Ubiquiti - UniFi Dream Router (UDR)

Deployed the previous UDR to a friend, it has been going strong for the entire time. I can recommend Unifi products in general.

I had this problem, you need to turn off some smart WiFi setting somewhere, I don’t remember exactly. Search for iPhone drops unifi wifi. After toggling it off no issues with connectivity. I do though have complain about unifi, UDR specifically, which started to randomly freeze right after warranty expired, and support after investigation said it is physical issue and I should just buy a new device.

What are you using for WiFi? I would wholeheartedly recommend for you, a “pro-sumer”, the Unifi stack. You can start with the dream router or go to the Cloud Gateway Ultra (less than $200)

You can have wifi on the router or separate. Up to you. The dream router has wifi 7 built in but it’s more expensive

UDR isn't a great all-around unless you're buying firmware. They need to work on making their hardware match their firmware capabilities.

Yes, to build a UniFi network with equal antenna technology, I need to get the Enterprise version of their Wifi 6 AP (assuming Wifi 6 is my use case). If I have a Wifi 7 use case, there's no AP with 6 Ghz 4x4 mimo last I checked, which will help with range to individual clients at the edge of the network and serving multiple clients. Admittedly that was a couple months ago after a recommendation. Even the 7 Pro Max is 4x4 only in the 5 GHz band. Nice for serving many clients, but not the hardware I'd expect for a Wifi client-heavy use case. With the UDR, it's 2x2 on every band. Specific use cases make sense with the firmware/software, like the NVR you mentioned. I'm not dismissing the firmware capabilities, just pointing out the need to strangely compromise with hardware in their solutions *when the claim is world class hardware in every implementation.

UnIFi is a great solution for what you want. The UniFi Dream Router 7 would be a great starting point. https://youtu.be/0AUqaf3wDQU?feature=shared

Future proof is always tricky. You’ll never know exactly what you need. I have the older UDR, it was my introduction to unifi and it’s been good. Just think about placement, having it a bit higher helps. If your gear will be located in an inconvenient location for an access point I’d maybe consider something else. Amazon does sell a decent looking wall mount. In my place the UDR plus one AP offers good coverage everywhere. Two access points are probably a little more future proof, as they are kind of upgradable separately from the UDR. But with WiFi7 being so new you’d be safe for a while. The express looks a lot more powerful, so unless you have some fast internet it’s probably ok. If you are vlan heavy though, at least with wired connections. How much traffic do you handle? They’d all have to go back to the router with your switch options and that connection is the bottleneck. The 2.5 with 10gbe to the router would be better. The fiber gateway… not sure if the UDR port can be configured for LAN. If 2.5gbe is fine then probably not an issue. Otherwise the Pro Max 16 PoE, or the Pro 8 PoE or Enterprise 8 PoE. If it’s all WiFi, probably doesn’t matter as much.

I would return the dream router get the Unifi express series either the regular or the 7s. put one in the cupboard and put another in the house they mesh.

Is this something the city or the county can do to help? Or are you volunteer firefighters who have to fight budgets to get newer hoses and there's no money around? Because what you really need is determine WHERE you need WiFi, then do a "survey" to know how well waves will propagate given your challenging environment. Meshes can extend range but will do very poorly against isolation and reflection. My guess is you will probably end up with a Unifi Dream Router ($279) and 2 U7 access points ($99 Lite, $189 Pro with 6Ghz). Since it's a fire station, I assume it's OK to run visible Cat6e from the Unifi Dream Router to the access points in different room. If I were you, I'd reach out to local Unifi resellers around and see if they would help you build this <$500 solution in exchange of a photo OP and your logo on their webpage/Yelp. People love firefighters and realistically your project is simple if you have the right tools. Maybe 4 hours of work. You pay for devices, they donate expertise, and you donate good publicity.

To upgrade or not! I have the original UDR and thinking of going to the UDR7 if the AP signal is better. Might just try it out and see myself.

As others have said, cable the mesh, as ***wireless*** meshing will always be "meh" at best, even on tplink or asus mesh systems. And yes, Unifi wins in every aspect. We've tried DLink, TPLink, NETGEAR, Huawei, and even Mikrotik, and the router setup that FINALLY worked flawlessly was Unifi. It literally just ***WORKS***. *All the other brands* were fine until more routers were added into the mix, then they made havoc, even when manually adjusting channels and whatnot. So yea, I'd get Unifi. Get a Dream Router and, if the space is big, one or several U6 Pro's (or U6 Enterprice if money allows). We have U6 Pro's at home and they're already *incredibly* good. Since our space allowed it, we've got a UDM Pro instead of a Dream Router just for the sake of expandability (and to separate concerns - one acting only as a gateway, the others just routers), but if you *JUST* want wifi, the Dream Router should be sufficient.

I'm not qualified enough to tell why it's better or not, but what I ***can*** say is that after dealing with multiple brands and all the hassle that came with them, I’ve stuck with UniFi because of its simple setup and the fact that *it just works*. Plus, UniFi is *almost* enterprise-grade, which means it ***has*** to be better than typical consumer-grade options - otherwise, it wouldn’t survive in that market. What this means for us, home users, is that the experience should be more than sufficient, which it is! About the UI, honestly, it's nice. It has a lot of interesting insights and options which you usually pay extra or straight-up don't even have on consumer-grade equipment. But even so, it's simple to set-up, in mere minutes. About connecting multiple Dream Routers together, if I'm not mistaken they are built to be used as a gateway AND routers, in one package combined, so you can't wire them together. If the house is big, I'd rather purchase a Dream Router (or even better a Cloud Gateway or an UDM Pro) and some AP's from them.