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Ubiquiti has been a little slow to adopt Wi-Fi 6, but they’ve made it through the rollout of a top-notch Unifi Wi-Fi 6 Litewhich was the most affordable access point you could buy at the time, and remains one of the best options.
So it surprises me that Ubiquiti was one of the first to announce a Wi-Fi 6 E access point, and to make things even better, it’s once again the cheapest option on the market.
UniFi U6-Enterprise vs Aruba & EnGenius Wi-Fi 6E Access Point Pricing
At the time of writing, in the UK you only have one option that you have a chance to buy, the Aruba AP-635 which costs over £1000.
genius The ECW336 has just been announced and it will be available in the first quarter, but no pricing information is available yet. All of their access points are currently priced at over £250 and max out at around £420, so I would expect the ECW336 to cost over £450.
Excellent three-pack if you’re shopping for a consumer mesh system Netgear RBKE963 Over £1500, so £500+ per unit.
synthaseNetgear, TP-Link, Cisco, and others have made no announcements about Wi-Fi 6E access points that I know of.
So the standout feature of the Ubiquiti is that it’s ridiculously cheap, with an MSRP of just $249. That’s cheaper than what most companies charge for regular Wi-Fi 6 access points.I should point out that at the time of writing, it’s just Evan McCann This already states the price, but he seems to be a reliable source of information.
It is also worth noting that, UniFi 6 Remote The current cost is $179/€191.18 (including VAT), so upgrading to Enterprise is not expensive.
Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Enterprise vs U6-Pro vs U6-LR vs U6-Lite – Advantages of WiFi 6E
I won’t dive into the benefits of Wi-Fi 6E, but a brief overview of what it is and how the Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Enterprise compares to other U6 products is:
New 6Ghz WiFi band with 4×4 MU-MIMO and OFDMA.
- 6Ghz has a total of 14 80Mhz channels or 7 160Mhz channels, no need to worry about DFS. This means you can run multiple access points with 6Ghz and 160Mhz channel widths without issue. DFS is also less problematic.
- The 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E at 160Mhz only has the same speed as the old 5Ghz Wi-Fi 6, but staying at 160Mhz (especially in the UK) is much easier.
- 6GHz has a shorter range than 5GHz, but in my tests it was faster than 5GHz @ 80MHz 2 rooms away.
- The Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Enterprise now has a 2.5 GbE POE+ port that lets you achieve over gigabit throughput (1.4Gbps is about the best option for this type of connection in my house).
- 570 Mbps 2.4Ghz data rate vs 300Mbps on U6 Lite
- 600+ clients can now be handled compared to 300 clients for other models
- The overall size should match the remote, so it’s quite large.
Caveats 2.5GbE POE is quite expensive
While it doesn’t cost much more than the U6-LR, the total cost of launching the UniFi U6-Enterprise could end up being quite expensive due to the 2.5GbE price.
The most affordable options you have are the USW-Enterprise-8-PoE for $479, or the USW-Enterprise-24-PoE for $799.
As far as 2.5GbE POE switches go, they’re all cheap, but well over $109 for the USW-Lite-8-PoE.
TP-Link has the TPE-215GI 2.5GbE POE injector, but it’s £43/$50
Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Enterprise vs U6-Pro vs U6-LR vs U6-Lite Spec Comparison
| everywhere Access Point |
UniFi U6 – Enterprise | Unifi U6-Pro | UniFi 6 Lite | Unified Network 6 long distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| processor | Qualcomm Dual Core Cortex A53 | 880 MHz MIPS 1004 Keck | 1.35 GHz Dual Core Cortex A53 | |
| RAM | 512MB | 256MB | 512MB | |
| although | 6 GHz band (4×4 MU-MIMO and OFDMA) 5 GHz band (4×4 MU-MIMO and OFDMA) 2.4 GHz band (2×2 MU-MIMO and OFDMA) |
5Ghz: 4 x 4 (DL/UL MU-MIMO) 2.4Ghz: 2 x 2 (UL MU-MIMO) |
2×2 | 4×4 |
| Channel width | 20/40/80/160 | 20/40/80/160 | 20/40/80 | 20/40/80/160 |
| Data rates supported by Wi-Fi 4 | 570Mbps | 573.5Mbps | 6.5 Mbps to 300 Mbps | 6.5 Mbps to 600 Mbps |
| Data rates supported by Wi-Fi 5 | 1.7Gbps | 6.5 Mbps to 1.7 Gbps | 6.5 Mbps to 866.7 Mbps | 6.5 Mbps to 1.7 Gbps |
| Data rates supported by Wi-Fi 6/6E | 10.2 Gbps aggregate 4.8 Gbps radio rates for 6Ghz and 5Ghz |
4.8Gbps | 6.3 Mbps to 1.2 Gbps | 7.3 Mbps to 2.4 Gbps |
| claim scope | no description | no description | no description | |
| Ethernet | 2.5GbE RJ45 | Gigabit | Gigabit | Gigabit |
| power method | 802.3at PoE+ 2.5GbE POE injector not included |
PoE+, Passive PoE (48V) | 802.3af PoE, Passive PoE (48V) | PoE+, Passive PoE (48V) |
| maximum.energy consumption | 13 watts | 12W | 16.5W | |
| maximum.transmit power | Maximum EIRP = 30 dBm Maximum PSD = 5 dBm/MHz |
2.4GHz: 22dBm 5GHz: 26dBm |
23 dB | 26 dB |
| Antenna gain 2.4Ghz/5Ghz | 4dB/6dB | 2.8dB/3dB | 4dB / 5.5dB | |
| concurrent clients | 600+ | 300+ | 300+ | 300+ |
| Operating temperature | -30 to 60° C (-22 to 140° F) | 30 to 60° C (-22 to 140° F) | -30 to 60° C (-22 to 140° F) | |
| IP level | IP54 rating (semi-outdoor) | no description | IP54 rating (semi-outdoor) | |
| aspect | 220 x 220 x 48 mm | 197 × 197 × 35 mm | 160 x 160 x 32.65 mm | 220 x 220 x 48 mm |
| Required controller version | 6.0.34 or later | 5.14.3 or later | 6.0.34 or later | |
| price | $249 US MSRP | €126.00 / €149.94 including VAT £125 |
EUR 79.00 / EUR 95.59 including VAT around £85 |
€149.00 / €180.29 including VAT £150 |
comprehensive
Assuming the pricing is right, the Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Enterprise looks like it’s going to be an amazing access point and finally offers the kind of Wi-Fi speeds we’ve been dreaming of.
Notably, one of the arguments for slow adoption of Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E is that companies may skip Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 7 has many benefits, but the main one is the adoption of 320Mhz wide channels, which would give a theoretical throughput of 4800Mbps for 2×2 client devices.
Last updated on 2022-02-15 / Affiliate Links / Image from Amazon Product Advertising API
