Review on 📶 Ubiquiti Unifi Ap-AC Lite: High-Performance Wireless Access Point - 802.11 B/A/G/n/AC (UAPACLITEUS), White by Stuart Dunn

This Unifi AP-AC Lite was purchased along with an Edgerouter X to replace an ASUS N16 on which Shibby ran tomato. This combo costs about the same as a mid-range Wi-Fi router (around $150). Configuration is more complex, but much finer control over Wi-Fi is possible (and routing, but not part of this test). TOMATO REPLACEMENT The Tomato open source community has been a great resource and stable platform for beginner routers for over a decade. with Linksys WRT54GL over ASUS 802.11AC devices. Unfortunately, some new consumer Wi-Fi products have closed firmware, making it difficult for developers to support Tomato. Other devices now lock the bootloader or use non-Broadcom hardware, making open source less viable. Ubiquiti devices (as far as I know) require OEM software, which is no different than a closed router. Unlike consumer routers, the management interface gives you full control of the device from the command line. The slightly higher level of IT skills required for Ubiquiti hardware has resulted in a large, large and active user community on the Internet where answers to most configuration and operational questions can be found by fellow Ubiquiti users or collaborators . My experience with consumer devices shows that once a device is discontinued, vendor support dries up pretty quickly. It looks like Ubiquiti will continue to support its older devices. Updates are openly discussed by the manufacturer in the forums and arrive promptly. When a PHP vulnerability was discovered in very old code, the vendor quickly responded to fix it and issue an update. 192.168.1.0 and 12.140.132.0. (Hint: both private and public). In fact, you probably don't need to know this, just familiarize yourself with onscreen assistants by accessing IP addresses through a browser. Please note that this device is only an access point. It doesn't handle the routing tasks inherent in consumer Wi-Fi devices with separate WAN and LAN ports. So UniFi only has one port for Ethernet. Power is supplied via the Ethernet connection, which comes either from a Power-over-Ethernet-enabled switch or router at the other end, or from the power injector included with each device. Please note that not all POE consumables are created equal; What an older or other proprietary switch delivers in terms of voltage and performance may differ from UniFi's requirements. I didn't research this extensively as I only used the power injector that came with it. I will continue to use Tomato on devices where it is stable and supported. The ASUS RT-N12, for example, works well as a hotspot and router as long as 100MHz LAN and 2.4GHz WiFi suffice (and when the N16 failed, I found both Netflix and Chromecast quite happy with this $30 router ). However, getting the most out of a high-speed connection, especially in terms of latency, requires more horsepower. Ubiquiti hardware gives me that, even at the cheapest level. PERFORMANCE The range is vastly improved compared to every Netgear and Asus device I've had instead. Latency has also been improved. DHCP connections, especially on Android devices, are faster. Physically, this particular device sits discreetly atop a row of books, perched atop a built-in shelf, and is connected via a single Cat 6 Ethernet ribbon cable. Another Cat 6 connection is between the PoE injector and the router. PoE can be anywhere between the switch port and UniFi. This means that UniFi can be set up without a nearby power outlet. UniFi supports multiple SSIDs and VLANs. There's a radio scanner that provides an intuitive and useful graphical display of provided channels and interference (and a visualization of why 40MHz 2.4GHz channels is a bad idea in a crowded environment). The user interface is complex and stable. The management interface requires a locally installed program (the "UniFi Controller" which then uses its own browser session for display. When using an Edge (or other) router, some reporting features such as historical latency and bandwidth graphs are not available if no "UniFi Security Gateway', I decided to ditch that device in favor of the Edgerouter X, which was cheaper, had more wired ports available, and had all the features I needed for my setup.