Ubiquiti UniFi 6 Pro Acces Point Wifi 6 AP 5.3Gbps 300+ clients (U6-PRO), dual band

Product Information

Please Note: The UAP-PRO is no longer available. For an alternative, we recommend the UAP-AC-PRO . Ubiquiti UniFi Pro Access Point (UAP-Pro) I explained my current home network in Zen and the Art of Home Networking. In that post I walked through my home network and why I chose the APs and locations that I did. I’ve used the U6-Lite, U6-LR, U6-Pro, U6-Mesh, and several other models and vendors. The differences aren’t always what you would expect from the spec sheet. For my next test, I tested from 3 different places in my house. I wanted to show the impact of distance from your AP on a typical 20 MHz 2.4 GHz or 80 MHz 5 GHz channel. The above tests were very close range, and were meant to show an absolute best-case scenario. These distance tests are more realistic, and the 15 feet + 1 wall results are more likely what you will see in typical use.

P 8 = Use 8 parallel streams. Without parallel streams, the default TCP window and buffer size of iPerf doesn’t always saturate a fast wireless channel. To maintain consistency I ran all my tests with the default window and buffer sizes, with 8 parallel streams. The Ubiquiti U6-Pro UniFi WiFi 6 Access Point is an indoor WiFi 6 AP with 5.3Gbps over the air speed and a 300+ client capacity. The U6-Pro is a dual-band WiFi 6 (802.11ax) access point that represents the next generation of high-performance wireless technology for home and enterprise users. Delivering blazing fast over the air speeds of up to 5.3 Gbps over its 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels, the U6-Pro will maximise the WiFi experience of any residential or office deployment. Plus, with its ability to support over 300 concurrent clients, the U6-Pro ensures reliable wireless coverage across even the most device-dense environments. The U6-Pro also marries power with ease of use through streamlined setup, configuration, and mobile-friendly management via the UniFi Network app. Easy to Deploy and Manage!

The U6 Mesh has a horizontal antenna pattern to maximise coverage on the same level/floor, the others have a forward beam-pattern that is better suited to ceiling-mounting. Mesh networking simply means that the Wireless Access Points (WAP) can talk to each other instead of a central base station. This allows you to extend your Wi-Fi range considerably because each WAP can simply connect to the nearest WAP. This is called wireless up-link and is the term that UniFi also uses. So mesh networking does not make your Wi-FI faster, it is just a different way of connecting wireless access points together. Does the UniFi-6 support Mesh?

Yes, all the UniFi 6 Access Points support mesh networking. Can I use the U6 Pro or U6 LR outdoors?In any case, on the bottom of the Ubiquiti U6-Pro, there is a dedicated area carved into the plastic where you can find the Reset button and a single Gigabit Ethernet port which supports PoE (802.3af). Left: Ubiquiti UAP-AC-PRO. Right: Ubiquiti U6-Pro. The Ubiquiti U6-Pro UniFi WiFi 6 Access Point is an indoor WiFi 6 AP with 5.3Gbps over the air speed and a 300+ client capacity. The U6-Pro is a dual-band WiFi 6 (802.11ax) access point that represents the next generation of high-performance wireless technology for home and enterprise users. Delivering blazing fast over the air speeds of up to 5.3 Gbps over its 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels, the U6-Pro will maximise the WiFi experience of any residential or office deployment. Plus, with its ability to support over 300 concurrent clients, the U6-Pro ensures reliable wireless coverage across even the most device-dense environments. The U6-Pro also marries power with ease of use through streamlined setup, configuration, and mobile-friendly management via the UniFi Network app. Key Features The U6 Mesh can be placed on a table, wall-mounted or ceiling-mounted, but the others are designed to be wall or ceiling mounted only. You can of course place the others on a table but coverage may suffer. As part of their AC Wave 2 lineup, the FlexHD offered a new enclosure, which resembles a tall, skinny Coke can. The FlexHD can be used on a shelf, mounted on a ceiling, or on a pole. The FlexHD can be used indoors or outdoors, and is generally a very _flexible_ access point. I’ve never had a FlexHD to test, but it should perform similar to a nanoHD, which I have tested.

The U6-Lite is the cheapest and least-powerful Wi-Fi 6 AP UniFi offers. It has the least range and performance, but it also has the lowest price and smallest size. It’s the same size (and uses the same mount) as the older AC-Lite and nanoHD. It is not dust or water resistant, and should only be used indoors. As the name implies, the U6-LR offers more range than the U6-Lite. The U6-LR has twice the spatial streams (2x2:2 vs. 4x4:4) in both bands, resulting in better beamforming and higher potential throughput. It is physically much larger, the same size as the AC-HD. The U6-LR is a step up in nearly every way, but it still has an older 802.11n-era 2.4 GHz radio and MediaTek chipset like the U6-Lite. And, since the Ubiquiti U6-Pro supports 160MHz channel width, I tried to keep the interference to the minimum to see the maximum performance that the AP can reach. At closer range (5 feet), the QCN9024 is absolutely phenomenal, delivering an average of 934Mbps upstream and 625Mbps downstream. Ubiquiti U6-Pro vs Other WiFi 6 Access Points – 5GHz (80MHz) – 5 Feet – Upstream. I don’t recommend using 40 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz band, due to them overlapping with over 80% of the already-crowded spectrum. There’s only one non-overlapping 40 MHz channel in North America, and the rest of the world only has two. Like 160 MHz channels in 5 GHz, there is not enough available frequency for them to be reliably used in most situations. Wider channels also impose a noise penalty, and are generally worse at range than narrower channels. Next, I detached the metallic part of the case, leaving the antenna assembly still connected to the PCB. Flipping it upside down allowed me to identify the dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm IPQ5018, there are 4GB of flash NAND memory from Mouser Electronics (THGBMNG5D1LBAIL VD6963 2147KAE) and 8MB flash memory from MXIC (25U6432F). Ubiquiti U6-Pro Teardown.The U6-Mesh takes the FlexHD’s enclosure and stuffs Wi-Fi 6 radios in it. It's a AX5400 Qualcomm-based AP like the U6-Pro. The U6-Mesh runs hot, but it also performs very well. It is IPX5 certified, meaning it can be used indoors or out, and mounted in the same way the FlexHD can be. The U6 Lite is only dual-band (2.4 GHz and 80 Mhz channel-width), but the others also support the 160 MHz channel-width. So, I adjusted the settings to broadcast the signal at 80MHz and reconnected the WiFi 6 client device (AX200). As expected, the close-to-Gigabit speeds are gone, but the throughput is not bad. At 5 feet, upstream, I saw an average of 735Mbps, while downstream, it was 349Mbps. Ubiquiti U6-Pro – Wireless Test – 5GHz – WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 client devices – Upstream Ubiquiti U6-Pro – Signal Strength – 5GHz – WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 client devices – Upstream The U6-Pro is the newest of the three, and it is also a big step up from the U6-Lite. The U6-Pro also offers more transmit power, higher-gain antennas, more spatial streams, and more overall performance than the U6-Lite. The U6-LR and U6-Pro are both IP54-rated, meaning they are partially dust and splash resistant. They can be used in a protected outdoor area, like under a porch roof, but you wouldn’t want to install them in an unprotected outdoor area.