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Wow...so do these APs actually hand off client based on proximity/signal strength? I'm running a home-grown network with four openwrt routers running the same S

by rufugee 10y ago

Wow...so do these APs actually hand off client based on proximity/signal strength? I'm running a home-grown network with four openwrt routers running the same SSID, but client stickiness is my biggest problem. I've always been told this was something you can't get around...that AP selection is left up to the client. However, clients do weird things...like a FireTV stick selecting an AP 100 ft away instead of the one sitting around 10 ft away. If Ubiquiti's solution solves this, I might seriously consider getting a set. As an additional question assuming the above is true...can you bind different SSIDs to different VLANs? This is really the best value openwrt provides to me atm.

shermozle 10y ago
Yes. It works beautifully and they're very reasonably priced. Couldn't recommend more highly. I have 3 built into my house.
- rufugee 10y ago
  Thanks. Are they meshed like Eero, or does each AP have to have a physical connection to your lan? Edit: also, would you mind sharing the model you're using?
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    Generally they all have a wired connection which is POE.
  - marwatk 10y ago
    They can be meshed, but you need to set them up wired first. The UAP-AP is 2.4Ghz only, the UAP-AC-PRO also supports 5Ghz. The UAP-AC-LITE has fewer MIMO antennas but also supports 5Ghz.
- NegativeLatency 10y ago
  Yeah GPL violations aside they make good stuff
  - jlgaddis 10y ago
    Yep, them and MikroTik. I'm genuinely disappointed more techy people aren't bothered by this.
  - Steltek 10y ago
    I was not aware of this! I take it this hasn't changed in 2 years, has it. I was looking to buy Ubiquiti gear to get away from failure-prone consumer all-in-one routers but not anymore. If they're sticking to this, it sincerely changes my plans as I can't support a company that so brazenly violates FLOSS licenses.
- windexh8er 10y ago
  It does "work", but the beauty of it is subjective. Sure, if you have 10-20 devices it might work. More than that and it falls apart fast. But the reason is pretty simple - when you enable "Zero Handoff Roaming" you're making a huge compromise: 1) all UAP need to be on the same L2 network and 2) all UAP use the same channel. This doesn't work in any large scale deployment or deployment where you truly care about leveraging bandwidth via balancing clients based on channel utilization. I've tried it (a long time ago) and yes it works. But, you will pay the price, even in your home network if you have clients doing large uploads / downloads. There's really no point since there's no logic with it either (the UAP devices don't influence handover / AP selection). If they did they could get around the limitation of being relegated to the same L2 network. Also if you're using zero handoff you have old Ubiquiti gear (since none of the 802.11ac units ever supported it). Ubiquiti is likely moving to 802.11r to reimplement it. I wouldn't run Zero Handoff in my house with the APs I run even if it was an option (3 x UAP-AC Pro, 2 x UAP-AC Lite, 1 x UAP-N Pro). I'm pretty sure that if you run ZHO you lose the ability to have the maximum number of SSID as well. Which is completely counterproductive from having a Ubiquiti system. I run 3 different SSID for different use cases with different security policy applied to each. One is also specifically for guests. The UniFi controller does captive portal and authentication for guests - so no having to give guests access to your entire network and you can restrict amount of time each code is valid for as well as the bandwidth a user is allocated. $0.02.
  - brians 10y ago
    The UAP-AC-PRO and its generation support ZHO. Set up a new VLAN group and you'll see the option.
rconti 10y ago
Ha. My FireStick is the one device that can't get its shit together. It's about 6ft line-of-sight, hanging out the back of my receiver, to the Meraki 802.11ac AP on the wall above it. Naturally, it insists on connecting to the AP 60 feet away down the hall and around a corner, and keeps insisting that "connection quality is poor."

by rufugee 10y ago

shermozle 10y ago

Yes. It works beautifully and they're very reasonably priced. Couldn't recommend more highly. I have 3 built into my house.

rufugee 10y ago
Thanks. Are they meshed like Eero, or does each AP have to have a physical connection to your lan? Edit: also, would you mind sharing the model you're using?
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Generally they all have a wired connection which is POE.
- marwatk 10y ago
  They can be meshed, but you need to set them up wired first. The UAP-AP is 2.4Ghz only, the UAP-AC-PRO also supports 5Ghz. The UAP-AC-LITE has fewer MIMO antennas but also supports 5Ghz.
NegativeLatency 10y ago
Yeah GPL violations aside they make good stuff
- jlgaddis 10y ago
  Yep, them and MikroTik. I'm genuinely disappointed more techy people aren't bothered by this.
- Steltek 10y ago
  I was not aware of this! I take it this hasn't changed in 2 years, has it. I was looking to buy Ubiquiti gear to get away from failure-prone consumer all-in-one routers but not anymore. If they're sticking to this, it sincerely changes my plans as I can't support a company that so brazenly violates FLOSS licenses.
windexh8er 10y ago
It does "work", but the beauty of it is subjective. Sure, if you have 10-20 devices it might work. More than that and it falls apart fast. But the reason is pretty simple - when you enable "Zero Handoff Roaming" you're making a huge compromise: 1) all UAP need to be on the same L2 network and 2) all UAP use the same channel. This doesn't work in any large scale deployment or deployment where you truly care about leveraging bandwidth via balancing clients based on channel utilization. I've tried it (a long time ago) and yes it works. But, you will pay the price, even in your home network if you have clients doing large uploads / downloads. There's really no point since there's no logic with it either (the UAP devices don't influence handover / AP selection). If they did they could get around the limitation of being relegated to the same L2 network. Also if you're using zero handoff you have old Ubiquiti gear (since none of the 802.11ac units ever supported it). Ubiquiti is likely moving to 802.11r to reimplement it. I wouldn't run Zero Handoff in my house with the APs I run even if it was an option (3 x UAP-AC Pro, 2 x UAP-AC Lite, 1 x UAP-N Pro). I'm pretty sure that if you run ZHO you lose the ability to have the maximum number of SSID as well. Which is completely counterproductive from having a Ubiquiti system. I run 3 different SSID for different use cases with different security policy applied to each. One is also specifically for guests. The UniFi controller does captive portal and authentication for guests - so no having to give guests access to your entire network and you can restrict amount of time each code is valid for as well as the bandwidth a user is allocated. $0.02.
- brians 10y ago
  The UAP-AC-PRO and its generation support ZHO. Set up a new VLAN group and you'll see the option.

rconti 10y ago

Ha. My FireStick is the one device that can't get its shit together. It's about 6ft line-of-sight, hanging out the back of my receiver, to the Meraki 802.11ac AP on the wall above it. Naturally, it insists on connecting to the AP 60 feet away down the hall and around a corner, and keeps insisting that "connection quality is poor."