Unifi Mesh - Fix Your WiFi Issues! 

So funny enough - after a couple of days of my buddy running his UniFi system after I made these improvements, we discussed it and I may NOT have to go down there to do the extra improvements that I recommended. Funny how that works...but if it ain't broke, don't fix it! He's going to live with it for a bit and see what it's like...but wanted to mention that there may never be a follow-up video here.

Man you explained it so much better than an old teacher I had years ago, well done again my friend.

That was excellent and it made me realise I’d got an uplink configuration error in my own setup. Thanks very much 👍 Looking forward to your "on-the-road" episode.

I like your editing style. Getting your videos to present smoothly is key. And you do it well.

Absolutely the clearest explanation on mesh networking logic and fundamentals that I have found. Excellent all around. Kudos and please keep doing what you do!

Hey Chris. Have you ever thought about doing a video on how to layout access points in multi story homes? I live in a two story house with a basement and am racking my brain trying to figure out the best layout so the wifi APs don’t interfere with each other. In a squarish house, makes sense to put them in the middle but then they are stacked on top of one another. UniFi design centre doesn’t work in 3D. Think about it! Keep up the great work.

I really enjoy these Chris. They're fun and informative. Thanks for all your work in presenting these videos.

I'm a networking noob with a bunch of Ubiquity stuff in his house, trying to understand how his meshing setup should look like. This video is pure gold for me. Thank you soo much

Thank you SOOOOO much for this video. The mesh only via 5Ghz was a lightbulb moment and while after you explained some of the manual mesh settings, they seem quite intuitive. I can't believe its taken me this long to find this video. I added a Beacon HD in my house were I cant add a wire. I turned "auto" mesh on my two hardwired access points thinking they both had to have mesh turned on. Its been a mess until your video explained the 5Ghz meshing and the manual settings. Thx so much for all your vids.

As always another great video which is clear (one of the best on youtube) and very informative, Sometimes too much as I have lost clients by mentioning your youtube channel. Personally I didn't learn anything new here but I know MANY!!! that would. Huge thanks for your wonderful content Chris and keep up the good work. look forward to your next release.

finally videos where I don't need subtitles, thanks for being clear in your explanations, greetings from Italy

Well done! I understand so much more about meshing now, im about to do a tiny mesh at home and know how im going to set it up for best performance. THANK YOU!

Thinking of replacing my current nighthawk mesh with UniFi and this video helped tons with my decision to pull the trigger. I love the flexibility and configurability options. Love the explanations and advice.

Chris, I'm installing a couple of these UAP-AC-M-PRO on the outside of a new home. The home is new construction so we're installing all of the wring inside the house in a "rough-in" stage of preparation for insulation and drywall. The "standard thought" is to simply drill a hole in the siding and bring the roughed-in wiring into the AP directly. The exterior of the house is clapboard/lapped siding and to make for a nicer install, the carpenter is putting a block in the siding to allow for flat-mounting the AP to the outside of the home. I'm using the UI Tough cable and it's a bit stiff to bend up and into the bottom of the AP where the input is. It's also black wiring and will be exposed for the homeowner to see. My thought is to install a single-gang old work box flush-mounted into the siding block, oriented horizontally and then screw the mount to the single-gang box screws of the cover and include a keystone jack in the cover, too. This allows the rough-in wiring to be terminated int eh box and then a short jumper cable to be installed from the keystone to the AP (color of choice and a more flexible cable) with the intention of making a neat/clean installation. You and your staff have installed several, I'm sure (and maybe some of your followers) and I wanted to know if anyone has ever done this type of installation that I've described - or if there are any suggestions for a better/cleaner outcome. Thanks in advance. Matt

Truly fantastic information, presented in an easily understood manner. I'm really looking forward to the follow up!

Best advice ever for Wi-Fi I seen to date and on a side note wide fingers don’t play nice with share button next to other items.

Wow. Great video! Been waiting for one like this.. thanks !!

Totally agreed on the hardwiring, but even then, it is odd to have two APs basically near each other, and even more so, the regular AP outside and the 'mesh' on in the bedroom. I would have put the APs inside (looks nice and tidy), then the hardwired Mesh AP on the outside, or remove it totally. I actually found having a mix of old APs and the 5GHz ones really kicked the performance down too. I wasn't aware meshing was only on 5GHz band, but I guess that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the detail in the video, very handy!

I have an AC mesh on the side of my metal barn. From there I hard-wired an AP-lite on the inside of the building. The AC mesh is more of a bridge. I love this stuff and you make it fun and easy to learn how to make it better. Have a beer or coffee on me...

What a helpful video. Just understanding how to better manually select Channels was what I needed.

Great setting up an already messed up setup. Very nice house, hope you share with us the the WIFI remake.

Chris, just fantastic, thanks man! This is like the icing on the cake for me 😎

really very useful explanation. Thanks for the video and the time you took to make it.

Would love to see a similar settings video for PTMP set ups. With nano stations or nano beams. Something that talks about the spectrums and best practices.

Thanks for all your videos, great info!

Nice vid Chris. Very informative!

Very good video, many thanks for the good understandable explanation.

Big thanks. Did not know the mesh used 5GHz and that the channels for the meshed devices had to be the same for mesh to work. I was trying to space the 5GHz similar to what you do with the 2.4ghz. Huge help !

This is actually incredibly useful, thank you!

I delayed use of the Unifi auto optimization feature based on your comments. However with (17 switches) 19 APs over 16 acre campus and 165 wifi devices regularly connected - doing what you did was driving me crazy. I finally turned on auto optimize and it has dramartially improved the entire network wifi. All APs are above 90% incluing three meshed access points. It would be interesting if you compared your results to the auto optimize feature.

That was such an eye opening video ... THANKS Chris for doing so! Key was that meshing is happening only/based on the 5GHz band only #yikes

Great video Chris. Much appreciated.

Awesome work, thanks for the info.

Learned a lot. Thanks.

it helped me. Thanks for a great review

Great job on this video!

Fantastic Video - Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. Understood well, really well presented.. Thanks Chris (once again!) I currently live in a 1200 year old house in the UK with 35inch (90cm) stone walls in-between every room. Spent 3 weekends wiring outdoor ethernet (not ideal but only real solution without drilling for oil (holes)) lol - Really love your videos and you convinced me to buy Unif! 1 x UDM SE, 4 x Wifi 6 Pro and 4 x G4 Bullets - Think I've finally got a robust network across the house. I'm pretty lucky to have 1Gbit connection plumbed into a rural old property, may look at consultancy to setup IOT, Guest Networks, let me know if interested and fees - Thanks

Great and funny explanation. :) Thanks for the video.

I've been doing my own home project and started only wired uplink, and eventually relocating old APs as meshed APs this video helped me understand what I was intuitively doing. As knowledge evolves, I realize I have too many APs. Now I will start doing fun projects

Thank you for this video, I have learn a lot from it.

Good job on the video , easy to understand. Sigh perfectly good fence on the side of the property, would have been trivial to just wire the coop and guest house :)

I recently took down a full Unifi Mesh system that consisted of a UAP-AC-M-Pro as ROOT and 3 UAP-AC-M REMOTE. At the head is a UDM-Pro. Each AC Mesh was linked to the AC MESH Pro and set up to connect only that way. I had no issues with client connectivity and performance. My issue was the MESH would not reestablish after rebooting the UDM-Pro. I did that intentionally to see if the MESH would come back up. One of the remotes came back up but was flakey. In the end it required forgetting each remote, resetting each remote and then readopting each remote. I already had things set basically as you recommended. RSSI between remotes and the ROOT AP are all in the -58 top -62 range. Interference on 5Ghz is minimal to non existent. As stated, connectivity and speeds were very good. My only problem was the MESH not coming back up, something we cannot have since we can't have someone onsite to go through the tedious process of setting it back up again. With the exception of the UMD-Pro, I returned all the equipment and put our TP-Link Omada back in place. I want to give it another shot but will start with just the AC Mesh Pro and one AC Mesh. I do require a total of 3 AC Mesh so if the MESH is stable with the one, I will add another, and so on. Any ideas on why the MESH would fail like that?

No doubt if you can CABLE it; do so! I've also used a couple PTP (bridged) solutions to create dedicated pathways for camera systems in the past. For now; most ONVIF compliant cameras are only 100MB. Love wireless products and systems...BUT they should always compliment a cabled solution. Thanks for your videos/channel as its very informative and helpful.

This was a huge help. ❤

Love this video. Thank you!

Even without hardwiring, the situation could be improved by relocating the patio AP a bit more "north" in the map to put it into the line of sight to the two downlink APs. That should also render the "Mesh" AP even more useless, so that it can be decomissioned.

Great video, thanks!!!

Great video, it's always good to see how other people do things. Personally I usually try to set all 2.4 APs to the same channel when possible. My reasoning is that since clients tend to roam to the strongest APs then interference with other APs (Or their clients) is likely minimal. The advantage is that this discourages neighbors from using that channel.

Excited for next video! I have been using nano beams for the outposts and an OMNI directional rocket. Because the buildings are spread out and no way to run wires. Interested to see the solution you come up with.

Thank you for the very informative video, please may you also do a video on the new early release unifi ap firmware - UAP Firmware 6.2.9 that improves wireless roaming

Chris, I think you need a vacation to the beautiful Black Forest in Germany. I live 20 minutes from Switzerland and 30 minutes from France. I have a horse farm here so you could bring your kids and they could ride all day. You, well, I could keep you busy setting up my network so you don't get bored. My home is 15,000sq ft. , three stories with 80cm thick stone walls. A few hardwire ethernet cables. It is beautiful this time of year!

The hypothetical example at 27:00 isn't using uplink and downlink unless you leave the guest house meshed to the patio to protect against a wire failure. The example is really just showing the coop wap using a secondary uplink.

Thanks Chris, now I get mesh wifi.

Love the video, thank you!. I would love for you to troubleshoot Sonos. It's been the bain of my existence since I've gone to Unifi. Thank you!

One thing I've noticed about these unifi mesh networks is that if you find them doing something strange such as taking multiple hops when a single good one is available it usually implies interference or some other unknown problem that is worth looking into.

Hi Chris, your teaching is very good, a complicated subject becomes easy, thank you very much!! I have a mesh installation and the main point cannot be placed on the ceiling it must be on a table, do you think the best option is to use a Unifi6 mesh or a unifi6 LR? All others will be Unifi6 pro. Thanks again from Brazil!!

Excellent video, but now I will have to rethink my mesh at my home. I have a UAP U6LR and Nano HD and a EA Extender. My current wifi experience on the 3 AP's are 94%/97%.97%, so I am getting GREAT wifi in my 2 story home and into the back yard and garage. I am thinking of removing the EA Extender and just have the 2 AP's . Thanks for your detailed info on your friend's house in CA. and why things work the way they did and how you identified the bottlenecks.

I really love your videos. Thanks. 😊 As I understand it, mesh networking has two functions. The first is to give a backup wireless rout, in case a node goes down. The second (which is my favourite) is having the ability to share the same SSID, and then being able to pass a connection, on to the next access point, as you move around (much like a Cell Phone service). I have a long house, and I was using two WAPs (with separate SSIDs), one at each end of the house. However, the problem with that setup was you could still see both Assess Points at the same time, so your device would never automatically move over to the stronger Assess Point when you went from one end of the house, to the other. Now I’m running a Mesh Network, that’s no longer an issue. As I move around my house, my Wi-Fi signal seamlessly gets handed over to the next Access Point. Unfortunately, the Mesh Network I currently have (which was supplied by my Service Provider) gets its mesh signal from a base unit and the Mesh satellite units don’t have the ability to be hard wired. So, if I was to move over to a Unifi (or similar) Network, I could theoretically have all of my Mesh Access Points Hard wired, and this way I could still use the one SSID, while maintaining the best speeds that a wired connection can supply?

Related to Sonos- if you hardwire one sonos device, it will create a separate wireless mesh network where all sonos speakers connect to. Truly is a game changer for houses like mine with many Sonos speakers.

What I actually once did and it worked pretty well in such a Meshed cenario was the following: So there was a "Master" Access Point which was wired in and one Access Point should mesh to it. It was really far away and only got a very weak signal but was able to connect and stay connected just fine until a device connected to it (also via 5 GHz). Then it got unstable. I ended up disabeling 5 GHz for my WiFi network on only that AP. With the older version of Unifi that was possible. You could disable the 5 GHz part of a Network on just one single AP. Now in the newer version you have to do it for all APs. But it's not really an issue because they only have 60 Mbit/s internet and it really isn't a high client density deployment. With the 5 GHz for only the Backhaul it works really well and they now get 50+ Mbit/s throught the meshed Access Point because seperate radios are used for takling to client and talking to uplink AP

Great information. I'm assuming your revised setup for this client will be pTp bridge. Does the frequency the bridge uses affect 5g?

Great video with very well put together information! I would just run pvc pipe at the edge of the property and paint/burry it to conceal the cables to feed each AP. Mesh is a last resort or if it isn’t mission critical IMHO. (Especially in a saturated Wi-Fi area)

Great video on explaining how to set up the mesh'd APs. Just wondering why you didn't mesh the UAP-AC-M (Mesh) to the Front House HD on channel 48, as it would have made it one less device screaming at the Patio AP.

Hi Chris. As laid out "temporarily fixed", would you be able to hang a small switch to the AP in Guest House to provide connectivity to a few wired clients?

Thanks for a great video Chris. I would like to ask, If one cables all ap's could one still use the same ssid to handle smooth handover?

Great video, what about nightly optimization, where you just let the system spread the channel numbers. I’ve selected channel width, but the rest i leave to the system. I have two wired and a mesh AP out in the garage.

Thanks!

Hey Chris! I watched your video earlier today and it was great. However, I'm not sure if someone has brought this up already... but if your using the Design Center, won't that satellite overlay not give a proper look on the wifi coverage since there weren't (Interior or Exterior) walls put in place?

Chris could 2 Nano Beams or Nano Stations been used to get the Wi-Fi from the house to the back of the property. Then tie in the access points you need. Thank you for your great videos. I have used your videos to help myself with my projects.

Chris, thank you for the video. I recently setup a business with the UAP-nanoHDs. I have 5 in our open workspace areas and in the large conference rooms at the ends of the building I have the AP Beacon HDs. We have a 1Gb fiber network and we get amazing speeds, but the wifi after your video is still about 100mb average down. What can I do to speed up the wifi? I did tune them to what you said in the video and only meshed the beacons with the nearest AP.

Great video. BTW I'll be using ROGUE shortly. Have you created a video like this where the mesh capability of U6 is really necessary rather than simply having all of them "phone home." Looking at a challenging warehouse topology/layout where your #5 on a die (dice) layout might be necessary with the fifth U6 on the ceiling could be very informative given your skill level. Think of two columns of packed metal shelving running up and down with corridors at the extreme top and bottom for fork lifts as an example. Metal shelving the full length of the left and right walls also. Mesh designed to be able to cope with temporary blockage by fork lift in vertical corridor at full up/down extension carrying metal tool boxes in cardboard crates. It's the dynamic adjustment capability of mesh that's wonderful

Thanks for your video Chris. If I keep my Mesh Pro an auto channel (on the 5Ghz band) will it work or do I have to set a specific channel ?

I would love to see a video on optimizing multiple hardwire Unifi AP at a residential setup. I have a UAP AC Pro, Lite and M and scratching my head on getting the best settings.

Great video, as usual. If all my APs are hard wired, should I have each one on the same Channel, or all different?

Chris, did you ever find any technical documentation of UniFi mesh from UniFi? I found their "support" pages really lacking from that perspective. I know when I was doing the Netgear Orbi RBS solutions for a few homes I found that the mesh backhauls would use the DFS bands for backhaul and then the U-NII-1 and U-NII-3 for wireless devices. I was wondering if this is possible with UniFi?

Chris, thanks you for the video. This really helped me optimize my own mesh network. One question I have, is there a specific product that you recommend to utilize coax cable for ethernet? I have no attic space so I am unable to run cat6 cable but have coax in every room.

Chris, thanks for the video. Here's a topic for you. I really want to get where I can deploy access points that serve 5 GHz channels only. That used to be easy, but that process has gotten convoluted in UniFi with Access Point groups. Is there an easy way to deploy 5 GHz only access points without going through the mess and smell of setting up a bunch of access point groups? Maybe I'm just missing the point, but I find the process very confusing. As a result, I've been over-covering on 2.4 GHz just to get good 5 GHz coverage. Suggestions welcome.

Chris, (or anyone who wants to answer), what do you think about a hardwired U6-Pro with a couple of U6-Mesh (provided that they're in stock) around the house (about 1400 sq ft and hardwiring is not possible). Looking for the best wireless (and wired connections through the mesh access points like the U6-Mesh spread around the house). Is it a little overkill for our house? If so, what do you guys suggest for a simple but effective wired and wireless setup? Thanx

Suffering from a newish townhouse that wasn't wired well for wired access. Retrofitting a 3 story townhouse may be a nightmare to allow for wired APs, even if I'd prefer that. Mesh will likely be the path of least resistance vs. tearing up and repairing walls. All said and done, if done properly, this could cost me upwards of $3k or more.

Chris....sorry if this was asked below but did that help the Sonos issues and what is the maximum internet speed if you hardwired a computer direct to the router? The 30mb mesh speed test doesn't sound bad if the residence was only paying for a 100mb package from his cable provider.

Very helpful. Even a year later.

Hello Chris, can I use the bridged port of a AC Mesh Pro and hook it up to an USW Switch Flex to have more than one hardwired link available (e.g. in a garden house)? Can that switch also be managed then via my Unifi CloudKey?

Can u do the same video with a typical home with a basement plus main and second floor. Thx

Not sure how many floors are in the main house, as walls & floors can be troublesome. But if the "main House" WAP is in a grand entry, it should cover much better. Yeah other than running cables to all access points, maybe moving the Mesh AP towards the other side of the property. Hmmmm.. Sounds like fun to me!!

Hi Chris, great video. Quick question: I have 2 storey house with wire points in 3 different rooms. 2 rooms on same floor and 1 room upstairs. Thinking to use 3 AP’s in mesh configuration and connect them wired from main switch, so wired connection for AP’s would be used as backhaul connection. Would would be your advice for this solution? Or I should use AP’s without mesh? Thank you

Hi Cris, what is the best mesh setup for Apartments, like in 1 Floor multiple flats and 1 Flat having 4 rooms?

Nice. Learnt the Back channel is 5Ghz. Thanks

Question: Are there any issues including a SONOS, AppleTV as part of the IoT WLAN when it comes to App control? I understand my iPhone can be on "House WLAN" and if prioritized within the firewall it can see devices on the IoT WLAN...but do devices on the IoT WLAN need to communicate back to my iPhone or App controller?

Chris, do these only have one 5G band? Therefore, ch149 is shared for backhaul to the master mesh AP and clients. If these had two 5G bands, one could be dedicated to backhaul on a different channel. Do you think that would increase performance significantly? But, I still prefer the wired concept if you can run the cable.

Hi Chris. One thing I noticed was you said the HD and mesh pro were powered by a US 60W. That switch is only Poe AF but the HD alone requires Poe AT. Add the mesh pro and that connection could end up flapping under load

Hello ! Thanks for your nice video. I have a question. What is the signal between Patio and guest ? It looks pretty far. I have a mesh AP (U6 lite) uplinked to another U6 Lite. As I installed them, I didn't know that they can mesh only using 5G band, so I put them a bit too far apart: I have -71dBm. The performance is however generally pretty good, I get like 70-80mbs from the mesh AP (I have VDSL100), wifi experience is always 99%. But occasionally the Mesh AP fails to get DHCP renewed (I use static lease) and goes into isolation, and I wonder if it's because of this slight suboptimal signal. But it happens pretty seldom (once or twice a year), I am not sure if I want to change the setup.

Great job as usual Chris! Question: When you laid out the 2.4 GHz setup, you talked about how you didn't want them all on the same channel. But then when setting up the 5 GHz network, you put all of the AP's doing mesh on the same channel. Can you explain why you used the same channel for those rather than spreading them out over many channels? Is there any real benefit, or was it just convenient? Thanks!

Trying to use the Netgear NIGHTHAWK, and it is inconsistent to a point where the product says the signal is sound, but, Speedtest shows multiple failures.

Very interesting. Any advice on a system to have Wi-Fi at a dock that is about 500’ from my house. There is about 40’ of elevation and line of sight to the house. Looking to have Wi-Fi at the dock and also add security camera at the dock. Also there 37348s no power on the dock. Any help would be great..

Great video, thanks. I have a quick question about the order for setting channels. I have 10 x U6 mesh with only 2 being able to be wired. It's a large resort, and I'm wondering. Do I need to set the Chanels on the furthest meshed AP's first? Im concerned, I'll lose connectivity if I work wired side outwards.

Breakthrough in the meshing using 5ghz and same ch 🤩🤯🤣

So curious i see using ht20 and ht40 - with channel 1 and 136 no one is using, but the meshing your saying is for devices not on hardwire, all my devices are UAP-HD are hardwire so I should not have meshing on then - correct? on the new version it has (Night Channel Optimzation enabled by default) could you make a video and cover this

Hey Chris would you still recommend Access Point AC Mesh Pro in 2022? Im looking for ap with omnidirectional antenna. I was hoping for Wifi 6 version of this ap but no luck

as a HAM Radio Operator, I understand why the MESH device was given link priority, its Antennas are usually mounted vertically and may be a better signal to the ap at the rear of the property, vertical antennas often have a better ground plane effect and travels a longer distance - while MIMO antennas in a round configuration on a MIMO device is often using 2x2 and 3x3 and even 4x4 to waveform a beam-ish at an antenna, nothing beats the real deal. 1x1 that is using a full-length antenna is typically going to beat out a round AP that is aimed at a strong, shorter distance. - it has the benefits of using the area to reflect off trees, homes, and other objects and often catch less interference, a round AP is better at grabbing all the smaller signals around it at a shorter distance... their app does not show a REAL signal performance but a simulated one. If you want coverage on the same plane (same floor, for a house), vertical is typically better for distance. If you want coverage above and below the router, horizontal is better, which is why we mount the Round APs flat on a ceiling and not flat on a wall. (And the antennas on the connected devices, even if they’re internal, and you can’t see them, have to be parallel to the router antenna. If they’re at right angles, you lose most of the signal. At intermediate angles, you lose more or less signal.) sometimes when dealing with a large system it is good to have a mix of both

I'd like to hear more about why you chose 'auto' for all the power settings... With your manual selection of channels, thoughtful separation of AP's, and longer distances, why not select high power for at least the key AP's on 2.4Ghz? Do you trust the UI 'intelligence' to make the right choices for power any more than you (don't) trust it to make the right selection for channels? I never do...