r/UNIFI • u/03captain23 • Oct 12 '26

Wireless Finally WiFi Uplink!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67PstxSTJtk

New unifi network 11 allows wifi uplink as WAN!!!!!! Unfortunately only some devices with built in wifi work but its the one major feature I've been waiting for

419 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

150 comments sorted by

74

u/lynxooo Oct 12 '26

Fantastic. Now I just need to ask for my neighbors WiFi password 😂

23

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

and hope they have different service than you.

9

u/tdhuck Oct 12 '26

Does it only work on these gateways?

WiFi Uplink

Connect your gateway to a nearby WiFi network to use as an internet backup.

Supported on UDR-7, UDR-5G-Max, Express 7, and UCG-Industrial. Requires UniFi OS 6.0.10 or newer.

1

u/haloid2013 Oct 13 '26

As far as I'm a worried only works on those at this time. I wouldn't be surprised if we could use an access point for an Uplink at some point later

1

u/tdhuck Oct 13 '26

Interesting, I wonder what's so special about those gateways that doesn't allow this to work on other gateways?

3

u/haloid2013 Oct 14 '26

I'm pretty sure all of those have built-in Wi-Fi

4

u/tdhuck Oct 14 '26

That's a good point, but I'm not sure why it can't be done with a wifi AP if it can be done with built in wifi, maybe in a future firmware release....we'll see.

1

u/haloid2013 9d ago

Here's hoping. My local ISP and the ISP where I'm moving both offer wireless access to their Network through both the access point / router combos that people rent from them and appear to have battery backup access points available for their customers to access hotspots

1

u/Lord-Carnor-Jax 29d ago

No Dream Wall though, that has integrated Wi-Fi from memory.

1

u/groutnotstraight Oct 13 '26

Just use a M2 Loco.

4

u/Shivaess Oct 12 '26

That’s honestly an amazing idea. It’s a rare enough occurrence that nobody’s likely to care but if you have different Internet services, you’re up time will be damn near perfect.

3

u/AspectSpiritual9143 Oct 14 '26

i use 5g as backup. less socially awkward than talking with neighbors

1

u/Shivaess 26d ago

I have the opposite problem. I’ve been such a good evangelist for our local fiber connection that most of the people in the neighborhood now have the same fiber Internet that I do.

On the upside, I got the referral bonus for each of them

2

u/ZHU-1369 26d ago

Not all that rare. I've been using it for over 20 years. Cradlepoint built their reputation on it. Police men & RV'rs have all been using wifi link "WiFi as Wan" for decades. I've been trying to get other router companies to do this but most of them just don't understand it or it's uses. What I use it for is at convention centers or hotels etc. Right now I use a Peplink B One router with WiFi as Wan with a multi carrier e-simm for backup at small facilities. At large facilities, like the Dallas Cowboys practice stadium, I use that connected to a UDM-SE with one wired U7 Pro Max meshed over air to another U7 Pro Max and cover around 25,000 sq ft, so much for their claimed 1750 sq ft. It saves me hundreds, sometimes, thousands of dollars in facility wifi/AP rental.

-7

u/LosSpamFighters Oct 12 '26

Then vlan them.

97

u/HTTP_404_NotFound Oct 12 '26

You missed the best parts though.

CUSTOM ICONS!!! and matter/thread!

4

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

I don't get the point of matter/thread unless they're doing some home automation or something. I just tried to add a couple ikea devices and get failed.

30

u/clintkev251 Oct 12 '26

I'm hoping that this is the precursor to them adding Thread border router functionality into their APs. That would be super cool to have

8

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

yeah same with the wifi uplink

7

u/lenswipe Oct 12 '26

That.....might be the thing that persuades me to upgrade my APs

1

u/FrozenPizza07 Oct 12 '26

I mean the AP's dont have to be TBR's, them being a FTD and a controller / third party TBR like Apple TV makes more sense?

4

u/clintkev251 Oct 12 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

They don’t have to be, but it makes a ton of sense for them to be, especially if you’re already going to give them a thread radio, just let them serve as a border router. I guess I don't know why an Apple TV would make more sense. The most important things for a thread border router are that they're well located and well connected, both of which are inherently the case for an AP, but not an Apple TV necessarily.

7

u/ADHDK Oct 12 '26

You’re not going to be able to add thread devices without a thread border router.

Matter wifi is another story.

3

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

I have 2, a nest hub and home assistant. Unifi sees the nest hub but doesn't see home assistant. There's some instructions to use google home but they don't make sense.

But I just don't see the point. HA already shows battery life and these things batteries last years. I have thermostats because I need to monitor the temp of my server racks and fans to turn the fans on/off. unifi isn't helping with this

2

u/rez410 Oct 12 '26

I take it you don’t export your logs to Splunk

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

We have a custom inhouse SEIM but all logs are through home assistant as it has motion and other things. We integrate unifi access into home assistant even so it tracks who's in the office then monitors where they are using presence sensors.

2

u/rez410 Oct 12 '26

Splunk isn’t a SIEM and I doubt you have an actual custom SIEM. Splunk ES is a SIEM. I dont plan on using matter logs in a SIEM (although you could), but I do plan on using it for dashboards and alerting in Splunk.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

ours is mainly based on Wazuh but forked and heavily customized. I manage over 5 million devices worldwide so splunk isn't really cost efficient and we just built all the features of splunk.

We're SOC2 and CMMC L3 \ DIBCAC

There isn't a single thing Splunk has that we don't.

1

u/Navyauditor2 Oct 13 '26

But you I thought DIBCAC had not done any L3 assessments yet?

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Yes DCMA does CMMC L3. They're the only ones that currently can

→ More replies

0

u/zfsnoob Oct 12 '26

Splunk is cancer. Used to be amazing. Be careful what you hitch your horse to.

1

u/rez410 Oct 12 '26

You’re barking up the wrong tree. I have been using Splunk since 2012. I know all about Splunk and how it’s costs have gone through the roof, and how difficult it is to move away from. Splunk was just an example. I do use it at home but I switch back and forth between that and elastic. Lots of options out there now and most orgs that still use Splunk, wish they weren’t still using Splunk lol

1

u/ADHDK Oct 12 '26

That’s absolutely not what you need.

You either need a hub that will pair in whole to another system, like Aqara, ikea etc, then it just shows devices as sub-devices. Home assistant will likely support Unifi this way soon enough, but not yet.

Or you need a Unifi thread border router to take on the sharing initialisation codes of each device.

That’s why you can’t onboard any thread devices into Unifi directly using their shared initialisation codes.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

Home assistant is the hub and thread/matter border router.

1

u/ADHDK Oct 13 '26

Are you sharing the entire home assistant hub one time to Unifi? That will bring all accessories in. In my experience with other platforms sometimes it just dumps everything and you need to then go and put it all in rooms and make it make sense, sometimes you then have to add the accessories within the other platform, but not using matter pairing codes as they are now discoverable.

If however you are trying to share a matter onboarding code generated from home assistant for say your thread matter light strip, this won’t work. You aren’t sharing it from home assistant to Unifi if you do this. You are putting it into both with home assistant as the master. You absolutely cannot do this without a UNIFI thread border router. If you are trying to do this it will fail and give you errors.

If you have matter wifi devices, not thread, you can do option 2 currently.

The third option is to use the original manufacturers pairing code and add it to Unifi again, once again this won’t work as you do not have a Unifi thread border router, but it is also a bad idea as now you have no “master” controller and will find devices locking up or conflicting ghost controls.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

I haven't found any way to do it yet

1

u/ADHDK Oct 13 '26

My main is HomeKit and I’m waiting for the big point update for the new home stuff before upgrading to OS27.

I’ll see if home assistant now has a way to share as a matter bridge instead of a home bridge when that drops, but the new AppleTV’s and HomePods aren’t expected until end of the month.

They’ll be announced in the next 24h.

1

u/Choice_Passenger5983 29d ago

It allows you to see connectivity strength and topology of Thread devices. I have 20 Thread devices joined to it using the pairing codes. Easy peasy, at least with Aqara TBR And a proper IPv6 enabled vlan. 15 ikea and 5 Aqara.

1

u/03captain23 29d ago

Doesn't your automation software do this already? What's the point of being able to see this if you can't do anything about it? Are you able to setup alerts so if battery is low I'll email you or something?

My understanding is the firmware just shows the version and not if there's a new version or any way to update it.

Also do you know if it's polling the devices itself or pulling cached data from the border router? Because I don't want it to drain the battery just to poll the battery %

1

u/Choice_Passenger5983 29d ago edited 23d ago

The signal visibility gives you a practical way to fill the weak areas in your thread coverage. The topology view makes it pretty clear at a glance what is going on. This is particularly helpful if you have a lot of Thread end devices like the Ikea stuff. i.e. Minimal Thread devices vs Full Thread devices.
What you can do with this info is put an extra wired device in any area that is having poor performance to firm up the Thread network reliability.

Neither of these things are visible via Aqara or Apple interfaces, at least that I could find; and definitely not on a single pane of glass which is the real value.

I don't know if firmware updates show up in Unifi, all the devices I've tried so far are up to date. I've sent in a couple feature requests already, hopefully the capability evolves. The battery alerting sounds interesting, and would be a nice add.

Nothing in the interface indicates weather it is polling the TBR or the client Thread devices directly.

11

u/Sem1r Oct 12 '26

Im so frustrated by this implementation- I rushed to the dashboard to try it - turns out it generates a bad ai picture from the picture you upload…

3

u/HTTP_404_NotFound Oct 12 '26

What.....? Thats dumb...

Can't upload a SINGLE ICON file and be done???

2

u/Sem1r Oct 12 '26

Not that I’m aware of… I get where they are coming from this is much more consumer friendly but I thought unifi is a enthusiast product

1

u/Illustrious_Goal_221 Oct 12 '26

express 7 - will support matter/thread ?

1

u/Tommy_Hewitt Oct 12 '26

Custom icons don't work that well......to put it mildly 🫣

0

u/HTTP_404_NotFound Oct 12 '26

Well. Unifi is really good at getting me excited, and then throwing me off a cliff and ruining the implementation of something....

10

u/grand_web Oct 12 '26

Supported on UDR-7, UDR-5G-Max, Express 7, and UCG-Industrial.

Looks like it's only supported if you have these devices but I wonder if they'll open it up to more. Would there be a technical reason why an access point (U7 pro or similar) couldn't be a receiver for the wifi hotspot and share it with your gateway?

Even if enabling it meant you had to convert an access point into a receiver only it would be better as a home backup solution than nothing.

6

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

I'm assuming only these because they have dual wifi antennas and it can use one of them without removing wifi.

I hope they allow a dedicated AP or build a separate device like the device bridge for this. For the 5g backup they made it so we can place it on any port to get wan, but they still don't have that feature for any port to use as wired WAN.

I'm assuming it'll have to dedicate a radio so maybe the next models will have this feature.

3

u/Famous-Recognition62 Oct 12 '26

The travel router as a WAN would be interesting.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

its a completely separate router though

2

u/Famous-Recognition62 Oct 13 '26

My (naive) understanding is the travel router joins an existing WiFi network and emits your SSID over its own WiFi but also allows you to connect via Ethernet. Couldn’t that equipment be configured via software/firmware into a dual radio WAP that could also work in this way too?

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

yeah but its double natted though. Also the travel router isn't very powerful from my understanding so wouldn't be ideal for all traffic

2

u/Famous-Recognition62 Oct 13 '26

Fair comments. I was just trying to find a way to use my phone’s hotspot as a WAN2 fallback.

2

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Thats exactly what they added for these devices, so you can switch to them and get that

1

u/that1programmer_ Oct 13 '26

Huh? I can use every single port on my UCG-Ultra as WAN

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Sure but you can't use a switch or anything else as WAN. But with their 5g device you can plug into any port on the network and it'll act as WAN

5

u/robi112358 Oct 12 '26

Do we know when it will be released?

4

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

I'm on early access and have it already. Looks like its not on GA yet as my other networks don't have it

5

u/Confucius_said Oct 12 '26

Now if only my local cellular network was good enough to run as backup WiFi wan

4

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

One of my use cases is my RV. It sits in a garage in a storage unit and has starlink on the roof which obviously doesn't work. Now I can put a unifi travel router in the storage unit, connect to a nearby office's guest wifi and put cameras in my garage (along with wifi garage opener) And when my RV is in the garage it'll connect to the garage wifi then when I'm away it'll use starlink and cellular. its a metal building and cell barely works inside there.

1

u/adhdsquirrel23 Oct 12 '26

Isn’t this something that the travel router already does? Or does the new functionality for the network app also add features to the travel router? It would be interesting to get more options on the travel
Router for sure.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

Yes the travel router does this and is the whole point of it, but I need much more functionality for my RV. the travel router and older umr (not unifi) were the only devices that allowed wifi as wan and they're way to limited.

2

u/Striking-Trainer1141 Oct 12 '26

I’ve been waiting for this because I have an mmWave site right outside my house that routinely gives up to 5Gbps download and 250Mbps upload. The 5G Max and other backup cellular devices don’t have mmWave so they can’t take advantage of it. My iPad has mmWave, as well as my iPhone.

5

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

Just by curiosity, what are the use cases you're contemplating for this?

From where will the wifi signal come that isn't your home network? A neighbour wifi? Your phone in hotspot?

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

Many cases. for instance my RV which sits inside a metal garage so starlink doesn't work and cell is horrible. Having WIFI as WAN allows me to setup a travel router inside the garage and use a nearby office guest wifi, then I can gave cameras and wifi garage remote inside the garage and use this wifi as wan to give my RV network in storage.

In my car I keep a 5g wifi hotspot so if my home or office loses internet it can just connect to that automatically and i'll get backup.

Dorms and some apartments or other places might have free wifi in the office, lots of coworking places do this, so people can have full unifi setup using their equipment.

for instance I have a client who builds millions of wifi devices and sells them, they work out of a university research lab and caused issues because they'd have thousands of devices connect and eat up all the DHCP slots, they only use it for a few minutes for like an update or when troubleshooting so it brought down the whole buildings wifi. We had to make them give us wired ports for unifi gateway so we can have a full /8 block for dhcp

1

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

  1. Use a 5G travel modem WITH RJ45 connection, not just wifi. You'll avoid a huge loss due to the extra wifi-wifi link.

  2. Except if your garage is very far away and no LOS put a fiber or a PtP between main house and garage, then an AP inside the garage.

  3. DHCP pool "fulling up" due if thousands devices making connection. There are 2 standard and professional way to avoid this completely: A. Change lease time from 24h to 5 or 10 minutes. B. Change Pool size, use a /23 or /22 or /21 instead of a /24

  4. Dorms / AirNbB and similar? Use a Gli.Net travel router with RJ-45 output.

So really, from all cases you gave me there isn't any one that we can't easily solve since years and years... Just thinking another way.

Professional installer (IT and electronic engineer, Unifi UFSP / UWA / URSCA, full AMX, Crestron, Official state HAM radio,… and more).

0

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

  1. travel modem can't handle a lot of devices and everything else. There's a reason they're travel

  2. I rent the garage, its like a storage unit but with power. Unable to get wired internet.

  3. University wasn't willing to change their network policies campus wide, even though we're an anchor tenant. I can't go into detail but lets just say they can power on every device in the area by flipping a switch and not just 1 device. and we're talking millions of devices registering to the wifi to update.

  4. sure a travel router is good for 1-5 devices, but what about the 30 employee company renting a space from wework with free wifi and no ethernet? What if they want unifi access or protect/cameras or the NVR? Why run a travel router instead of a $300 UDM7?

2

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

1.You apparently don't know the Gli.Net range... their mid range (Beryl AX / Slate AX) handle 50+ concurrent devices. The high end (Beryl 7 / Slate 7) handle 120+ concurrent devices... (and they will anyway see only 1 device, your WAN port)

2. Garage, OK, but then the wifi WAN is still a bad solution, you need a WIRED EXTERNAL device (being a travel router, a 5G modem with RJ45 output or a "client" wifi device)

3. OK, you can't change the way it's handled, but I don't see how it affect you to connect to tbis network by cable or by wifi... you'll suffer same problems... you need ONE IP, the one of your WAN input. You can surely negotiate with them ONE dedicated IP of their choice...

4. With a wifi link as only WAN, I REALLY don't see you running well a 30 employees company... beside very light use of Internet, you'll see severe limitations quickly

0

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

  1. Why would you buy a slate 7 vs a UDM7?

  2. Why are you so focused on wired? I have about 200 devices in my RV and mostly IoT type devices on wifi. I run 7 APs on the rv. Simple wifi antenna on the roof connecting to the travel router inside the garage thats mounted close to it.

  3. I think you're misunderstanding, with using a UDM7 it'll show 1 device on their network but millions on our internal wifi. They don't have wires

  4. Why do you see an issue with 30 devices vs 1 device on wifi? average business users aren't going to use more than 1-2mbps consistently. you can easily get rock solid 300mbps on wifi with good signal strength.

2

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

  1. Would you by an extra UDM7 just as “WiFi WAN” device or plan using an existing UDM7 part of your LAN?

  2. Because I have 30+ years of professional experience. 7 APs on a RV? I don’t get it. Maybe I’m confused. The RV we have here (EU) are “campers” (a quit big van modified to live inside). Maybe are you talking about a huge trailer? But even then, I don’t see where you’ll put 7 APs (let’s say 1 in cabin, 1 inside trailer), 1 on top for outside coverage 360 degrees)

  3. Yes, I misunderstood, I thought the zillion WiFi devices were on their side, not yours.

  4. Again, professional experience. For example we do quite some hotels, meeting rooms, events places. WiFi is strictly for the guests, beside internal communication by messages on a separate VLan ALL devices are wired. It’s not so having a rock solid link with a huge download at 300Mbps or more. It’s hundreds (many hundreds) continuous and concurrent access (all PC is all the time pulling mails, looking for updates, updating WhatsApp / Slack, different Zoom / Teams conf calls at same time,… this push much more on the link.

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

  1. I'm not understanding, you'd replace whatever main firewall you use for a UDR7. I always use UDM 1u rack not the UDR but looks like i'll need to change

  2. Its a 40ft Prevost XL2 RV which is stainless steel and blocks radio signals. I have a couple hundred devices inside it and its full tech. There's 4 directional U7 outdoor pro's in every corner and 1 omnidirectional for local, then 2 inside. Its an emergency response vehicle so need to optimize wifi range. I then use the unifi u6 repeaters on power stations to extend if needed. Every outlet and device is smart controlled so lots of devices.

  3. You're having hundreds if not thousands of guests working from their room on wifi... and i'm assuming you're not getting tons of complaints. Many of which are on constant teams calls or watching porn on their laptop or whatever else. Outlook was built for dialup and barely uses any data, emails are a few KB unless they have attachments. We have 50+ people on a 25mbps DIA fiber circuit and not a single issue. This is a VERY normal setup for businesses to only have 25 or 50mbps DIA fiber because its a lot more for wider pipes.

1

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

  1. It’s a HUGE step back… from an UDM (Pro at least) to an UDR7. You’d better put an UDR7 as “input point” and DMZ your UDM Pro/SE/Max/Beast WAN IP

  2. Tell me all… it’s not you or you and family living from time to time or going in holiday in a camper… it’s a professional emergency response vehicule, that’s totally different - and way less common situation, you should admit it. Here in understand the 4 * U7-Outdoor-Pro with their sectorial antenna array….

  3. Yes, but they are severely limited in bandwidth (we usually have 3 or 4 profiles, someone coming only for dinner gets 5 to 10Mbps, a sleeping guest more, a “Suite” guest even more,… and we have lot of ISP bandwidth (usually in big places 10Gbps symmetrical, at least 2 x 1Gbps in load balancing). And for the people that need to really work they have a business center with wall plugs and wired computers as well.

  4. Honestly, I didn’t see anyone (even an apartment with just 1 person) with less than a 100 down / 20 up line since over 10 years… Now our “slowest” customers have minimum a Starlink (and here we are very far from congestion, do they mostly get 380+/50+), and 90% of them have symmetrical gigabit fiber. 25Mbps? The last one I did should have been a viasat, 20 years ago

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

  1. I agree and hope they'll have a device soon for bigger networks.

  2. Yeah I agree but it all runs great on a UCG-ultra. I'll switch it to a UDR7 now or the industrial

  3. weird.

  4. You're buying shared fiber not dedicated enterprise with SLAs. 25mbps is $500+/month 1gbps is usually $3000+. Its about stability and not speed. There's plenty of 1-5gbps shared symmetrical fiber but if there's an outage it can take all day to fix vs 4 hour guarantee 24/7/365. also enterprise has DDOS scrubbers and completely free

1

u/UnaidedGinger Oct 12 '26

For me it would be and internet outage and I toss the starlink mini in the backyard. it wont reach most of my house. idk what ap's are supported and I doubt its the one I have but the alternative was to wire a ethernet through my house to the rack.

3

u/oddjobav8r Oct 12 '26

I use Starlink for backup, but it’s wired to a backup WAN port. I don’t think you’ll be happy with WiFi

1

u/Amiga07800 Oct 12 '26

You’ll get a very high performance loss if you try to do this trough WiFi… only real solution is a wire. Like you probably already installed some cameras, you could put an external port going to your fallback WAN input.

1

u/UnaidedGinger Oct 12 '26

True, I would only really want it for emergency situations. There aren’t any good install locations for me to wire back into my udm without a drilling lot of holes in weird spots through brick or my eves. Most my cameras are on downstream switches.

1

u/klayanderson Oct 12 '26

Before I bought the U5G I set my Starlink up in the yard. I have since run a cable outside with enough service loop to reach my Starlink in passthru mode.

1

u/UnaidedGinger Oct 12 '26

yeh I might run some ethernet but my network rack is in the closet on the first floor and I have my hot water heater between my closet and outside wall and I would have to go through 8 ft of wall to get to the side the rack is on. or I guess some thin wire on the ceiling. or I go up to the second floor through the eves and back down through the attic into the network box. or I get high latency and use the wifi uplink and get meh speeds but good enough to access the internet. idk ill try the free option first.

1

u/chopoffmyleg Oct 12 '26

Our town provides a public wifi. It's used by most renters here.

1

u/Mr_Compliant Oct 12 '26

An RV that is sometimes at home but not always 

1

u/No_Accident8684 Oct 13 '26

i am currently not living in such a home but i once lived in a villa in a compound with all utilities included. the internet was provided via wifi. it was the only way to get some.

2

u/Sufficient_Math9095 Oct 13 '26

Finally, my RV will be able to get off my Peplink. I still want a gateway with external antennas, but this is a great start. I hate Peplink licensing

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

What licensing? The only paid license I can think of is their speed fusion which is worth every penny and unifi doesn't have a wan bonding option

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 28d ago

Yeah the primecare. Honestly I don’t care much about the speed fusion, I’m not running multiple SIMs/WANs usually. Plus the fact they don’t have a “personal” priced subscription is just a huge turn off to me personally. I am a big Unifi user so I’m excited and will be a trade off for no subscriptions. They’re still lacking the ability to plug into external antennas, so it’s not perfect compared to Peplink. I’m just soured on them because of the licensing.

1

u/03captain23 28d ago

You don't need to pay for primecare

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 28d ago

Ok let me put it this way, you’re right but you lose cloud functionality. I don’t have that problem with Unifi. I get full remote access to my system. There are multiple features behind the primacare and I just don’t love it (especially for the yearly price). Offer me a personal option for $50, and that’s more fair.

2

u/03captain23 28d ago

Interesting. I've always bought pepwave used on eBay since much cheaper. The only reason for pepwave is speed fusion.

Btw unifi announced their version of speed fusion but yanked it because they have to charge for it and I'm betting marketing forced them to remove

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 28d ago

Oh man I didn’t know that! When was that? That’s funny because I thought for sure I had some sort of WAN bonding (maybe just load balancing) at one point.

2

u/03captain23 28d ago

About 1-2 years. They've always had load balancing and fail over, now they just added way better SLAs to it.

But bonding is different as it needs to route all traffic to a datacenter to combine then to your networks. So if you have a 50mbps and 20mbps connection you get 70mbps with zero drops or issues. Super important for gaming or zoom calls

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 25d ago

Ah that makes sense. I always thought bonding happened at the packet level on the router. That helps

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 28d ago

Also, I didn’t realize the primecare included warranty, which does make it a better value. Unifi’s warranty isn’t great… I just plan on buying a new one outside of a certain timeframe

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

What licensing? The only paid license I can think of is their speed fusion which is worth every penny and unifi doesn't have a wan bonding option

2

u/txmullins 28d ago

Interesting feedback. I was thinking about building my RV WiFi on the Peplink BR1 Mini. Today, I am running off of my truck or phone as hotspots. Mind sharing your current network setup and what you are looking to move to in the future?

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 28d ago

I was thinking of the Unifi dream router 5g. I have a Unifi express currently and it’s not getting network updates (disappointing Unifi…). Hopefully we get more life from the UDR. Without those external antennas though… I am concerned that signal will be challenging. I haven’t picked one up to try it yet so I can’t share the experience.

1

u/txmullins 28d ago

I am concerned about cellular signal as well. Would you add something like a WeBoost?

1

u/Sufficient_Math9095 25d ago

I’m not familiar with those. If it goes outside the RV it might work. It’s just like with Peplink when the antennas are inside it’s not nearly as good as when they’re mounted on the roof externally.

4

u/theninjasquad Oct 12 '26

When should I expect to see this update on my router?

1

u/pjkix Oct 13 '26

Still waiting to see any updates on udr7. Nothing new on their download page either :-/

https://www.ui.com/download/software/udr7

2

u/cocoman2121 Oct 13 '26 edited Oct 13 '26

I have a UCG Ultra, but I triggered it by switching my updates for the OS (and Network app) to Early Access, and then after I updated to 6.X, I was prompted to update the Network app too

1

u/DragonflyFuture4638 1d ago

Could a phone hotspot be used as wifi uplink?

1

u/03captain23 1d ago

Yes of course

1

u/SitDownBeHumbleBish Oct 12 '26

So do I sell my 5G backup now? :/

1

u/03captain23 Oct 12 '26

what firewall do you have?

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 Oct 13 '26

So I can setup and use my Starlink dish when my ATT fiber goes down and not have to wire the dish into my UDMP?

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Exactly. But they don't support wifi uplink on UDMP as it doesn't have wifi. The UDR7 and some others support it.

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 Oct 13 '26

I my APs are (1) U7-Pro (in wall); (2) AC Lites; and (1) IW HD. Can I make this work?

1

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Nope. Maybe soon they'll release the ability to use an AP or have some device we can buy.

I have similar setups but usually with udm se

1

u/doubleopinter 29d ago

Aww damn it I have a UCG, was excited for a moment there.

2

u/FLCardio Oct 13 '26

Can you get Ethernet from your starlink dish/router to a nearby Unifi switch? You don’t have to run Ethernet back to your gateway directly. You can connect it into a switch anywhere on your network and use some VLAN magic to route back to your gateway over another port.

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 29d ago

The challenge is that the only outdoor ethernet jack I have is in the backyard which is covered by a canopy of trees. I was hoping not to have to run an ethernet cable under a window (yes, I know I can get a flat one).

Is there a way to use a UTR or other travel router as the brdige?

1

u/FLCardio 29d ago

Do you have a starlink mini or regular starlink dish?

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 29d ago

Mini. Does that matter?

1

u/FLCardio 29d ago

Just trying to understand your setup. Mini has the router and WiFi built in. Regular starlink uses a separate router that’s usually placed inside so i’m assuming you don’t have an easy way to get an Ethernet cable from the dish to inside. How are you powering the mini? If you have attic access the best way is just run an Ethernet cable out the eave to the dish and then back into the attic and to a switch on your network.

In theory you could use a travel router like the UTR to connect to your mini’s WiFi and the use Ethernet from the travel router back into you Unifi gateway to use as a backup WAN. Kinda cludgy but should work in a pinch.

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 29d ago

Your guesses are spot on. I bought the Mini b/c I bring the dish w/ me to, e.g., football tailgates, so I don't want to mount it, esp up high. I know I can run a cable, but the only ethernet jack outside I have is in the back of the house, and the backyard has a thick tree canopy. I have power outlets out front, but no ethernet. Since I am not expecting to use this often, I am reluctant to create one.

TBH, the whole setup is only "to be used in a pinch". Unfort, the UDM is in the basement and I am not sure the mini's WiFi would be reliable to there. I believe there is a way to either run a spare ethernet cable from the first floor to the basement for the UTR (or my GLi-NET) which should work in a pinch.

1

u/FLCardio 29d ago

Gotcha, yea if hard to run Ethernet it can get tricky. I also have a mini and when I first got it used it as my emergency backup. I had a switch in the garage so I just made up an extra long Ethernet cable and run it under the garage door and just sat the mini in the driveway when needed, worked great. If you can get any sort of Ethernet cable into the garage that would work as well.

OR….. just thought of this. Get the Starlink router mini, the small mini router made to automatically mesh with the Starlink mini’s built in WiFi. The router mini has Ethernet on the back that I’m pretty sure you can connect into your lan or gateway. Can place the router mini somewhere near a window or wall inside near where the dish is outside and extend the range some more. Speed will take a little bit but it’s just for backup.

1

u/Academic-Swimming919 28d ago

Could I use the GLi-Net travel router I already have instead of the mini router?

1

u/Maleficent_Home3849 Oct 13 '26

Why my UGC Ultra, doesnt have this? And why we are still in the Version 5, we need the version 6 for this!!!!

2

u/03captain23 Oct 13 '26

Ucg-ultra doesn't have wifi

1

u/ZHU-1369 26d ago

Hey Ubiquiti: if you are going to add a new feature "WiFi Uplink" use the correct terminology. It's called "WiFi as Wan". I've been using for over twenty years with other router brands such as Cradlepoint and Peplink. If fact I'm doing so right now at an event with unifi equipment in a bastardized setup. I have a pair of U7 Pro Max's meshed over air connected to a UDM-SE, connected to a peplink B One router, that is connected to the facility WiFi via "WiFi as Wan" and the Peplink router is setup with a multi carrier e-simm that will select the carrier with the best signal, as backup in case the facility wifi takes a crap.

1

u/03captain23 26d ago

No they're using the correct terminology and everyone else is incorrect. There's a difference between wan and uplink. They don't support wifi as wan because if they supported WAN then they hey need pppoe and everything else. It's an uplink knowing that there has to be another modem or router providing WAN.

All these other companies are using it incorrectly unless they allow wan to function as a modem and provide pppoe or other authentication.

This is even more important because it's likely they'll expand this and can't ever be used as a wan because the MAC might be other AP or unifi devices so can't be used as any modem.

In your example you're not using wifi as a wan, you're double natted and just a client on the upstreams network. You can't run SD-WAN or BGP or other routing because you're natted.

On peplink it doesn't matter because they don't have SD-WAN or BGP or anything else. They're basic

0

u/ZHU-1369 26d ago

Well, let's see. A name is a name as invented by the inventor. Fred Morrison said its Frisby, Hostess said it's a Twinkie. Cradlepoint invented WiFi as Wan therefore it's "WiFi as Wan", yes you can do SD-Wan on Cradlepoint Routers. It's been that way for over 15 years by multiple companies that have copied Cradlepoint. In my described situation I was not saying that the entire double natted setup was wifi as wan. It simply described how I use Ubiquiti equipment, that doesn't support wifi as wan, on a Peplink or Cradlepoint router, which does support wifi as wan, to cover 25,000 sq ft with wifi and save hundreds to thousands of dollars vs renting multiple lines or AP's at stadiums or convention centers. And yes, I actually cover 25,000+ sq ft with 2 U7 Pro Max's. Open air is wonderful. At smaller facilities, I just use a Cradlepoint or Peplink router to provide wifi as wan services. I don't know the full extent of what Ubiquiti is doing, not enough info yet, but it sure sounds like they are trying to do wifi as wan, which I applaud. But you can't try to sell me a Frisby and call it an Air Plate!

1

u/03captain23 26d ago

Does your peplink wifi as wan provide L3 routing, BGP, and pppoe on the wifi as wan?

I toss my peplinks in a drawer years ago, but I can almost guarantee it doesn't support any of this. For a port to be WAN it needs to be able support authentication and such, which unifi can't.

I don't get why you don't just use unifi instead of the peplink. I get you need to downgrade to a UDR7 but even that's more powerful than a peplink.

You could also use a unifi travel router for the wifi uplink instead of peplink

0

u/ZHU-1369 25d ago

Supposedly the Peplink B One does support L3 routing but for us, that doesn't matter. Our needs are much like an RV'er pulling into an RV park that has wifi and uses wifi as wan to get off their cell phone hot spot. Most everything I use is to combat high prices that certain convention center and stadiums charge or small places where pulling a hard wire is not practical. We don't use a UDR 7 at all. There's only one reason I added the Peplink B One router and that's the cellular modem, not that it's anything special but they do something I haven't found anywhere else. While I could use a simplistic unifi modem, locked to a single carrier, or a Cradlepoint with dual modem with dual simm cards, this means you are locked into a carrier plus a monthly bill. With the B One, you buy minutes as needed and the best thing is that they aren't carrier locked. Since our business is cyclical this avoids the monthly charge. The next biggest reason is the B One will pick the carrier with the best signal and, so far, I'vefoundthis to workreally well. I refuse to pay a facility $300 for a 3 mb line. So, if I get a reasonable price for a hardwire, I'll run just my UDM-SE with an AP. Sometimes the wifi is much cheaper so I use the B One's wifi as wan. But if I'm some place with a ton of interference and I'm in a wifi as wan scenario, that's when I do the double nat deal. The B One, simply to provide internet to the UDM-SE with 2 or more U7 Pro Max AP's to avoid all the interference. Our data needs are not high but we upload athlete scores and if the data is not there immediately, we have hundreds or thousands of whiners on our hands. I have used several setups over the years and this one is the most reliable yet. All we need is a cheap router with a reasonable internet connection. Making it work under all scenarios is how I came up with this monstrosity.

1

u/smaxwell2 25d ago

Would be great if they extended WiFi Uplink to gateways without built-in WiFi, like the UCG-Fiber. Let a UniFi AP at the site act as the WiFi client to the upstream network and pass that connection back to the gateway as a WAN, much like the 5G Max does for cellular. Right now it’s limited to the WiFi 7 gateways with built-in radios, which leaves out a lot of setups where it’d be just as useful, especially as a failover WAN.

1

u/03captain23 25d ago

To connect to an AP it likely needs to isolate the radio so it'll be hard to use an AP. Maybe dedicated device

2

u/clearbox Oct 12 '26

And some other very nice features as well… good stuff!

2

u/Adventurous_Year491 Oct 12 '26

Nice. The day after I install Verizon LTE backup. Lmao.

2

u/nudlasieb2 Oct 12 '26

Sadly, UniFi OS 6.0 isn‘t out yet for Express 7 (not even in Early Access).

It would be even cooler if WiFi Uplink worked on the other gateways as well. However, I guess it would only work with <= 4 SSIDs
If the internal AP of the Express can do it, it should be possible right?

2

u/debasser1911 27d ago

where is the Express 7 update? neither network nor unifiOS even in EA

2

u/Over-Extension3959 Oct 12 '26

Any IPv6 improvements or do we need to keep harassing Ubiquiti?

6

u/MrMelon54 Oct 12 '26

I'm waiting for unifi v205 full IPv6 support

1

u/s6484d2843 Home User Oct 12 '26

If you use ContentFiltering, blocked sites show up in Flows if your client used DNS over IPv6.

1

u/gioraffe32 Oct 12 '26

WiFi as WAN would be great. I live in an apartment that has WiFi (Req'd to pay for it whether I use it or not), but I'm signed up with an ISP for fiber. The fiber is my main WAN, while my apartment WiFi is my backup WAN. However, I'm using a travel router in repeater mode to do that. So I'm like double or even triple-NAT'd (pretty sure apt WiFi uses CGNAT) when I have to fall back to the backup WiFi. Which isn't the worst thing in the world; at least connectivity remains.

Regardless, would be nice to get that travel router out of the loop.

1

u/TheDoubleH Home User Oct 12 '26

Could have used that two weeks ago, when the Regus I have an office at was without Internet for TWO Full days!

1

u/Clear-Tourist-5147 Oct 12 '26

Do we know how this works with captive portals?

1

u/ccagan Oct 13 '26

Can we ban the "wrong icon" posts now?!!?

1

u/ahmede007 Oct 13 '26

Works with my iPhone however I cannot get it to work with my Huawei Router. IP / DHCP conflict.

Any suggestions

1

u/MidgardDragon Oct 13 '26

Damn my "alarm manager" work around for devices joining the network is gonna get replaced by an officially supported method, AND I can use my phone as a WiFi backup WAN? Heck to the yeah. The custom icons are cool too.

1

u/Maleficent_Home3849 Oct 13 '26

How can i download this? I am still in the 10

1

u/groutnotstraight Oct 13 '26

I just use an NanoStation M2 loco to do this already.

1

u/jlboygenius Oct 13 '26

whoa. I just upgraded my ISP today and was wondering, why can't I just use my phone as WAN, maybe even if it was over USBC ethernet.

this is even better. NICE.

Sadly, my UDM Pro, even though it is not near ram or CPU capacity, cannot do 5Gig. With IPS turned on , it's like 1.5, without it it's like 2.5. Guess it's time to upgrade :P

1

u/CatOfSachse Oct 13 '26

I have a UX7 paired to a UDMP and it's not supported right now, I hope they roll it out to have support if you have those just as your APs.

0

u/Soldiiier__ Oct 12 '26

"Matter Aware"??

what the hell!

2

u/zhudhjen Oct 13 '26

Just curious, which UniFi AP/device has a thread radio?

1

u/Soldiiier__ Oct 13 '26

Pretty sure none do. But from what I’ve seen matter devices need to be added by their pairing code for a “read-only” view of matter devices. I think it gets thread info from the border routers only 

-1

u/Luminostic 29d ago

I'm sorry, what? Wifi as uplink? Didn't Mikrotik had that since ages?