I just wanted to thank you for this video! I have a lot of neighbors with 2.4GHz networks so mine was almost unusable. I changed the channel width to 20MHz and not only the 2.4GHz network became usable, but the 5GHz also gained a bit more coverage (don't ask my why). I'll definitely apply this setting to my future network setups.

About time someone took the time to truly explain how to tweak your Unifi APs. Thank you Chris!

Thanks, I really appreciate your coverage of the Unifi products, I use them extensively in my consulting business.

Been waiting for a video like this a long time. Thanks for this video.

I absolutely adore that even though neighbouring WiFi names are blurred on the list, they show up as soon as you hover over the graph.

Good info on the video. One thing to mention with Unifi is to disable Wireless Meshing when directly wired to a switch. Had to figure that out the hard way because my U6-LR kept trying to search for a wireless mesh connection even when hardwired.

Exactly what I was looking for with my (too many) APs in my Unify smart home. Love all your videos, very helpful

Thank you for the video. I would love to see someone do a multifloor video - I have 3 AP's on the first floor, 1 on the 2nd, and 1 on the 3rd.

Great video Chris, best explanation I have seen on this subject.

OMG finally, thank you I have been looking for a video for this setup.

Damn man you always explain these things so well, love watching your videos. Thanks for everything you do.

Excellent tutorial, I will look into those WIFI adjustments, I’ve been having problem setting up my second AP. I’m having poor performance from. Your videos are always very informative.

A big thank you, from the Netherlands. Learned a lot and have some to do now!!

Thank you for this video. Watching it now as I have been trying to resolve wifi performance issues. Made changes as shown in the video. Very well explained and helpful.

Nice vid Chris! Have you played with the RF Environment tool ? Click on an AP, then go to Insights, RF Environment, You will see an expanded view of all the WiFi channels and their utilisation/noise. Clicking Scan Channels will then take the selected AP off the air (you can do multiple scans on different APs simultaneously),for about 5 to 10 mins, to scan the WiFi channel spectrum, and then report back on the utilisation, and interference on each channel, with nice graphical representation. I've found it quite useful when selecting which channel to set my APs to. This may also make a good video too !

Thank you so much for this video. I've been trying to figure this out for a school that I work at with over 70 AP's and having issues with coverage where clients don't hand-off to a closer AP as expected. I'll give this a go and hope for the best.

Excellent video. I learned a lot. As a note, it's important to have your access points on the correct bandwith for your devices (smartphones and laptops etc) as many devices ONLY work with a 20 Mhz channel and won't connect on a 40 Mhz channel at all. I use a 40 Mhz channel for a wifi bridge between two buildings for example where no client connections are required.

Wi-Fi sends signals out in a 3d notion, not 2d. I wish that these programs/sites that use layouts would be in 3d instead of 2d! it would show more correct signal propagation... especially for people that have multiple levels in their homes/buildings.

I so need to learn from this! Thank you!

Great video and very informative. How about a follow up covering multi level properties?

Your video was very helpful. Thanks!

Good video thanks for sharing. Love the Star Wars shirt!

Love the flipper in the background

This is VERY useful, thank you!

The best videos on Unify Systems. Great and clear explanation. I would be interested on some comments on ceiling mounting versus wall mounting. Is there any difference?

Really great walkthrough! Thank you so much. Do you ever use the RF-scan function?

Very helpful! Thx!

After reading other articles, I am going to follow your suggestions in this video. I am using 5 Ubiquiti U6-LRs in a 6000sqft house.

Can you do another one of these that covers a multiple storyhouse.

Great video. Concepts simply and clearly explained. I can’t fault anything you said, Your videos really helped me get my Ubiquiti wireless admin certification. Thank you Chris!

Thanks for this video. I'm just waiting on the EAP690E HD from. TP-Link to come out and I'll be putting 3 in my new house. This was really helpful

Pretty good video overall. The one thing you may want to revisit is Tx Power settings. It all starts there actually and it is determined primarily by the weakest client devices you will need to support in the network and the gain of the antennas in the AP. Once you have that, then you can go ahead and figure out number of required APs and proper placement. This means that more often than not you'll be either entering custom Tx power values or using one of the pre-defined ones, but never "Auto". Also it would be good to keep in mind that when it comes to UniFi there's nothing "auto" in the Auto Tx power setting. Most Wi-Fi problems related to roaming, sticky clients, and the like usually can be traced back to inadequate Tx Power settings. Hope this helps.

Very nice video. Thanks😊😊

I’d like to see some more advanced discussion on the minimum RSSI options. I’ve had issues with devices hoping back and forth between APs causing connectivity issues.

Good video. Solid name for a UDM Pro

Very interesting. A lot of info to consider. Thanks for sharing.😎⛏⛏🔥🔥

Missed concepts: How to handle two floor homes? How to handle AP orientation? How to debug devices hanging on to the wrong AP (AP switching). Also in the case for your example where there was only one offending (competitor) AP, maybe a bit of checking power at different corners of home to plan your channels around the general direction they are broadcasting from. Hate for your channel one to be nearest thier channel one of you can easily test and plan to avoid the condition in just two minutes.

Hey Chris, I live in a small rural town and I set all my 5ghz ap's to DFS channels and have had no problems. The nearest airport is 15 miles north. I also use Unifi and when I run the wifi insights I get a lot of 2.4ghz channel interference but very little 5ghz interference. LIke you said, the 5ghz doesn't propogate as well as the 2.4ghz.

hi Chris, always great video for years, speaking specifically to UniFi is there value in a the nightly channel optimization automation?

Thanks for the info. Just a suggestion, for future videos, try using dark mode for better viewing or not it's your channel. Great video.

So as I was tweaking I found Enable Minimum RSSI which you do not cover in this video. As this is not a one size fits all setting you should discuss this setting. Basically it kicks a device off of an AP when the signal gets low to force it to find a stronger AP. In a multi AP setup this could help prevent devices from getting stuck on the old AP...

17:00 would still rec the opposite actually. move tx power to lowest. if running into handoff or coverage issues, then increase in increments.

Great tutorial on using Insights on the UDM SE. I had not really looked at that prior and now makes perfect sense. Will re-calibrate all my wifi now and quit this auto channel hoping!

Hi Chris, I've been following your series for setting up the udm pro. It has helped me a lot; thank you and excellent work! Quick question, I'm setting up APs around the house, would it be possible to name the wireless network with the same SSID and password of the existing wireless network these APs are replacing? The idea (if this is possible) is to avoid the trouble of reconnecting all my smart devices to a new wireless network (i.e. smart switches, alexa, door bells, smart hub, etc.) and tricking them into believing the wireless network is the same or in other words, nothing has changed. Will appreciate your comments!

Covers well all the basics. For complex installations (like 6 to >100 AP, multiple levels construction,....) you could do a video about Power Output (in fact 'Auto' = max) / RSSI / Interference reducing (not clear from Unifi what it does). Also interesting is the changes by placing the AP vertically or horizontally (radiation diagram are not a 360 sphere) - even sometimes horizontally 'upside down'. Also if your customer has a really fast internet (fiber optic >500 Mb/s) you must use 80 Mhz channels in 5 Ghz, otherwise you're pretty limiting bandwith. In your exemple I would personnaly add a 4th interior AP to have better 5G coverage and at least 1 outside (or 2 or 3 depending on the outside zone of your property) - I like to have >-65 dBm everywhere, I'm not at all satisfied with some -75 dBm. I mostly have customers with 600 Mb/s or 1000 Mb/s and I try that they can have >200 Mb/s anywhere. 1Another factor is that in Europe 90% of inside walls are brick / concrete / block and almost never wood / placo / .... so much more attenuation between rooms. And today all windows / sliding outside doors are with double or triple layers with a metallic coating between layers - you open terrasse door and you have a good signal outside, you close it and signal disappear (at least 20 dBm below). Thank you for the great work!

I love it…… I just new to this brand and I am losing my mind to optimize it… I will try your advice, I have in a small hotel about 40 Access points, I should go through each one? Or there is a way to group them!

Thanks!

Quick note on the BROADCOM_GUEST_0_3 ssid: I had this same SSID appear seemingly randomly. However, I have found that this is a Comcast business modem issue that persists when a silent error occurs after turning off the modems built in wifi radios. You should try factory resetting your modem and it will go away. This only happens with Comcast business modems in my experience. I’m not sure why and even Comcast doesn’t have any answers but I found that factory resetting solved the issue! Hope this helps!

Hello, Crosstalk Solutions, thank you for the demo, very good idea in terms of setting up wired APs on a flat area, I understand that this is a simple way to explain and see the benefits of placing the APs across the rooms, etc, but would you make an example of how to place three or more devices in a 5 story building for example, instead of horizontally example as that is the only ones I see in KZfaq I haven't found an example in which the location is a building with different floors. I look forward to the next video and thanks again.

One thing I would add is minimum RSSI! I have found this to be extremely useful, especially in Apple environments as they are sticky and will hang on to an out-of-range AP like it's the last internet connection on earth.

I've been a UniFi owner for long and have set up multiple networks already in the past. One thing that I still cannot explain with UniFi is that when I do exactly as explained in this video, so I examine the spectrum and pick channels based on theoretical knowledge, the WiFi quality is always unreliable and unstable. From the spectrum analyzer all looks optimal, but in reality it isn't. Until I saw many professional UniFi installers on KZfaq vastly mention to go with auto channel and transmit power selection. At first I still didn't want to believe this would be smart and went with auto channel and manual power. Still a mess. Then I budged and went with auto for both. Have never had such awesome and stable WiFi ever before. It's perfect. Weirdly enough from the spectrum analyzer it looks a mess. It places multiple access points controlled by the same UniFi controller in the same site overlapping each other. From theory what I see totally makes no sense but in practice it works better than ever before. Never could explain this to myself, let alone anyone else. Has been working flawless for two years already like this.

Danke!

This will be fun for my 50+ U6-LR deployment…..

This Very good Video for WIFI design Question: If we already set the Channel without interference with the all of our AP and our neighbors AP. but in view month letter there are new AP form our neighbor that use the same Channel with us, in this case do we need to change our AP Channel again. What is the advantage of the Auto Channel. is this feature will change our AP channel automatically when our AP sensing interference channel ? Next question when the channel is change automatically. Do client (PC. notebook) that already connected to the AP will have lost connection and then reconnect with new Channel ?

Thanks for the video. I've been using the setting "Nightly Channel Optimization" thinking it was doing the work of picking the best channels to use. Do you not recommend using that setting?

Excellent, simple and straight to the point! What about if I have Zigbee and/or Z-Wave ? Since they both use 2.4GHz I guess I would have to use the same methodology to separate WiFi AP(s)/Zigbee/Zwave from each other … ? Any general recommendations for such case?

Chris do you ever turn off all but one access point when checking the environment for interference? The interference in the garage may not be the same as the interference in the living room, I guess

Great Video + the knowledge you give in mesh video let me understand my mistakes i've done on my site & my custommers sites. So many thants for that One more issue i'd like to undersand. I plan to buy mower robot as ambrogio, what needs to hve wifi in the garden to create map and do its job. Unlees i saw your video i was thinking the best is ONE 2,4ghz cannel on whole garden to provide one network to the robot, but now i have a question if the robot will understand he is still in the same wifi network, when 3 access points i need in my garden are set up on different channels? probably yes but please describe it why he will understand :) i'd like also to understand ths :) BR

Is that a pot plant behind you? It looks awesome but, I think it needs better light. Thanks for the video!

You missed the *testing* phase. For example, many houses have a lot of forced air ducts, which interfere like crazy, and you aren't always completely sure exactly where they are. You may need to move an AP to avoid having ducts shadow your signal.

Content was fantastic and informative as always. Also, Youdaho? LMAO

Good info! Thanks! What should I do for my wireless bridges? The exact same exercise?

Beamforming technology (e.g. Ruckus wireless) - this is the answer to all your wifi needs. You don't need many access points, much power, sensitivity or channel exclusivity if you use a directional adaptive radio.

Any thoughts on UniFi Nightly Channel Optimization?

Good video! A shame though that you didn’t talk about band steering, minimum RSI and such. Question: how do you take into account neighboring ISP routers that have auto channel selection? For this reason we use the WiFi ‘AI’ to do 3 AM scans and adjustments.

Very useful, thanks. I couple of questions though. Higher frequencies are attenuated more than lower frequencies - that's why 2.4GHz coverage is better than 5Ghz. Is it worth taking this into consideration, especially with 5Ghz and choose the lower channels in preference to the higher channels, all other factors being equal? How much would a plasterboard ceiling reduce access point performance? In other words mounting the access point above the ceiling in the roof space, still pointing down, versus mounting it on the underside of the ceiling?

Could you please do a video on how to set up a VPN on a UniFi home network with a UDM? Thank you

Hi Chris, would have been good to see the interference maps again after the re provisioning

What about in 2 or 3 story house? Would it be okay to have an AP in the basement then another one in the main living room (on top of the basement AP)? Or can I just use the AP that it is sitting in the basement?

Almost 2 years with the UDM Pro, with the worst WiFi experience I ever had! And here you go with Chris, coming to save my life, since I just moved in to my very first new build house, planing to have two AP’s. THANK YOU SO MUCH CHRIS!!!! I will definitely use you’re affiliate link to buy my switch, my second AP, my NVR and all the camera’s I need, as a thank you for the info you provide!!!

I have two access points walls mounted as the ceiling is too high to get to. Works alright but had to turn RSI limit to about -70 so devices transition to the correct access point

Great video. I'm a few weeks away before I start purchasing my Unifi bundle. Quick question...? Once you have the access points setup and installed. How do you set up them so you don't have to join a new wifi every time you travel around the house closer and further to access points? Thanks!

I think you need to cover data rates and mandatory data rate. And how and why this can help clients roaming.

@Crosstalk Solutions, I have my APs set up like your on my first floor of my home. I also have a fourth on upstairs middle of the house. What channel you suggest I use if my first floor uses 1,6,11 for 2.4Ghz?

Do you recommend the "nightly channel optimization" for offices or even homes? What does it exactly do and is it good at its job?

Very informative video!! Unfortunatly here in the Netherlands I cannot choose anything above the 140(DFS), so, channel 165 for one of the AP's is not possible. Is this different per region? What is the best alternative ?

Usually unifi have good algorithm for selecting channels. So mostly I just set it at auto and in most cases everything works well.

I would never use auto for power. auto in Unifi used to mean Max. Has that changed? I use low for 2.4 and medium for 5. I also thought you would discuss RSSI etc?

So, I watch the vid. Been waiting on this from someone. I had changed all mine to separate channels but I think I'll retweek it again. I did watch one guy that said leave on Auto for channels. That ubiquitis brains in the aps are supposedly real good. Would you say still set your own channel?

I live in a rural area with several users on Ch. 6 at 20 MHz and two on 1 at 40 MHz. I use two AP Lites in my home now and wonder if I should change to 11 just to keep me separate. Not an issue but wondering. Nobody has any traffic in the 5 GHz area. Very good info for a novice tinkerer. ;)

The Broadcom Guest is coming off the Comcast CBR. You need to factory reset the modem to get rid of them.

Hi, great video. I have a story and a half house with a basement, how do you plan for access points across floors?

What about different floors? I have 1 in my basement, 1 outdoors in the eve of my garage 2nd floor and 1 in the office inside right in front of a window. I'm trying to reach inside and my yard entire yard.

Hello Chris, Nice tips! BTW taking this scenario as example, what's the best practice regarding roaming between AP's, having the same name on SSID's for different channel's like (guest_AP) on each AP or having different names like (guest_2.4_AP) and (guest_5_AP)?

Q #2, you didn't use WifiMAN in your optimization but though i'm not nearly at the same skill level as you I tried walking around the house with it on and found it to be quite useful.

I have a lengthy two-story brick home. My Wireless Router was setup in the back of the house and the signal was a bit patchy when you got to the front of the house. To fix this, I initially set up a second WAP (wired) in the front of the house. However, the issue I had, was the mobile devices could still see both access points. So, after walking in the front door, the mobile device would logon to the closest and strongest WAP (the one at the front of the house), but then wouldn’t move over to the second access point when you went to the back of the house, even if the signal was much stronger. Someone had suggested using the same SSID and Password for multiple WAPs, which I tried. However, that didn’t seem to work too well. What’s your thoughts on a setup like this? So, in a situation like this, would it all be down to your TX power? If so, how weak does the signal need to get, for a mobile device to drop one WAP and reconnect to another? In addition, would there be a dead zone between the two WAPs? I ended up fixing this issue with a Mesh Network, which seems to work quite well. However, you were advising not to use a Mesh Network, unless it was really needed, due to some of the throughput of the Mesh Network being used to wirelessly connect up to other WAPs. Could we have a wired Mesh Network, and then use the Mesh technology only for the user’s Wi-Fi? Hopefully, this could then allow the WAPs to hand off users (similar to a Mobile Cell Network) when there was a stronger/better signal available. Or am I still not understanding how a Mesh Network works?

Thanks for this very informative video! I just got my first AP and am playing around with it. Question - should I continue to use the wifi router that my cable company provides along with my AP? I know that these modem/wifi router combos aren't the greatest, but it is what I have for now. Thanks for your help!

I wished the video would have touched on Unifi's auto channel optimization - would it be a good setting to use?

What about "Nightly Channel Optimization" option ?

Hey, good video! I've got a question: On my UniFi Controller I cannot choose any channel over >140 in the 5GHz spectrum. 140 (DFS) is the highest option I get in the drop-down list. Any idea why is that? Can it be a country-specific setting?

If I’m running channel width 80 MHz on channel 44 does that mean I could infringe on DFS channels or is the width purely related to the channel you are on? I’m still trying to get my head around the channel widths and if it’s purely related to the channel that you have selected (in my case 44).

Any reason not to use auto for everything? Channel and tx power?

Does the channel make difference between different floors? I mean, if I use the same channel but in different floor.

nice video, but what if devices are being moved around the space, like a doc's office with tablets/ipads, will having the APs on different channels make the hand off drop out?

I would like to know how to have the best signal coverage on a 2 floor house. Is it possible using Unifi floor plan?

First question ... floors, I'd be keen on knowing how much interference a floor (in US and/or UK) provides versus a wall. I guess the answer to most questions is "it depends" but i'm just trying to get a sense for how to best cover a two story house in the US and a three story house in the UK.

Would love to see an instruction video about Geofencing from UniFi. It just keeps failing on me all the time and I can't get it working properly. Thanks in advance :-)

Interesting balancing ideas- (side bar comment- Ubiquiti has an announcement that they no longer offer free shipping for purchases from the store)

thank you, perfect, what if we have more than three wifi after using 1, 6, 11, what would be the best channel selection please, like 4, 6, 7 or 8 APs

Is there a video addressing the same thing for 2 story homes?