Cap AC, Hap AC2 or UniFi?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

So I have read through every thread on these things. Seems like they had software problems that maybe are resolved? One review said they had better noise floors than the UniFi equivalents. I’ve read the cap is amazing, has a bad antenna design, is slow, is fast and everything in between.

So - pretty thin on real info.

I want to buy maybe three to five APs to blanket my house. Ceiling mounted which speaks to going with the Cap AC.

How would a cap compare to a UAP-AC-nanoHD or Pro? Are the software issues resolved for speed. Is there handoff? Assume price between them is immaterial - which way should I go?

2

The cAP ac and hAP ac2 are beasts from a processing perspective, but their RF performance leaves a LOT to be desired.

With a cAP ac in a 3 bedroom townhouse with wooden walls, I can barely use 5Ghz in the room next to the cAP ac

3

i have tested wAP AC (3dbm less tx power x chain than cAP ac in 5ghz radio) and the coverage on 5ghz is as you say very limited

i was expecting cAP ac to be noticeably better than wAP ac, but your experience worries me :frowning:

i was expecting cAP ac to be better than hAP ac2 because uses independent antenna for 2ghz and 5ghz (hAP ac2 uses combined antenna) too

Looking unifi datasheets i see similar tx power on 5ghz radios, i have not tested 5ghz models of unifi to compare coverage, your experience leaves me thinking…

4

MikroTik for routing.
Ubiquiti Unifi for wireless access.

I have a single UAP-AC-LR covering a 1930’s 4 bed semi from the attic and I get amazing signal and speeds everywhere.

5

I must agree with Steve. I have 1 hap ac as Master and 4 ha ac lite to cover my house. Uap ac lr beats all the lites hands down.

Sent from Tapatalk

6

what a shame on mikrotik :frowning:

7

Completely agree with Steve. There are far better (non-point to point) wireless options than Mikrotik.

8

Is this still true, is the UAP-AC-LR preferred over the Cap AC?

I’m trying to find a setup for my house, the main router will either be the HAP AC or HAP AC2 and I thought about the CAP AC for
wireless - I’m unsure though reading these threads…

Any more suggestions?

9

Yes it is true, Mikrotik is far away from good speeds on there Wireless Systems @2,4Ghz and 5 GHz, they need to think about that, but they don’t care…

10

Understand what is being said here about MikroTik wireless. Slower 54Mbps connection rate is not a problem for home users surfing the internet on their mobile phones and tablets. The issue is when you have a laptop and you’re trying to transfer files to/from a server or other big data transfer situations. Then WiFi speed becomes something noticeable.

11

Yes I understand that of course - but my question is if there are still the above-mentioned differences between the UAP-AC-LR and Cap AC so that the Ubiquiti is still the preferred product to chose as the price is not really a big difference.

12

Mikrotik for routing.
Ubnt for PtP links.
Ruckus for Wireless Access Points.

In wireless.. I can do a ton of stuff with Mikrotik wireless that I can’t with Ubnt. But in straight throughput… The Ubnt is going to beat the Mikrotik and Ruckus is going to clobber both of them by a considerable margin. The Ruckus can also do it with more clients on each radio than either Mikrotik or Ubnt.

Wish it wasn’t the case… but even the new ACv2 chips from Mikrotik, they just don’t come close.

13

I don’t have experience with UBNT AP because the requirement of deploying UniFi controller on top of the APs doesn’t fit with my purposes (home only as my business locations are Cisco centric).
Nothing wrong with UniFi and I know it could be possible to do a “set and forget” setup but I like to keep my systems monitored so once again “set and forget” approach doesn’t fit my purposes.

Said this.
As we speak, I have an cAP ac covering an entire flat that is approximatively 65m3 with medium density brick walls (10cm depth)

The AP is setup to provide 2 SSID under 2.4GHz (using VLAN and separate bridge) and 1 SSID under 5GHz, path is cAP AC ==> CSS106 ==> hEX S ==> Internet, in average 10 devices connected to this AP.

This is the heatmap I get.
2g https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FEAxmqzeugXLwpTOWAqcCwq2LT365Lk4/view?usp=sharing
5g https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HRmJN2Ry1XpjfhSpGt8gms5PZWY5vf9o/view?usp=sharing

Speedtest towards internet hits 67/68Mbps down and 19Mbps up (in theory a 100/20 vdsl FTTC, but modem is attesting at 68/20Mbps because the cabinet is 300m from my home)

Iperf3 tests using 2.4GHz link is test 130Mbps ing avg in both direction
Using 5G iperf is exchanging data at 260Mbps in avg in both direction.

As I said, I don’t have the experience to day if the UBNT AC lite can do better, perhaps yes, but I don’t feel the cAP ac is that terrible.


Regards
Dario

14

Dario.

When you configure a hAP AC2, cAP AC, and Rucks R510 exactly the same and swap them into the same spot one after the next… You would get it.

The cAP AC and hAP AC2 top out right around 300 at point blank range. But the R510 will actually hit the 866M you should get from a 2x2 AC-MU radio.

15

The Ruckus seem even more expensive.. I’m not sure if this isn’t way overkill for my home (concrete house).

I’m just trying to figure out whether I should get the Hap Ac or Ac2 and which Wireless AP (4 of them)… this is getting really difficult it seems :slight_smile:

16

Performance, features, price … pick any two.

17

I’m aware of that, that’s why I asked for suggestions :slight_smile:

18

How about Capsman, wouldn’t that be a benefit to go with Mikrotik?

All in all, what would you suggest for a small setup (house with 3 floors, concrete) to go with the Hap AC2?
Shouldn’t be too expensive I think that’s not needed in my scenario.

19

Hate to say it but the Unifi’s esp the LR Model is just a whole lot better especially now that they’ve designed a proper Cloud Key.

20

Ruckus is more expensive that Mikrotik. And i will use Mikrotik and caps-man right up until people have WAN speeds higher than about 200M or a WHOLE LOT of client devices at a time.

When it comes to routing… I never feel like I am “settling for poor performance” when i use Mikrotik. But in wireless… Its glaringly obvious.