Ubiquiti UniFi AC Mesh Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Access Point EXPIRED

I had Google WiFi (3 total with wired backhaul) for the last couple years. Super easy setup and reliable performance. But switched to UniFi last month.

With Google, you can configure very few things and the UI is app only (no web). And it's cloud-only for setup, configuration, and monitoring. Implementing things like DHCP reservations is painful if you have lots of clients.

You also can't set specific channels, change transmit strength, or turn off the 2G radio. With multiple access points, it's typically better to turn down the transmit strength, make sure they're on different channels, and possibly turn off every other 2G radio. Can't do any of that with Google WiFi. Once, I looked at my setup and found the 3 APs all on the same 2G and 5G channels, which my neighbors were using, too. Oops.

Also, the Google auto channel selection doesn't seem to account for Zigbee traffic, so it may occasionally switch to a channel that drowns out your Zigbee (Hue, SmartThings, etc.).

TL;DR: Google is great for basic, easy setup that you just unbox it and go. If you're tach-savvy and/or want more control over your setup, Ubiquiti stuff is feature-rich and cloud-independent (if desired).

If you are tech savvy, I would recommend ubiquiti, if you want something easy to set up then get the other mesh systems. Since you are already on Slickdeals it's actually pretty comparable in price either way.

I've had this for a few weeks now. I was having issues with my wifi radios crapping out trying to support everything upstairs and downstairs but our walls really make it hard for signals to get through.

Since we started using one of these, we haven't had to reboot or unplug anything which was a huge change to the daily crashes we were getting before. Not a fun thing to break up on a client and having them wait 5 minutes to reboot everything while working from home.

Set up was easy if you don't have POE already. Adapter to power, ethernet line to POE adapter, and then separate ethernet line to the access point. If you want to set it up with a controller, you can make an account and do all that but I just used the Unifi app on my phone and set it up as a standalone device and it works great.

Note it doesn't come with any ethernet cables so might want to plop in a few Amazon orders which should arrive before this unit comes in. Mine took a week (due to delays) to ship out via UPS. Expected delivery was 4 business days but it arrived on a Saturday.

If you're not familiar with which channels to use, Ubiquiti has the wifiman app available https://blog.ui.com/2018/12/11/in...g-wifiman/ but there's plenty of other apps like this around.