Ubiquiti - U7 Pro Outdoor

I've used Netgear Orbi, Eero, and Ubiquiti UniFi WiFi 7 systems all long term. If you want an excellent ecosystem all behind one very sleek pane of glass WITH better performance and reliability and control than the other stuff, just get UniFi. The only caveat is lack of a dedicated wireless backhaul channel but this is often inconsequential because of better range and overall bandwidth. If you want to set it and forget it and have tolerance when a forced botched firmware update is pushed with no rollback option, consider Eero.

This is incredibly misleading. The signal penetration and range of the Eero Max 7 and Eero Outdoor 7 are dogshit compared to the UniFi U7 Pro and XG lineup. Compare them one after the other in the same topology / env. The U7 Pro Wall I run consistently provides better signal range and wall penetration than the Eero Max 7 it replaced, albeit only 1200 Mbps on 6E vs 1400 on the Max. The U7 XGS (similar price range) blows it out of the water entirely in speeds and signal. MLO tops 3 Gbps on U7 XGS, 6 GHz 6E peaks at 1600 Mbps. If we're talking the same retail price, you'd be able to get an E7 and there's just no comparison in performance to an Eero Max 7 from that. The U7 Pro Outdoor provides VASTLY better range on 5 and 6 GHz than the Eero Outdoor 7 I had deployed. 1200+ Mbps vs 900 Max. Almost double the 5 and 6 GHz range with AFC. Oh but I forget... The Eero Outdoor doesn't even provide 6 GHz or AFC. And the U7 Pro Outdoor is also cheaper at only $279 vs $400+ retail. And neither is a full router.

I’m using Unifi APs with that same Firewalla model, and they work great.

No issues at all, wired backhaul. 2 U7 XGS, 2 U7 Pro Wall, and 1 U7 Pro Outdoor.

I left for Unifi, and couldn’t be happier.

Get one of these. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-compact Add this to power access points: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/switching-utility/collections/pro-ultra/products/usw-ultra-60w Then add a U6 Pro or U7 Pro. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/wifi-flagship No subscriptions needed. Beautiful interface to manage your entire network. Up to 8 different wifi SSIDs. You can keep your kids on one, iot on another, etc. Set different policies per network.

For 1200sqft a single UniFi U7 Pro AP would be enough… unless his walls are made of lead or foot thick CMUs with extensive rebar. I’d stick with a tri-band(2.4G/5G/6G) radio and you can now set them up on your phone. No other equipment needed.

I recently upgraded my APs to ubiquity U7 pro, I can really recommend an UniFi setup

Unifi is great, but if you rely on wireless mesh backhaul, I think Eero performs better. If your home is wired for Ethernet and you can get the access points where you want them, then Unifi is the better overall system as long as you don’t mind tending to it. Unifi really seems designed for a setup with wired backhaul and ceiling mounted access points, which office buildings usually have and older homes may not. In my experience, Eero is better in terms of wireless performance, but Unifi was better as a router. I had two Unifi U7 Pros and a Cloud Gateway Ultra. My two Eero Max 7s perform much better with wireless backhaul than Unifi did in comparison. 6ghz performance was also vastly better. Unifi turned me off with their U7 Pros. They were flakey on launch day, then improved over the course of a year, but then very quickly they released a V2 U7 Pro with internal revisions (i.e., hardware fix) and then another newer variant (U7 XG Pro or something). They took forever to support MLO, and it was not available for mesh backhaul. This was my first Unifi system. Zero complaints about the gateway, features, etc., but wireless wasn’t great in my setup, even after setting up wired backhaul using MOCA adapters.

Not wired. But I have wireless mesh with another U7 PRO and U7 Long Range. Works great

switch to unifi from google mesh. Much happier

Yep I'll second the U7 Pro. I actually only have one as it covers my 1800sq ft split level great.

U7 Pro works great

I'll say the following: 1. If your main router/wifi has "2.4GHz quality issues", why not consider replacing that with something that works right? Seems silly to have physically separate equipment and access points for 2.4GHz/IOT. 2. Wifi "range extenders" suck. Especially if you're planning on using 5GHz for the backhaul. 3. Bear in mind that even with the "most solid" 2.4GHz wifi, it's common for cheap IOT home devices to just be flaky and crappy. You will not eliminate 100% of that behavior even with the best wifi. 4. Others are recommending Ubiquiti, and I have a full Ubiquiti system at home as well, but keep in mind that Ubiquiti makes dozens of different access point models - some are KNOWN to have issues with 2.4GHz IOT devices. For example the U7 Pro. So you can't just go to Unifi and "buy the best" and expect that to be rock solid either. You'll have to do your research. But if you go with Ubi, one nice thing is you can have your main wifi SSID on all bands (2.4/5/6GHz), and additionally have your IOT SSID broadcasting from all the APs as well, but only on 2.4GHz if you choose. And as others have said, you can apply network rules such as not allowing devices on that SSID to connect out to the network if you want.

Yeah it’s mostly the U7 series I heard that there were issues with. Personally I didn’t have the issue with my U7 Pro but I also run nanoHDs which my 2.4ghz devices were connecting to for all I know. Also I know for a fact I had trouble with some WiFi HomeKit accessories not connecting to a mixed-frequency network. I think it was eufy or Meross only had 2.4ghz radios and would time out and fail to add unless I switched to a 2.4ghz-only network. So in my case I have a 2.4ghz hidden SSID for iot devices. I assume it was trying to connect to the same exact network as my phone which was connected to 5ghz. This could have been fixed with a HomeKit upgrade maybe?