I finally broke through the WiFi gigabit barrier with the Unifi U6 Enterprise Access Point. You can watch my full review of it here. I integrated it with the other Unifi equipment that I have looked at in my previous videos about my home network.
My other Unifi access points in the house are the smaller and lighter Lite units that feel a lot like a small frisbee. The U6 Enterprise is significantly larger and heavier, weighing in at more than 2 pounds! So if you’re mounting other access points on a ceiling tile you’ll need to have a different strategy for this one.
The big difference the U6 Enterprise brings over their U6 lite access point is that the U6 supports the 6E standard that operates over the 6ghz. Additionally it can support 160mhz wide channels for data transfers over one gigabit per second on both the 5ghz and 6ghz frequencies for clients that support that. In order to exceed those transfer rates the U6 Enterprise has a 2.5 gigabit ethernet port for faster backhaul data transfer rates.
In my testing with a clear line of sight to the AP we saw speeds of around 1.5 gigabits per second in both directions using a 6ghz Wifi 6E client. Those speeds drop off with distance and obstructions. But I did find throughout my testing that transfer rates were much better as compared to the AC lite access point I was using previously.
Like other Unifi products the access point uses Power Over Ethernet (POE) to power the device. They do not include a power injector in the box and unfortunately do not offer an affordable POE switch that delivers 2.5 gigabit speeds. What I did was purchase an Engenius EPA5006HAT injector (affiliate link) that did the trick. Any POE+ compatible injector or switch should work as well.
This unit costs significantly more than the lite model (affiliate link) so if you’re on a budget it might be best to use the Enterprise units in high traffic locations and the Lites in the lower traffic ones. In my testing I saw no difference in performance on an 80mhz Wifi 6 connection between the two.
All in this works well and integrates just as easily and seamlessly as my other Unifi gear. But for cost I will be purchasing an additional lower cost Lite model to complete my household conversion to Wifi 6.