Would a Ubiquiti Unifi AP provide better range over N66U?

[jkroeder]

I was looking into getting a Ubquiti Unifi AP to improve the range in my house.

I know what you're thinking. It's an access point so I should be placing it in a central location and running a cable to the router. But the way I was thinking of using this would be to disable the wireless on my Asus N66U completely and essentially just use this AP next to the router or at least, very close to it.

This is because of the poor placement of the cable modem in the house and the current inability to run ethernet. The cable modem and N66U is in a room on the top floor at the front end of the house. Therefore, the far end of the house and the basement gets poor signal. Well, for devices with weak wifi radios anyway (like my Nexus 5).

It's not very expensive so the cost isn't an issue and I'd prefer to not run a repeater. So, I was wondering if you guys would think this would work well.

Thanks

 

[JackMDS]

Just lay a cable to the Hallway side of the Room Install there Ubiquiti Unifi AP and leave the N66U as is.
Two APs (Asus and Ubiquiti) will provide you more Wireless flexibility just set them to different channels (1 & 11).

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would stick to just Unifi (one more more APs) so they're all part of the same system and the connection can hop over to the next AP if it has to. Unifi's also support vlans which is nice as you can setup multiple SSIDs on different vlans. Ex: a guest vlan, private vlan, and so on.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I would like to think the Ubiquiti would provide stronger and better range than the N66U, but the Unifi AP is rated @ 300Mbps/400ft while the N66u is rated @ 450Mbps/450ft. I don't know that I would disable the N66U wireless, but you may be able to increase the signal strength instead.

 

[kevnich2]

As much as I love the unifi wireless, if you aren't going to put the AP in a central location where the signal is going to reach the most area, why go that route? If you're going to have the Unifi right next to your N66U (which is an advanced router with decent wifi as it is), why even go with the extra expense of the unifi? Now if you run another cable and put the unif in a central area and find that it reaches all areas of your house, as is the case with me, then go ahead and disable wireless on your n66u.

 

[jkroeder]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Actually, I forgot that I had a pair of powerline adapters. They didn't work on the circuit that I was attempting to use them on last time so perhaps I can use them in addition with the unifi.

I'll give that a try


As for increasing signal strength on the N66U, I've tried this before and didn't notice any real difference.

Also, I currently have a wireless vlan on a separate SSID on the N66U as a guest network. Is this easy to set up on the Unifi?

Thanks to everyone