Is Unifi worth the upgrade?

[conflictednetworks]

i shifted from consumer gear to SMB gear because i got tired of investing hours diagnosing a black box. The SMB APs, i configured once and set the power levels until i had adequate coverage. i didn't need bragging rights but needed something that did not require constant attention. You will get to that point one day.... Once you switch and forget about the gear, it will all become clear.

one thing I do find strange in consumer routers is why can't they have a clean easy to understand client list presented nicely like how unifi does? I was trying to dig into 3 2.4 ghz wifi clients that was doing some wonky stuff the other day and all I could get as a Mac address which doesn't tell me squat. Unifi? easily tells me its wemo switches and nest cameras. I would imagine asus could do something like that but they didn't. I think I know my answer and where I need to put my money but ouch that's gonna hurt my wallet for a while.

 

[Tech9]

When single AP is enough I would recommend home AIO router as best price/performance option. You already have above average number of clients for a typical household and may experience disconnections from single AP. Wireless cameras on 2.4GHz may use the entire channel bandwidth when single radio serves all 2.4GHz devices. Don't look at the price and speed test only, but also plan future expansion options.

Home AIO routers are cheaper, but disposable at EoL. You probably noticed already Trend Micro engine used in ASUS firmware requires data sharing to 3rd party company. This same bwdpi engine on ASUS BE-class routers is broken. If you need App based device prioritization or parental controls it may not work as you'd expect. AiProtection signatures in Asuswrt will update around once a month vs. daily in UniFi OS.

Choose whatever you like better and fits your budget and use case. Don't overpay for hardware and don't judge system performance based on speed test to phones and tablets. You have missed the sale for UCG-Max and could fit under CAD1000 with 2x U7 Pro for your wireless devices and 2x USW-Flex-2.5G-5 for your wired devices for well balanced 2.5GbE UniFi system with full set of control and tuning options.

All the best in 2026!

 

[conflictednetworks]

When single AP is enough I would recommend home AIO router as best price/performance option. You already have above average number of clients for a typical household and may experience disconnections from single AP. Wireless cameras on 2.4GHz may use the entire channel bandwidth when single radio serves all 2.4GHz devices. Don't look at the price and speed test only, but also plan future expansion options.

Home AIO routers are cheaper, but disposable at EoL. You probably noticed already Trend Micro engine used in ASUS firmware requires data sharing to 3rd party company. This same bwdpi engine on ASUS BE-class routers is broken. If you need App based device prioritization or parental controls it may not work as you'd expect. AiProtection signatures in Asuswrt will update around once a month vs. daily in UniFi OS.

Choose whatever you like better and fits your budget and use case. Don't overpay for hardware and don't judge system performance based on speed test to phones and tablets. You have missed the sale for UCG-Max and could fit under CAD1000 with 2x U7 Pro for your wireless devices and 2x USW-Flex-2.5G-5 for your wired devices for well balanced 2.5GbE UniFi system with full set of control and tuning options.

All the best in 2026!

Gah that sale was what stung. Ubiquiti Canada had a sale on the u7 pros for $180 cad each plus shipping. Granted Ubiquiti Ugg fiber wasn’t on sale ($379) so really what I lost out on is the very competitive pricing on the AP during the sale. As far as switches went I don’t think the distributor I bought from even had the said switch you are speaking of. I just purchased a TPlink 5 port POE++ 2.5 GBE switch for $140 CAD and the rest of the home is fed via a Cisco gig-e POE switch. As far as AP goes, I have a U7 Pro XG that cost $290 CAD that I could hobble along with until the next ui sale. How often dos Ubiquiti have a sale? Is it once a year around Black Friday/Christmas?

How long as this bwdpi engine been broken?

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies from you and others. Definitely helps make me think carefully about my future network decisions.

 

[Tech9]

How often dos Ubiquiti have a sale?

Rarely, few times a year for specific items. They had UCG-Max and U7-Pro on sale recently for Black Friday. You have to watch for sales and act fast because the sale products disappear quickly.

How long as this bwdpi engine been broken?

Since the introduction of BE-class models. As per current information ASUS is perhaps working on service provider replacement. There is one model using different engine already, GT-BE19000AI.

 

[degrub]

Rough numbers per AP for ASUS/other consumer gear - somewhere around 30 clients sharing the radios.
SMB gear is usually designed for many more clients , 50, 100, 200, .... just check the specs. And the software driving it is reliable as businesses don't tolerate much downtime and don't tolerate being beta testers unless they specifically sign up for it.
Plus the software driving the APs allows for much finer implementation control to ensure more even coverage among other things.
Least troublesome way to add more clients is to use the ASUS gear as APs hardwired back to a main router. But you don't have the ability to fine tune the APs, so placement can be tricky. Sure , AiMesh can/does work well enough for some cases. But is is mostly marketing hype to sell product. AIO consumer gear was designed for a different use case and "mesh" was kluged onto it.