Since AmpliFi HD has been a great buddy until now, I decided to give Ubiquiti another shot since they are doing the ‘pro-sumer’ devices in a reasonably price range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After some research and future proofing I decided to go with Ubiquiti Unifi 6 Long Range<\/a> that should be able to cover my whole 187 square meter house (incl. garage) with a single access point. But if needed, can be extended with more access points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a long time Unifi 6 LR was out of stock basically from all retailers including Ubiquitis own site<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was registered to get a notification once Unifi 6 LRs were back at stock and one day email popped up and said that those APs were back on stock. I decided to go for it and make an order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I made the order on wednesday evening at about 17.00 and just an hour from that I got confirmation that package was sent along with an UPS tracking number. It only took two working days (from wednesday evening to friday afternoon) to receive the package. That’s as fast as Sonos delivery so far. So two thumbs up for that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n After receiving the package from UPS delivery guy (that did wear a corona mask) I ripped the package open and checked the content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The product was cleanly packaged inside an another cardboard package with some fillings for protection. Content inside were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The package did not have a PoE injector inside (also mentioned in product description) , but I had few old ones laying around in a closet so did not actually need one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before actually screwing the AP on a wall, I decided to give it a shot on my working desk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By connecting cat6 cable from router to my Motorola 48V PoE injector and from injector another cat6 cable to Unifi AP, I noticed that something was wrong: Only 100Mbps link was formed through the chain. Then it hit me, my old Motorola PoE injector only supported 100Mpbs speed rather than 1Gbps. So I had to drive to the local verkkokauppa.com<\/a> and get a new PoE Injector with proper 1Gbps link support. Luckly there were one Ubiquiti 48V 24W injector<\/a> left straight in the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After successfully testing the AP on a table, it was time to install it on its own place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within the package there were planty of different type of plates and screws for different types of installation. For me, I used only wall-plate along with drywall anchors. What I wondered that there were only 4 wall screws + 4 anchors and in the plate there were 7 marks for the wall installation. However, four was enough for wall, but maybe if installing to the roof I would put couple of more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also a paper template with integrated spirit level was provided. I used that to draw four markings on the wall. Note: don’t use the spirit level, it’s piece of crap and will set your device more or less skewed!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To actually control Unifi APs and other Unifi products, Unifi Controller must be installed. It can be setup on a variety of operating systems like Linux, Mac and Windows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I wanted it to be installed as stand-alone in its own virtual machine. So it was time to add a new VM next to my Home Assistant (and others). The VM and controller software installation was pretty straight forward after a proper guide was found from internet (https:\/\/proxmox-openvz.blogspot.com\/2019\/09\/installing-ubiquiti-unifi-controller-as.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But at configuration phase things started to get wrong. First steps went ok, but every time at last step the setup failed either for ‘”{mac}” not valid target’<\/em> or ‘invalid username or password please try again.’<\/em> errors. I almost gave up until I stumbled upon a ubiquiti forum post of saying that you need to connect through https and port 8443 rather than http and 8080. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once that was done everything worked just fine. I just wish that they would disable the default 8080 http, if you actually can’t use it! Few hours wasted and many factory resets for AP made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since I’m moving from AmpliFi HD<\/a> to Unifi 6 LR<\/a>, the easiest way to do is to compare these with each other. For testing I used my Samsung Galaxy S10+ along with WiFi analyzer<\/a> software to do coverage testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOrdering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Package<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/unifi6_lr_box-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/unifi6_lr_contents.jpg\")
Hardware setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/new_poe_injector.jpg\")
Software setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/unifi_setup-1024x522.png\")
Performance & Coverage testing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_front_yard_2.4g-485x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_front_yard_5g-485x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_kitchen_2.4g-485x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_kitchen_5g-485x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_venlas_room_2.4g-485x1024.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_walk-in_closet_2.4g-485x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.creatingsmarthome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/wifi_walk-in_closet_5g-485x1024.jpg\")