Unifi NanoHD or Wifi6 (U6 Pro)

[mdrabble]

I'm looking to extend coverage our existing Unifi Wifi (NanoHD APs) due to the fact I now have 3 laptop trollies around site.

 

Originally, when I put the NanoHDs in, we didnt have any laptop trollies and the coverages was for BYOD (Phones, and the odd tablet/laptop)

 

Fastforward a bit and last year we introduced our first laptop trolley (32 x Dell 3190) due to staff not being able to book IT rooms when they needed and it went down a storm and staff were happy with performance/logon times etc

 

Fastfowrd another 6 months and we have a 2nd trolley (32 x Dynabook) - again these have gone down well.

 

Starting to notice a couple of issue with Wifi coverage, as APs are mainly in corridors (approx 1 AP per 4 classrooms)

 

I am gettings reports that sometimes, so students are taking approx a good 10-25 mins to logon and get to a desktop - when I've brought them in for testing or I have tested them in place, they appear to work fine.

 

The two laptop trollies are never in the same vacinity so I dont have 64 laptops trying to overload the APs in that area.

 

So... now about to introduce a 3rd (15 x HP) trolley, so I think I need to look at adding some additional APs.

 

I'm a little torn between keeping with the NanoHD, as they offer great realibity vs cost, or do I go U6-Pro for the additional APs, Laptops wont take advantage of Wifi 6 but will add they little bit of future proofing for next few years.

 

There is approx £20-30 difference between the Nano and U6-Pro but when multiplied by X number of APs, then that could potentially be abother couple of Nano APs.......

 

Laptops will be around for approx 3 years, by which time, the Wifi will be due for renewal (will have been in 7-8 years by that point), so the existing NanoHD will be replaced and/or Wifi 6 as well if I get them - as when the Wifi is upgraded/changes it could change to a different vendor.

 

What would you opt for? NanoHD, as laptops dont support Wifi 6 and the current bulk of BYOD are not Wifi 6 as yet or Get Wifi 6 for potentiel BYOD devices connecting which may support Wifi 6 which will hopefully help when Laptops connect to those APs.

 

 

Cheers

[Oaktech]

I've been generally unhappy with the coverage of the NanoHD, I'm only seeing real-world range about 2/3rds of what they advertise, so I'd be getting something-anything different.

 

Would I go U6? Probably not - in our refresh cycle we won't be getting a significant proportion of Wifi-6 devices until it's close to time to fully refresh the Wifi too.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Oaktech

[hallb15]

I would go with the U6 Pro as the coverage will be much better and you will be moving towards compliance with the government's wireless network standards.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/wireless-network-standards-for-schools-and-colleges

[chazzy2501]

you can specify a minimum data rate for wifi clients, this stops one slow client borking the rest.

[ZeroHour]

you can specify a minimum data rate for wifi clients, this stops one slow client borking the rest.

Interestingly this: https://www.sniffwifi.com/2016/01/why-you-shouldnt-disable-low-wi-fi.html from 2016 seems to imply its best not to rely on it and use broadcast power far more to prevent issues but it was from 2016.

 

I personally have a U6-Pro and with an iPhone 13 Pro, <1m away with a fairly (mostly) empty 5GHz band chosen I have seen up to 900mb going through but thats in near ideal conditions and only using 5GHz.

My biggest gripes have been with the rapid rollout of firmwares without much detail of whats going on and it leading to issues while solving/improving older issues. The other irk with Unifi is the whole change the SSID and all clients on all SSID's get disconnected.

[mdrabble]

Cheers for all the replies, will look at the U6-Pros as and when I get chance with an every increasing workload.