#Ubiquiti Unifi U7 Pro Max poor range & dropped connection

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glossy rose
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We recently purchased a Ubiquiti Unifi U7 Pro Max to upgrade our WiFi, which up until that point was using a ISP-Provided AP, Modem and Router-Combo (as I wasn't managing it). To power the AP, we also acquired a Ubiquiti USW-Lite-8 PoE, which has 4 PoE+ ports.

Network infrastructure

Our network infrastructure is set up as follows:

  1. ISP-Router (will be replaced eventually with probably Cloud Gateway Ultra)
  2. USW-Lite-8 PoE (has been reset to rule out config issues) (connected via Cat. 5e cable to Router)
  3. AP connected to Port 1 (PoE+ port) using a Cat. 6a cable that is about 1 year old. I have tried a couple different cables, all exhort the same issues. (can therefore be ruled out)

The problems

  • We have incredibly poor range, especially on the 2.4GHz. The old WiFi AP is turned off and we have no other AP in our house. 5GHz is less bad, but still quite a bit worse compared to the ISP-provided one. We live in Switzerland, where walls are quite thick and have quite a bit of armouring. But the old AP has also managed to penetrate it and that's a cheap AP, so I was expecting the U7 Pro Max to do much better.
  • The connection drops quite often, seemingly randomly on many devices (Laptops with MediaTek, Realtek & Intel chipsets; WiFi 5, WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E chipsets), iPhones (11, 13, 14 & 15 Pro) and iPads
  • The AP reboots at very inopportune times, sometimes more than once within a few minutes, but then stays up for hours, sometimes over a day.

@glossy rose if you have any ideas

I am not usually in need of tech support, rather giving it, but this one is really strange, not even Ubiquiti support was really able to help out at all

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Config

  • We have two WiFis configured, main & IoT, main using default settings, IoT defaults, apart from only being 2.4GHz
  • AP & Switch are running latest early access firmware
  • We are using the latest TrueNAS Scale Docker container build of UniFi Controller
  • The AP is currently sitting on a small holder, as we didn't want to wall-mount it before we could ensure that it actually works properly
  • Location: this room might not be perfect for the position of the AP, but our old one did fine (enough). It sits off-center in the house. But the issue we are seeing is even affecting rooms that are directly above the AP. We have also tried moving it outside that room, to no avail.

What I have tried so far

  • RMAd the AP
  • Update to EA firmware
  • Reset AP & Switch
  • Changed cables
  • Tried different ports
  • Changed gains, but they didn't apply properly
  • Changed positioning of the AP (held it to different spots in the room)
  • Contacted Ubiquiti Support

My considerations
I still have a few ideas that might explain the issues, namely:

  • Is PoE+ sufficient for that AP? (Couldn't find docs online)
  • Our house is 200(ish) sqm, so just slightly above what the AP technically support. But that should be no issue, because it's stacked vertically, right?
  • Would using two U6 Lite or U6 Pros in a mesh be better?
  • Why would the gains on the antennas not apply, even though the gain that I selected is significantly below what is allowed in Switzerland? I heard that some Ubiquiti APs have bugs that create these kinds of issues, but is this one affected too?
  • Should I go for a different kind of AP?

EDIT: I hope this is enough info. I am usually quite annoyed if too little information is provided when giving tech support, so I decided to be a good example...

glossy rose
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Anybody got any idea?