So from your first reply, I'm going to read it to mean that I should not use their InWall units except as supplemental units in some locations - as they will most likely be stuck behind some hefty piece of furniture due to being ~16" off the ground.

Let me explain where the garage would be - exactly where you'd expect it to be on a normal house on a normal lot. The sample lot in the link has it facing a lane behind the house. But your suggestion of a repeater in the nearest corner of the house is valid.

Thx

... I put a PoE AP in each, both running 2.4 and 5 GHz simultaneously, all on the same SSID - so four channels total. ...

I set the SSID for the 5Ghz different from 2.4Ghz

Agree with running CAT6 cables to the equipment closet locations. Run more than one to each location. Cables do go bad sometimes, sometimes well after installation.

A good wired connection provides the best reliability. WiFi can be quite good, but sometimes the solid connection using wired Ethernet is worth the hassle of installing it.

...getting a cable upstairs means fishing for cables in wall cavities.

..used a vacuum cleaner to suck the end of the thread out of the exit hole

On Mac I use WiFi Explorer.

Even on the Standard version I find the Channels view to be highly useful. Seeing what other WiFi sources are conflicting with the channels being used by my own gear really clarifies what channels I need to NOT be using.



I can carry my MacBook around like a Geiger counter and sniff out which sides of the house (and which neighbours) are squatting across precious bandwidth. In some cases I offer to adjust their own WiFi gear to better channel selections (for both of us) and turn off 2.4Ghz wide channel modes.

Wifi Analyzer on a smart phone is a somewhat more portable solution for that!

The UniFi Lite I ordered arrived yesterday, and in good geek fashion everything else was ignored so I could play with it - well once the kids got put to bed.

Physically the unit is very light - this will make for easy temporary installing with 3M OnCommand strips, and smaller then I expected. The Lite unit really is smoke alarm sized, and more discrete (once the blue light is disabled) then I expected, which will help with WAF and therefore placement options. This is a big win for me.

Configuration is very different from a traditional WAP or home router, but nothing a regular nerd shouldn't be able to handle. If you remember that you are configuring a system, and not an individual device, it goes a long way. I expect that adding a future AP will be even easier as it will inherit a lot of the existing config. At this stage I know I've not even scratched the surface of what the software can do, and I suspect that is the case for most home users of this product.

Performance wise the Lite's signal was marginally stronger on 2.4ghz then my existing Asus N66 when using inSSIDer* on a desktop two floors up. Unifi does report that the 2.4ghz band is ~50% utilized in my neighborhood, but that 5ghz is barely touched. Checking the devices in my house many of them are 5ghz capable (phones, chromebooks, work laptop), those that are not include the kids Kindles (sorry kids), Roku (within line of site of the router), Raspberry Pi (it's fine on 2.4) and the above mention desktop ($20 to replace the mini PCI express card to add AC and BlueTooth).

All in all a valuable exercise, and well worth the $77 investment for the piece of mind of knowing what I'll need to do to get solid wifi in our new home.

Thanks everyone!

* Agh! inSSIDer has gone away, or at least their free Home version. You can still grab version 3 of the Home version from some download sites, though it lacks AC support.