AI Turret Test Rig

Personalize your all-weather, vandal-proof 4K PoE+ turret camera with enhanced AI capabilities and IR and visible LEDs for night vision as you like!
We tested the loitering and cross-line detection.

Author: Ryan Haag

Top 5 Tips for Better Wi-Fi Performance

Top 5 recommendations for better Wi-Fi performance in residential and small business environments.

1. Placement: Make sure your AP is close to where it will be used by your devices. At full power (not recommended) the highest throughput rate for a U7-Pro XG is 2.16Gbps. At 18 ft the data rate drops to 1.95Gbps, at 40 ft the data rate drops to 650Mbps.  Many residential Wi-Fi routers are placed in a closet, or out in the garage. Move that beautiful router out in the open.
2. Power: Turn the power from Auto, which equals High, to 15dbm. This will cause your coverage to decrease, which is a good thing.  All clients share airtime so clients that are far away from the AP will take up more airtime than those that are close, but the result is bad for everyone because even those with a strong signal will be affected by the weaker signal devices.
3. Use DFS Channels in 5GHz: The middle of the 5Ghz spectrum has 16 20MHz channels that often go unused. If your AP or Router makes those channels available, you can use them.  DFS is a method used to share this airspace with outdoor radar devices.  They rarely interfere with indoor wireless systems but if they ever do DFS is a way to automatically resolve the problem.
4. Use smaller channels: In 5 GHz  20 and 40MHz channels are best, 80 is a killer and 160 well… If you deploy 80MHz channels you almost certainly are going to suffer from other devices using the same channels.  There are 25 – 20MHz channels in 5GHz, 12 40MHz channels, and only 6 80MHz.
5. Add lots of APs: Preferably wired APs. Every time a mesh device is placed in a network it cuts the throughput in half.  So if you have expected throughput of 500mbps and you have four mesh APs your throughput is going to be 30mbps. Don’t let an installer put mesh APs throughout the house.  Have them wired as much as possible.
6. BONUS: Use the Ubiquiti Wi-Fi calculator to determine throughput https://wifi.ui.com/ and then use the Design Center https://design.ui.com to place your devices and get an idea of your equipment requirements. This will help you have a great Wi-Fi experience.

Author: Eric Weber

Don’t Miss These New Products

Ubiquiti had quite the month for releasing new products, but these two may have gone under the radar.

An outdoor utility box: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-accessory-tech/products/uacc-junction-utility

And an interesting one, a Wave MLO: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-wireless/products/wave-mlo5

Author: Eric Weber

MLO Support on Unifi U7 Access Points

Thanks to the latest Early Access updates, UniFi WiFi 7 AP’s can now support MLO functionality. Here’s a test with a Galaxy s24 Ultra.

Author: David Grillo

Veteran’s Day Remembrance

On this Veteran’s Day 2024 I wanted to give all our Vets a shout out and say thank you for your service. I served in the Army for 17 years and got to retire early at the age of 37. I served as an Infantry Officer and when people ask me what I did, my standard answer is; “mostly I just waited in line.” But that’s more to get a reaction than anything else. Here’s what I did in the Army.

I joined in 1977 and the Army was in pretty bad shape back then. There were a lot of people that had served in Viet Nam that had left the military but couldn’t find jobs and so they came back in Army because they couldn’t find anything better. In general, they were terrible soldiers, they hated the country because they felt like they had been treated badly, and they didn’t like the Army much better. There was a lot of talk about fragging the LT and skipping out and going to Canada when the Soviets invaded, which they all felt was eminent. My first duty station was at Ft Carson, CO and it was a lot of Guard Duty and hanging out at the Motor Pool.

Then in 1980 two things happened that significantly changed my life. First, Ronald Regan was elected president and the mood in the Army seemed to change almost overnight. With the release of the Iranian hostages, we seemed to gain confidence and training exercises became opportunities to learn how to defeat the enemy, rather than run from him. At Ft Carson we went from dopers to patriots in a matter of months, and the tattoo shops went from selling Weed tats to selling American Flags (GI’s love their tats). Things changed and best of all we got a 13% pay raise. Almost as good is that we changed chow too. Instead of eating C rations, we now were eating MRE’s. That was a huge morale booster for the infantry!

The other thing that happened is that I got stationed in Germany. This was a turning point for me. In Germany, I felt like I had an important job to do and I did. My unit took turns guarding the border between East and West Germany in an area called the Fulda Gap. It was an area where the border of West Germany extended far to the east creating a sort of peninsula that was surrounded by East Germany. Tom Clancy, the famous author, wrote a book called Red Storm Rising where he talked about how the Soviets would over-run Europe and that they would start by rolling through the Fulda Gap. During the time that I was there we all knew that was the plan, and our plan was to survive the first wave and then fight a counter-offensive from behind the lines. It sounded like desperate means, but all we talked about is how we could survive those Soviet Tanks and then fight our way back. It was so much different than the attitude of desertion that was so prevalent just three years prior.

The Army was good to me in many ways and after my tour in Germany I was selected to go to Officer Candidate School in Ft Benning, GA. It was like boot camp on steroids, but I came out of there as a 2nd Lieutenant and they sent me off to Korea to guard the other border. There aren’t too many people that can say they served on Freedom’s Frontier in both Germany and Korea, so maybe I did more than just stand in line.

In my time in the Army I got to serve as a Squad Leader, a Platoon Leader, and a Company Commander. I like to think that I helped men prepare for the battles in life along with contributing to the defense of this great nation.

Now, our great nation has given me back so much more than I deserve. I’m recognized and thanked at church, and concerts, and even at Home Depot and Lowes where they give veterans a 10% discount. I got a paid for a college degree through the Army too. But most of all, I got to grow up shaped by strong men who served this country out of duty and honor. I have to admit that I didn’t come into the Army with those values, I was one that didn’t have a lot of options, but I was surrounded by great men that were driven to do their best to defend the land they loved. For that, I will be forever grateful for the time I served in the United States Army.

Author: Eric Weber

wifi-U Breaks into Churches

Recently, we got a chance to attend a Church IT Network Conference as vendors. This was our first real conference, and we had a great time at the conference. Ryan and I thought it might be worthwhile to attend this conference as one of Ryan’s students recommended it after Ryan had told some stories related to some of the churches he supports. So we set up a table and brought a bunch of Ubiquiti equipment and let people touch stuff.

We weren’t very well prepared for running a both.  As you can see we didn’t have any banners showing who we are.  I had ordered the banners and thought we were in good shape but they got held up due to hurricane Helene and so they got to the office after I left for the conference.

Oh well, we will be ready for the next show.
Ryan held a talk he entitled “Holy Wi-Fi”. There were 50 people that attended, and he captivated them with stories about Ubiquiti installs and the capabilities of the UniFi devices.

We got lots of good feedback from the talk and then about 20 people followed us back to our “unmarked” booth where we continued the conversation.

So yes, WiFi-U has broken into the Church IT support market.  We love churches and we want them to be responsible with their parishioners money.  That makes Ubiquiti a great solution and we want to make sure they take advantage of all the new technology available to them!

Oh, and if you get a chance and want to attend the CITN next year you can access them here: https://churchitnetwork.com/national

And if you know of a great IT conference that you would recommend, we attend please let us know.  We’ll be sure to bring are banners next time!

Author: Eric Weber

Ubiquiti now supporting ONVIF capable 3rd party cameras

Train the Trainer

Recently all the wifi-U instructors went out to Salt Lake City for the Ubiquiti Train the Trainer Event.  It was an intense 3 days of going through all the slides and labs for four classes that we will be teaching for Ubiquiti. Of special interest was the Routing Switching Cybersecurity Administrator class. It’s their new class and it has a lot of great labs and heavy instruction on routing protocols. It’s a tough class and I don’t recommend it for beginners.  If you’re looking to get started in Networking take our Network Routing and Switching class before taking on that class.

We all felt like we were in an intense pressure cooker for three days, but we learned a lot, and a lot from each other.  I must admit I passed the test for the URSCA but not with a high enough score to teach it, so you may see me in the back of one of your classes, trying to prep for the test!

Author: Eric Weber

A Week In The Life Of A Trainer

This month I made it up to Augusta, Maine. It’s the one state I hadn’t traveled to and it’s a bit of an ordeal to get to Augusta. I had to fly from Boston on this 7-passenger plane.

Once I got there, I met the team from Aroostook Technologies https://aroostooktechnologies.com . They operate a WISP that goes all the way to the Canadian border and they have a specific set of challenges. There are lot lot of small communities they are trying to support but they have to be careful not to cross the Canadian border with their Wi-Fi signals because it’s against Canadian regulations to be operating in their space.

We had fun looking at the outdoor equipment and how to best deploy it using the UISP design tool during the UBWA course. This course is still very popular as Ubiquiti continues to deliver good products at a very reasonable price especially compared to running fiber in a rural area.

I also had a great Full Stack and UWA class in Richmond Virginia. So three capitals in one trip… Augusta, Richmond, and Boston.

Author: Eric Weber

Ubiquiti out in the wild

Recently, I got to take a trip to beautiful Scotland. I was travelling with family, and we took some amazing hikes to see the countryside.  One day we went way out to the Isle of Skye. It’s an amazing place and we happened to get fairly good weather. We made it out to see the epic Old Man of Storr

We hiked up and around it and when we got back to the Ranger Station, low and behold, we found some Ubiquiti Access Points!

The kids wanted to know why in the world I was taking pictures of the side of a building J

But you know!

It’s always fun to see how Ubiquiti is being deployed out in the wild.

Author: Eric Weber