I’m in the process of designing a new home. I plan to use Ubiquiti’s unifi access points in several locations of the home. Does anyone know of software (or some other means) of determining the most ideal placement of the APs?
I’m pretty sure this is already available from the unifi website. If not you could pm your house plans and I could run it through my ekahau Rf modelling software. Not necessary though I could tell you by just the plans where to place them.
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I can’t find anything on the unifi site that shows where to place them.
I’ll take any advice on where to place the APs. I’ve attached our house plans if you are willing to give me some advice, I’d appreciate it. I plan to use the UAP-AC-LITE access points. The house is standard construction, wood walls and floors with basic drywall. 10 ft ceilings on all the floors, the great room and entry way are 20ft ceilings. I want full coverage throughout the house including the garage and the front and back yard.
Thanks!
I think it’s hard to plan this upfront. Of course it’s possible to estimate the signal distribution. But that’s no guarantee.
I used NetSpot to generate an accurate representation of how the available signal. It also helps with finding a better channel to operate on and see were there’s a lot of RF-noise that might cause issues as well.
In general the most simple way of getting a rough estimate is to think of WiFi-waves as light. The higher the frequency, the more those waves behave like light. And even though concrete and wood are pretty good at blocking light, at least I have that gut-feeling, that if the light is intense enough, it would rather shine through wood than through concrete. Although you already said you’re using drywall. So concrete (a WiFi killer) isn’t an issue here.
To sum this up: imagine darkening the whole house and turning on just one light bulb. The location where you can see something due to the light emitted from the bulb is a location where the WiFi signal will come to as well.
Of course you also have to consider where good reception makes sense. It’s useless to cover an area where you never really are, and on the flip side lose quality in an area where you stream movies.