range of my Linksys WRT1900AC. Not very impressed with it tbh. Feels like a waste for $200. Will also mention the 2.4GHz radio in my Mikrotik router has an insane amount of range compared to both of those, and that thing is ancient, so IDK why the U6-LR doesn't have very long range. It's also terrible at penetrating walls and floors in a house. Best used for big open office spaces or auditoriums.

@@frostbite1991 Sure, as I said, it would have been better to see its real world range tested, rather than its close-range throughput.

@@Rosscoff2000 yea I have yet to see real world long distance testing on these things. Probably because the distance sucks haha.

@@frostbite1991 my UAP AC LR has crazy distance, I doubt the distance sucks

@@851995STARGATE different model, there's lots of people complaining about the U6-LR. currently using an old Linksys 1900AC as an access point and it's performing way better than my U6-LR ever did, no matter how many hours of reconfiguring I did on it. And yes, I did scan nearby wifi to ensure it wasn't on a bloated channel.

Same here. Planning on hardwiring the barn ultimately, but holy crap connects at 5Ghz to the downlink thru metal! Beast-mode!

What is the line of sight like from the AP to the extender?

@@ClickyCoyote Nothing you can really do if there are thick concrete or block walls... mine UAP-AC-LR goes 70ft through a brick wall and 4 apartments in a townhouse built in the late 70s... I suspect the U6-LR I just got will do even better.

@@zadekeys2194 A couple of walls between. And a shed wall, but it's pretty thin.

This is a temp setup but: AP behind a TV (no direct line of site) through gas insulated windows (doubt that matters much, then about 80 ft and hits the downlinked AC Pro inside of Barn. Barn is all metal but I did make a line of site through the barn window to the interior windows. It doesn't have the strongest signal but still pulls ~50 Mbps with ZERO interruptions and latency has only increased 2ms compared to my living room. Uplink U6-LR has ~30 other devices on it to including streaming devices and a camera that's uploading constantly (temp...cameras will get hardwired of course...I'm tired at night!). Working great all things considered. For the U6-LR to not make it 50ft there must be some serious stuff in it's way. Metal and concrete usually give me the most trouble at home and work (I work IT). Good luck to u, I just think this baby is a beast. ... At least until the pro/6e's come out ;-)

At leas in Germany with a max transmit power of 23dbi it’s not really giving me more range then the lite. So the antenna pattern doesn’t seem to be improved much.

Ixl

Agreed. 2.5 gig should be the minimum at this point.

Why in the world they would build something to support that many clients at that wifi speed and give it only a 1gig connection is a head scratcher.

Ubiquiti probably want people to buy the u6-lr HD with dual nic lol. something like that.

from the guy who understands a little: can clients communicate with each other without going thru the NIC??

​@@Sam-qg1dy I am also not an expert, but I think I understand your question. If there are two clients connected to the same AP, would trying to transmit data to each other (which is rare) would the AP be able to route the traffic between the two devices without relying on its own NIC. I don't think so. I think all traffic through an AP will have to go all the way back to the switch, and then return back to the AP to be transmitted to the client who happens to be connected to the same AP.

Would you mind sharing what speeds you get with that setup and on what mobile device? I have been struggling with AP's throughput since day one, it's been 3 years and was never able to get over 120 mbps on a wire connection that peaks at 600

At least as it sits in the EA store, the U6-Pro is still a single 1Gbps port.

@@Zizzily So they're expecting 5Gbps to flow down a 1Gbps cable? Madness.

@@isbestlizard Well, they're expecting it to do it client-to-client. Wireless is also half-duplex.

Exactly!

Sure, but we know that the range is improved, what we don't know is how it stacks up compared to the other APs in the Unifi lineup as far as speed and stability. When it comes to range, everyone's mileage will vary and there is no single type of testing that would have given a good analysis of this product other than simply comparing antenna gain. Most people today who believe that they have "range issues" in fact have either interference issues or lack the experience to know how to properly count for or distribute APs throughout their environment. Unifi has a great product set for serious range issues but that is a whole different product line. To analyze the range improvement from the previous generation LR, the AC-LR has a single dual-band antenna at 2.4Ghz, 3dBi and 5Ghz, 3dBi. The U6-LR has a single dual-band antenna, at 2.4, 4dBi and 5Ghz, 5.5dBi. The AC-LR has a max TX power of 24dBm@2.4Ghz and 22dBm@5Ghz. The max power on the U6-LR is 26dBm on both 2.4 and 5Ghz. Of course, the big winner here for range is the Wifi 6 technology, specifically the MIMO and OFDMA. Having these both means significantly more bandwidth from further away which, let's face it, doesn't matter to a lot of people if it's only a 10% or a 200% improvement as long as it is an improvement. The one metric that I wish was talked more about is RX amplification, physical antenna size and the various chip technologies designed to help the AP "hear" the client from a long distance or through interference. Although we can improve the power that these APs output, doing so doesn't always improve the distance that they are able to communicate as the AP still needs to be able to detect the weak return signal of the device in question. At the end of the day, Unifi brags that the U6-LR has 2x further range than the AC-LR... and I believe it although the devil is in the details and your mileage will significantly vary. For most, this will solve problems that they should have solved through different means but for many it'll be a happy improvement to their current wifi situation.

U6lr have rang twice of nano

U6lr have on second floor going through concrete floors decks

Been using one for a while and the range is incredible. I use to have to mesh to get out to my garage. I replaced my nanoHD with the U6-LR and was able to not only remove the mesh but also get 80Mhz 5Ghz in the garage with great results. Excellent range. Blows away the AC-LR and the nanoHD. I own two AC-LR's and a nanoHD plus an AC-Lite.

Good suggestion - but a lot of wires to run.

@@CrosstalkSolutions Have you tried running iPerf simultaneously across all of the clients? Another suggestion would be maybe put an SSD or SSD Cache in the NAS for the file copy test?

Probably when it leaves early access, which is an unknown time.

The IW-HD also supports 160 MHz channels.

And the Nano HD too :)

Also in US

I'm using the UAP-NanoHD and my 5GHz Channel Width is set to VHT160 as well...

Been using the U6-LR for a while now, it rocks. But yes 160Mhz is not the reason to buy it at all. The range is incredible and at 80Mhz it rocks in my sub-urban environment. The range is better then the AC-LR, the nanoHD, etc. I own an AC-Lite, 2 AC-LR's a nanoHD and now the U6-LR. The U6-LR is my fav next to the nanoHD.