Ubiquiti - UniFi Express 7

You can use the Express 7 as a tabletop AP very easily. I got 3 and run them like that.

I bought 3 for a mesh system in a 3100 SF trac home. Only unboxed and setup two of three. With two just downstairs the coverage was really weak and the speeds were low. After tinkering with them for a week I sent all 3 back. They couldn't out perform the TP Link XE75 Pros, or TP Link BE63's. Tested Eero 6 and finally settled on a two pack of the Asus BT10's. Two BT10's both downstairs cover our entire home, garage and large backyard. Wasn't impressed.

Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know. A Unifi Express 7 cost 179€ and include the Wifi AP, the Unifi controller (brain) and connect to your modem. This is all you need and much cheaper that two Deco 50 !

Sorry it wasn’t obvious. Anyway the important fact is that he only need an Unifi Express 7 and it’s damn cheap to step in the Unifi universe of good reliable internet like no other that hypnotise all their clients for life.

He doesn’t need two AP, he said it clearly. Unifi provide the most stable wifi network for IoT of all the AP on the market, even with one VLAN, even in mesh configuration. On top of this you can setup dedicated IoT VLAN and dedicated IoT SSID, use their new object oriented policy management (unique on the market) for the most complex IoT setups. They went that far to have little icons for every gadget on the market in their interface. I know a bit or two, I have +200 IoT devices in my home from Apple, Switchbot, Aqara, Logitech, Eufy, Hue, Govee, and numerous exotic brands. I have been through hell with solutions from Apple, Orbi, Peplink, Meraki, Eero, Huawei and many many more. And only since I am rocking on Unifi I can open my Apple Home app with not a single device error ! At 179€ the Unifi Express 7 is, by far, the best solution for OP and a damn cheap ticket for discovering the “Apple” of networking.

UniFi object policy management allow you to easily pick devices and create group of them that are accessible by your kids (mobile, switch, laptop, smart tv, …) then control (block with optional schedules) access to classes of websites (ex. porn), groups of applications (ex. Social media), specific websites (lol) or specific apps (TikTok). I use it with two teenagers (one study computer sciences, the other polytechnic) and it resisted their hacking tentatives until today. On top of this there is an optional subscription that allows to use Cloudflare to go even further in granularity.

Absolutely. Get and try it for a week. You can always send it back if it doesn’t fit your need. But I am 100% that you will fall in love with Unifi, like all of us.

Believe me, I tried them all. Unifi is the best, easiest, fastest, most reliable solution for Wifi. You can start with a simple Unifi Express 7 : https://eu.store.ui.com/eu/en/products/ux7 Warning, you may end up with a home full of Unifi products and a beautiful rack.

I would return the dream router get the Unifi express series either the regular or the 7s. put one in the cupboard and put another in the house they mesh.

The express is designed to mesh with other expresses. Ive installed a few for people that wiring is not an option.

Yes they can he was asking about a router. The expresses are meant to be meshed together like the tplink decos.

Uniform UX7s ensure no weak links in your mesh. Saving on AP costs now can cost you in performance later.

You’ll need to buy piecemeal, I’ll leave required equipment below for what I’d do. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/u7-lite https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/ux7 https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/usw-lite-8-poe You’d only need about 1 UX7 and 1-2 U7 Lites. I’d do 1 U7 Lite and see how that performs, you can scale up easily if needed.

First, mesh is bad without a wired backhaul ( [https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/189h7um/mesh\_wifi\_much\_slower\_than\_main\_router/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/189h7um/mesh_wifi_much_slower_than_main_router/) ). Just something to know going into it. You really should have all of your APs (access points, the things that send out the Wi-Fi) wired back to a central or "home" controller. If your home has coax or ethernet already run, then get non-mesh wired APs instead. If you're getting mesh, I would look at the Ubiquiti UX7. They are scalable, small, have Wi-Fi 7 at a reasonable-ish price, and can easily do all of the things you mentioned except custom firmware. Not sure what the need is for point 4 in your case.

Juuust switched to Unifi few days ago. Blown away. Ive seen you ask a few people here what there setup is.. whats your current setup? I.e. how many nest wifi points do you have, and are they meshed wired or over wifi?

Hmmm fair. My experience with Unifi has been good (other than initial speed issues with IoT). What ive noticed is the wifi broadcast is fairly powerful, definitely more so compared with Nest wifi pro. I was running 2 nest wifi pros either end of the house. Ground and first floor. Ive now placed one UDR7 fairly central in the house and I great speeds in all rooms. That being said, if you have 3 points you should really wire the points together. I had lots of speed and stability issues at my parents who have a fairly "long" 3 story house with lots of walls. Depends on placement too, the main point was furthest, then another point to the middle, and the last point at the other end of the house. Nest is supposed to mesh to any point, but for some reason mines kept looking for the main point. Wired them up (nest to unmanaged switch, ethernet to each point) and that solved speed and stability issues. Major benefit is it doesn't need to use wireless backhaul (which research at the time suggested takes up a significant enough portion of bandwidth and processing power). Honestly, rather than buy a different system, I would put some effort in and wire the points. Once done, it will definitely be faster but you've also opened yourself up to lots of options (not just unifi kit, but also opportunity to wire more devices as you can place switches at the end of each run).

Recently got a Dream Router 7 and while it's just the router all their AP's are mesh capable. Now it's above the mark you're going above but I wish I had gotten the UniFi Express 7 which is essentially the same with less ports. I misunderstood something so 70 dollars probably wasted although I ended up using the porta. Depending on your internet speeds it may not be enough. This is the misleading part. It has a 10Gbps port but its IDP is like 2.4Gbps so you will never get 1oGbps from it but if your Internet is under 2.5Gbos it's fine. The great thing to me was their software. It's stupid easy and I used everything from PFSense to WRT to Cisco CLI. Any AP can be a mesh AP or independent. It suggests stuff like iot VLAN's and makes it simple so while not cheap you're paying a lot for the software and future software support. The one thing disappointing I found out after was for MLO to work, the main benefit of WiFi 7 were it uses all the bands as one "pipe" requires WPA 3. I've been meaning to mess around with VLAN's but it appears to be a per router/AP setting which sucks because I think my Pixel 8a support WPA 3 but most my 5Ghz stuff doesn't so that's going to be an issue with any WiFi 7 mesh system. I did get noticeably higher internal (LAN) transfer speeds when using it so it works. EDIT: see below and it's a network wide WiFi setting [https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/s/qXrsjaMuRO](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/s/qXrsjaMuRO) https://preview.redd.it/v2lx4as0mscf1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=b542fc1ec84cd08901689b85afea01768521168a

LOL if you have concerns about Google / Amazon, you may not be feeling much better w/ TP-Link (China). If you have an ethernet cable between the two, as you mentioned you do, I would go with a very simple Ubiquiti setup. 1. Unifi Express 7 ~ plug this in as your "main" node. 2. Some Ubiquiti WiFi7 Access Point ~ plug this in via ethernet + PoE injector. This setup should roughly cost $350, and you'll be on Ubiquiti, which is arguably the best platform out there.

I don't know why availability would be an issue. All the items are in stock. This is what you would need for a "complete" setup. 1. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/ux7 -- That's your main unit. They are just as plug-and-play as most consumer routers these days. 2. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-wifi/products/u7-pro-wall -- Ubiquiti has a LOT of access points. I'm not sure what your ethernet cable terminates. If it terminates into a wall plate, then you may want one of the nice wall mounted ones. If it terminates in the ceiling or in a cabinet, then maybe you choose a different one. 3. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-poe-power/collections/pro-store-poe-and-power-adapters/products/u-poe-plus -- That's the PoE injector for your second access point. To your questions... Configuration and management: Honestly if you're even slightly network savvy, it's so much cleaner and nicer than the other systems. The Asus / TP-Link stuff is now either typically locked in an app or has a crappy web UI with infrequent updates. Google WiFi is fine. I have it for my parents, but you don't get much control. At least it "just works" most of the time. Range: In my experience, much more than the Google WiFi Nest Pro. Similar to you, I installed that at my parents' house. I upgraded them from the previous Google WiFi system, and I found the range got a bit worse, but if you're in range, the speeds are much better. PoE Injector -- Most Ubiquiti stuff is powered by what's called "power over ethernet." It atually sends a DC current over the cable. It provides both power and data to the access point. For homes / businesses that require multiple access points, it's so convenient to just drop an ethernet line where you want to add the access point, versus needing a separate power source. Most mid-range or high-end Ubiquiti stuff has ethernet ports that are already "PoE enabled." With the device I recommended to you, the ethernet port there doesn't have PoE, so you need an "injector" which takes wall power and sends it through the ethernet line. An alternative device is the Dream Router 7. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/udr7 -- One of the ethernet ports on this device is a PoE port, so in this case, you wouldn't need the injector. BTW - I agree it's awkwardly hard to tell if wired backhaul is working w/ the Google Home app. As I mentioned, I have it set up for my parents w/ 3 nodes, all wired, and I find it so frustrating how NOT intuitive it is. Like, they really hide the visibility of it. That being said, it DOES pretty much "just work" for my parents. You said you "added" the Nest Pro. Google doesn't allow you to run mixed mode. I'm assuming you have swapped both old units out for the newer Nest Pro, right?

I don't know why availability would be an issue. All the items are in stock. This is what you would need for a "complete" setup. 1. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/ux7 -- That's your main unit. They are just as plug-and-play as most consumer routers these days. 2. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-wifi/products/u7-pro-wall -- Ubiquiti has a LOT of access points. I'm not sure what your ethernet cable terminates. If it terminates into a wall plate, then you may want one of the nice wall mounted ones. If it terminates in the ceiling or in a cabinet, then maybe you choose a different one. 3. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-poe-power/collections/pro-store-poe-and-power-adapters/products/u-poe-plus -- That's the PoE injector for your second access point. To your questions... Configuration and management: Honestly if you're even slightly network savvy, it's so much cleaner and nicer than the other systems. The Asus / TP-Link stuff is now either typically locked in an app or has a crappy web UI with infrequent updates. Google WiFi is fine. I have it for my parents, but you don't get much control. At least it "just works" most of the time. Range: In my experience, much more than the Google WiFi Nest Pro. Similar to you, I installed that at my parents' house. I upgraded them from the previous Google WiFi system, and I found the range got a bit worse, but if you're in range, the speeds are much better. PoE Injector -- Most Ubiquiti stuff is powered by what's called "power over ethernet." It atually sends a DC current over the cable. It provides both power and data to the access point. For homes / businesses that require multiple access points, it's so convenient to just drop an ethernet line where you want to add the access point, versus needing a separate power source. Most mid-range or high-end Ubiquiti stuff has ethernet ports that are already "PoE enabled." With the device I recommended to you, the ethernet port there doesn't have PoE, so you need an "injector" which takes wall power and sends it through the ethernet line. An alternative device is the Dream Router 7. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/udr7 -- One of the ethernet ports on this device is a PoE port, so in this case, you wouldn't need the injector. BTW - I agree it's awkwardly hard to tell if wired backhaul is working w/ the Google Home app. As I mentioned, I have it set up for my parents w/ 3 nodes, all wired, and I find it so frustrating how NOT intuitive it is. Like, they really hide the visibility of it. That being said, it DOES pretty much "just work" for my parents. You said you "added" the Nest Pro. Google doesn't allow you to run mixed mode. I'm assuming you have swapped both old units out for the newer Nest Pro, right?