Ubiquiti UAP-AC-M-US Unifi Mesh Access Point, White

If you just read the product description, you think that you would connect this product to your network and it will beam it through wifi across the street. Well, it does not really work this way!! Before buying this product I never heard about Ubiquiti and I was struggling with my consumer line router to get a decent when not utterly unstable perimeter video surveillance wifi network. Even the closest camera did not stream properly in the middle of the day for some reason and I am not in an overwhelmed radio neighborhood. I was using a Ampedwireless router with a repeater with underwhelming results, connections to the cameras dropped several time a day and I do not even mention the number of router reboot required to keep the system alive. After intensive researches, I stumbled upon this product and seems to have good reviews even though the product was still quite mysterious to me, not much documentation and never seen it before. So I took a bid and thought that anyway, if it did not work, I would return it as I did with another router which did not help at all a week ago. The first impression when opening the box is, Ok the packaging looks professional, not too much and just what is required to protect the product, the instruction leaflet is succinct but sufficient to get started. Installing and configuring the first AP was a breeze with the phone App but using the desktop App opens new horizons, you get so much more that I wonder how I could live without it until now!! The way this product works is as follow: whether you have an entire Ubiquiti network or just using your AT&T network, you MUST connect at least 1 AP (access point) WIRED to your network. This first AP will be the main access point to beam the mesh network afterwards. If you need more coverage, you just purchase another UAP-AC-M, place it where it has to be, plug the POE module and go the controller interface (software) to adopt the new access point, everything is almost automatic after that, you will be asked for the firmware update and then, your network will self balance and it is amazing!! My video surveillance wifi has never been so rock solid and I have radio and network statistics in "real time" in the controller interface. I would say that the indoor coverage is pretty impressive in a 2200 Sq/ft house but outdoor coverage required a second AP which arrived the day after the order which was super convenient. The weakest camera signals roamed automatically to the second AP after a few hours, I could not be happier. So in short, with 2 APs, I beam from indoor and outdoor 14 devices with no disconnects whatsoever on a ca. 3000 Sq/ft surface.

Do not plan to use these wirelessly if you don't have an existing Access Point that covers the 5Ghz spectrum (like the original UAP, which is 2.4Ghz only). I have 4 of the original UAP access points in my two story house and those have worked great for years. They finally solved the annoying spotty coverage in our wood frame, lath and plaster walled 1911 craftsman. Coverage in the backyard was still weak but I didn't care until I installed a wireless Yi Home camera to watch my chicken coop back there. It soon became clear I would need an outdoor access point. I purchased this UAP-AC-M access point for it's weathproof-ness, and because it would connect via wifi so I wouldn't have to run a Cat6 wire out to the back yard. Unfortunately when I was trying to configure it last night I could only get it to appear on my Unifi Controller when it was hard wired to the LAN. It wouldn't appear as a wifi only uplink. My suspicion was a conflict between the original UAPs, which are 2.4Ghz only, and this new Mesh AP which has 2.4 and 5Ghz. To test it, I connected the Mesh AP in place of one of my UAPs (so the Mesh AP was hard wired to the LAN) and then enabled the original UAP to uplink to the mesh via wifi. Bingo - now I had an AP that connected to the Controller via wifi only. This is kind of a nuisance since now I will have to install my non-weatherproof UAP in the outdoor shed where I was going to install the weatherproof Mesh AP, but without buying another Mesh AP I don't have much of a choice. I'm hoping the sheltered spot where I put the 2.4 UAP will protect it enough to run for a couple years, at which point I'll pay for another Mesh-AP. The great news is that adding the one AP fixed the poor connection in the backyard. My new wifi camera works great, and I get a strong wifi signal on my phone. I continue to love, love, love my Unifi system. It was an investment to set up the whole thing (cloud key, security gateway, unifi switches, and APs), but it's lasted well and I love having the centralized controller to adjust radio signal strength, update firmware etc. Just be sure you have a 5Ghz enabled AP for this to connect through and you should be fine.

I love these little guys. I was in the market for a WAP solution that will mesh. I didn't need anything beyond WAPs (no routing functionality required as I have an Ubiquiti Edgerouter-X for that) and I definitely didn't want anything that relied on outside servers to operate or use an app to control it (looking at you Google Wifi or similar). What I like about these: Very powerful feature set. Stylish enough to have in the home without the wife being irritated Excellent performance. Set up initially and forget. Very secure and frequently updated software. What I don't like: Having to install the controller software rather than access it via a self created web page (nature of the beast with this level of hardware though). I have one of these wired into my switch using the provided PoE injector. The other is down a floor of our 2400 sq-ft condo and towards the other end of the building and it is only powered by the PoE injector (no wired uplink). It wirelessly connects to the first though meshing and the traffic is passed into my wired network that way. Performance has been excellent and these eliminated any slow spots around our entire home. Minimum performance is around 40mbps on 2.4GHz and upwards of 300mbps on the 5GHz band. I like the guest network functionality and it works quite well even if you don't make any setting changes to your router. Previously I had created a guest network with a separate AP and firewall rules, but this removed that requirement. The ability to adjust power by band is nice as I set the 5GHz power higher than the 2.4GHz to encourage devices to use it instead (combined SSID). I ended up installing the controller software on my Raspberry Pi which performs other network admin tasks for me already. To be clear, you do NOT need to run this software all the time nor do you need to create an Ubiquiti account. I opted to put it on my Raspberry Pi for the monitoring and logging capabilities. It gives me the level of control from my smartphone that other products offer without the need for external servers (I can even access it from outside my network since I VPN back to my house network anytime I am not at home). These do take a little more setting up than the consumer level competitors, but if you are looking at this level hardware you should also know what is required to make it work. It's better than I expected, but still isn't a pop it out of the box and turn it on solution. For my uses, these things are amazing. For less than competing products I have an excellent solution without all the potential security risks for features I don't need. Two are sufficing for my purposes, but I have no doubt a third would seamlessly integrate into my network if I needed it. Thanks Ubiquiti!

Writing this review after a few months of ownership. My current setup is an AC-PRO in the (brick house) and the mesh access point in my separate garage. I’m running the ubiquity mgmt software on a spare Mac. The distance is probably 60 feet between both access points and the signal is traveling through Sheetrock, Concrete blocks (house built in the 60s), brick, aluminum siding on both the house and the garage and plywood. Even with that I am getting 80mbps which is perfectly acceptable to run a roku, iPad, iPhone, Nintendo switch and Alexa at the same time. So prefacing I am a telecom engineer and project manager by trade with a background in networking, however, I am going to continue from the perspective of a home enthusiast looking to set up a prosumer environment. Most importantly why? You can get off the shelf mesh gear now cheaper than what it would take to set up a system like this. Well if you are an enthusiast you want performance, reliability and integrity. Yes you are inevitably buying into an ecosystem but that’s going to be the case no matter what. Setup Adopting this little bugger into the network was very automatic..like plug it in and it showed up in a few seconds within the Ubiquiti controller software to be adopted. That process took no time and a few minutes later my configs were done and it was mounted in my garage a few minutes later. I was honestly impressed at how well this worked. Assuming there’s a private SSID they all use or perhaps bluetooth to allow this magic. Installation This comes with an excessive amount of mounting options and all needed screws, adapters, etc. It’s about the size of a candy bar and the two onboard antennas can be adjusted and pointed back to home base. It’s POE powered and comes with a wall adapter so you get the best of both worlds. Operation This is an area that I’ve found interesting. Given the construction of my house I’ve spent some time tweaking out the configuration and finally got it perfected. Any issues are definitely magnified as you’ll see little quirks like devices joining the incorrect access points. One cool thing is that since you’re running the controller software you can use the mobile app and make a ton of adjustments on the fly including having your devices reconnect etc. That’s all a non issue though now as everything stays where it needs to be and my network experience is consistently 98% So if you have an existing ubiquiti network and are looking to extend I would most definitely recommend the mesh access point although all of their devices support meshing now which presents plenty of options. Will likely be adding some plug in wall access points in strategic locations. Do bear in mind you need the controller software running. If you are a enthusiast you likely have a server to throw it on. Otherwise a Raspberry PI works just fine. Oh yes privacy. You do not have to register with Ubiquiti or connect to them in any way aside from firmware downloads. This is unique at this point as all of the consumer mesh systems well ya know...

I wanted a commercial grade Wifi system, got tired of replacing Netgear/Linksys system that had poor range and malfunctioned after a year or two of use. I went with the UniFi mesh system after doing a little research. These are professional grade devices that I am overall pleased with after 6 months of use. But, prepare to do a lot of web work to get it up and running. Pros: Well made, professional looking and packaged Installation instructions are minimal, but if you are a techie, its enough. Installation is slick and beautiful if it works, two out of 5 AP's installed without a hitch, loved it. The other three...see cons below. WiFi range is excellent, I have it installed on a 5 acre spread, good signal everywhere except a small area behind a huge metal work shop. Ships with excellent mounting hardware. POE Injectors are excellent quality, but have exposed ports that are not water proof for outdoor use. I do have two AP's installed outdoors, but the POE Injectors are out of the weather, it is 110 degrees here and they are still functioning. The Cloud Key hardware is worth the price, it allows me to check on my setup remotely, most of the reported data are beyond my pay grade, and as you will see below, saved the day. CONS: As mention above, three of the AP's could not be "ADOPTED"/installed as easily as two others. They would say "CONNECTED/Requires firmware Update" but had no wireless signal. Updates repeatedly failed, whereas all the other AP's and UniFi components installed instantly. After hours of research combing Unifi's user forum and online manuals, very good by the way, I hit a dead end. Then by luck I discovered that I could save the firmware updates on the UniFi Cloud Key, then install onto the AP from there, and suddenly everything worked beautifully! So I had to remove one star for this extra effort that was not documented anywhere. I should probably take two stars off for the extreme hassel, but once I discovered the trick, everything worked so slickly. Documentation of How to use the system is definitely lacking, there is so much more to this system than I am using because there is no guidance/hand-holding documentation from UniFi. Conclusion: If you have geek powers and don't mind digging out information, this is a slick system. If you are lucky everything will install with no effort. If not, seek YouTube and UniFi web site help.

Bought two of these for an outdoor swim club. Our previous WiFi had poor coverage, was under a roof and many members complained. Bought this on recommendation from a proffesion that had just installed nearly a hundred at an outdoor campground. It is small, lightweight and super easy to mount. Many mounting options makes to accommodate nearly any situation. Setup and programming was a little harder than expected. I’m very tech savvy, but the instructions were not as clear as they could be. Finally found my answers on their website- which is also very good. But took maybe a day or two until I had it working in my basement and was ready to deploy at club. Setup at club was super easy. Mounted to 10ft 3/4” EMT anchored to bldgs. Do NOT forget the separate lightning protection devices - these really are needed if installing outside. Connected one end to Comcast router and then setup and plugged in other unit and we were up and running. Service is amazing. Went from 1-2 bars to steady 5 at a distance of nearly 150ft. No service slowdowns either. Next year we will probably add another one to improve coverage further because club is oddly shaped and has about 10ft grade difference. The POE was very convenient and made the install easy. Also these have been outside for nearly two months with no issues to date. We will take them down for the winter and put them up again in the spring. Will get a better look when they come down and see how plug an play they are come spring. But so far so good - would recommend to anyone. I am even looking to buy a related WAP product for my split level house that gets spotty coverage in some rooms.

To start, my use is to provide network access to multiple Wifi cameras installed around a farm and to have solid Wifi for my devices, wherever I am. I installed this product at the peak of a house roof, with wife's approval of course. I ran ethernet cable directly into a router where the traffic is isolated as desired. That is a different conversation. The setup was truly easy. I really didn't have to think, much. I have worked on much more difficult products, so this was refreshingly simply. It took about five minutes to configure and then I was ready to install it. For performance testing, I wandered around the farm fields with a Wifi only iPad and was able to stream online videos from one of everyone's favorite services, without any drops. Likewise, the cameras all have line of site views to this access point, so they work. It's like magic! I will note that Wifi coverage drops when passing the plane of the house structure, i.e. there really is not good coverage behind the house. You should plan on line of site coverage. I bought another one of these access points to use going the other direction! ;) It is fully exposed to the elements, so time will tell. So far it has endured full sun, 60-70mph winds, significant rain and scary looking thunderclouds. It just works!

Whilst there are cheaper wireless access points units available, this one works with the old CloudKey we use to manage our network. Thanks to the mesh option, we can position this and not worry about running a network cord back to the switch. All we need is a power socket, and at least one other Unifi mesh compatible access point, just to expand our network, inside and outside.