I upgraded my home network with the UniFi Dream Machine
Bye bye Google WiFi
Let me start by saying that Iam one of those annoying people who always likes to be tinkering about with my home WiFi much to the annoyance of my wife and kids. So a few years ago I bought the Google WiFi three puck system and it instantly solved my issues of getting WiFi around my house and roughly kept the same speed as the main unit. However of late the system started to slow down, devices started to receive less and less speed. So after many weeks of investigating and tweaking, there really is not much you can do with the Google WiFi system I ultimately deemed it to be damaged as the ISP router was getting full speed.
Enter the UniFi Dream Machine
After some research I decided to make the plunge into Ubiquity’s UniFi range of products, something I have wanted to do for awhile now. I decided to purchase the UniFi Dream Machine which has the router, switch and cloud key already built into the amazing looking cylinder.
Even though my house is not large, it is made from solid concrete blocks and outer brick layer so I also purchased the UAP-AC-LR which has a max range of 183 meters or 600 feet. My plan was that the UDM main unit will live in the sitting room just like the old system did as that is where my ISP line is, the access point would then be at the top of my stairs at the back corner of the house. To my surprise before even adding the access point to the system the UDM was already giving me better coverage than the 3 puck Google WiFi system. After adding the access point in wireless up link mode to the setup, my entire house was covered, and not only that, covered with consistent WiFi speeds every time I would run a check.
The Setup
Setting up the system which lets remember is not 100% intended normally for consumers but now thanks to the UDM and app is a breeze to setup and to adopt and add any additional access points you might need. Within minutes the actual system is up and running with your main WiFi network being available. I have a lot of devices in my living room, so these are connected to a regular switch which in tern links to the LAN port on the back of the UDM.
I kept things simple, one parent WiFi network which is unrestricted, one kids WiFi network which is restricted and blocks all adult content and malicious sites (yes you can do this). Finally one guest WiFi network which does the sames as the kids but also reduces guest speed to 10Mb down and 5Mb up so guests are using too much bandwidth. You have full control, and if you wanted you can actually even charge guests for WiFi usage, it’s that powerful.
The App Experience
For most people the app for your phone will probably be enough just for you to check in and see how your network is doing.
The app has four main sections where you will live, Dashboard, Devices, Clients and Statistics. The dashboard will give you an overview of the current WiFi experience which is an average across all devices. You can also see which clients are the most active on your network. The Devices tab (not seen above) will show you any network points that are part of your system, for me this shows the UDM and the Access Point.
The Clients tab shows you what devices are connected, either wired or wireless, in the case of wireless you can also see the WiFi satisfaction percentage. Finally the Statistics tab will show you the usage across all devices, what on those devices including what category was using bandwidth.
The Dashboard Experience
If you want to get into the nitty gritty of your network then you can jump into a web browser and get to all those settings not available on the app.
One of the great things which I mentioned above was the ability to have different WiFi networks for parents and kids. As you can see below you can apply DNS Filtering so that the kids can have anything dodgy blocked and yet the parents WiFi is wide open. This is not a replacement for good parenting by the way but its nice to have it.
The other amazing thing about the UDM is Threat Management, you can actually block incoming and outgoing traffic to any country in the world. You can decide if you want to just detect attacks or have the UDM actively defend and eliminate it, it is very powerful as Trump would say.
You can do everything you could do in the app but so much more and far more than I could possibly go into here.
The Takeaway
Having come from just a regular ISP router to Google Wifi, at the time I thought it was great, and don’t get me wrong it was, for awhile. But having upgraded to what is effectively enterprise equipment, you will see this stuff in offices and at large events, I can now see why I am so glad I made the jump.
It also is not that much more expensive either, for example right now on the Google Store a three puck system costs EURO 391 while a UDM and one access point costs EURO 408. Remember in my setup the UDM alone was more powerful than the three puck Google WiFi.
Just for clarity, I purchased this equipment myself and this is not a sponsored post or dig at Google. However I am very impressed so far with the UniFi Dream Machine and if you have spotty WiFi in your house, be it large or small then you can fix it.
As your home grows you can simply add more and more access points too, and there is an access point almost for every occasion even outdoor ones.
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