I bought 3 Ubiquiti UniFi access points (at enormous cost) to try to deliver reliable wifi to all points of my oddly shaped home (long and thin with some thick brick walls that mask all radio signals).
I’ve installed the Java & MongoDB(!) software needed to run it.
However at this point the AP is resolutely unable to contact / be seen by the controller software, and there is no solution in sight. Turned out to be a firewall issue. Just opening the documented ports wasn’t enough — to associate, I had to disable the firewall, and then reenable it after association.
The UI is quite cute: You can plop down access points on top of Google Maps (I have only one AP plugged in so far):
Richard WM Jones 
I hesitated to buy this Ubiquiti UniFi access points.
But after testing one of theme, I chose another access point.
Some problems to obtain a good wifi network with replication.
Java software needed. Problem with routing and firewall.
Finally, I buy an APU from PC Engines. More power, more flexibility, choice of the firmware, BIOS Coreboot. Used with OpenWRT. It’s more than just an access point. It’s a router with 3 Gigabit Ethernet, 2 miniPCI express for Wifi or 4G modem, Sata and mSata, Serial port, SD card, 2 er 4 GB of RAM.
If you wan’t less, for simple acces point, you can look at Alix (from PC Engines too).
All PC Engines equipement use AMD CPU, so you can use Fedora on it. 🙂
Hi Rich,
I’d be interested to know why you chose this solution. I’ve tried (with some success) running two “access points” in my home, but still have concerns about their effectiveness. One is upstairs, on the east end of the home. The other is in the basement, on the west end of the home. At one point I ran two Western Digital devices, configured as access points (stock / original firmware), identical configuration (except radio channels). Result, spectacular fail. I then replaced one of the routers with an Asus brand that I got for free from T-mobile, and things seem to be working better (same ssid, auth, encryption, stock firmware, etc… different channels.)
Also, I’d be curious if you use any network monitoring tools. I use Wifi Analyzer as a poor man’s tool at the moment.
Thanks,
John
I had two generic APs, configured identically (same SSID, same security settings, different channels) and roaming between them was useless. My laptop particularly (and phone to a lesser extent) would hang on to the old/wrong AP even though it was literally sitting next to the other AP. Roaming between the Ubiquiti APs seems to work with my laptop, but it’s a bit too early to say if it works better for every device yet.
I’m not using any other network monitoring tools, but the Unifi software has some pretty nice visualization tools. You can see which devices are connected to which APs, and also look at bandwidth usage.
Thanks for the reply Rich! Now that you’ve had a few weeks to use the new equipment, can you comment about the roaming of your “other” devices?
I’m terribly frustrated with my current situation. Spending more money for a better solution seems appropriate…
Well roaming of Linux is still hit and miss, but that turns out to be a problem with … Linux. Or wpa-supplicant. I found that I can easily make it roam to the nearest AP by doing:
Other devices, eg. Android, roam fine.
The Ubiquiti APs are still good, and the UI makes management and monitoring of them very convenient.
Very pleased with these. Finally got nice signal in the house.