Cheap, quality wireless transmitter

Among the three main candidates in the UniFi AP family – AC LITE, AC LR and AC PRO, UAP AC LITE ranks 3rd in terms of performance, but first in value. Although UAP AC LITE is not as fast as UAP AC PRO and UAP AC LR, its price is very attractive (only around 2 million VND).

The UniFi AC Lite wireless router is controlled and managed by the UniFi Network Controller Software, an intuitive and user-friendly application that can be installed on a smartphone or PC. Once installed, setting up the UAP AC LITE is easy, allowing for quick configuration and optimization.

Along with detailed reviews of this device through the following article offline!

The appearance of Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite

The UniFi AP AC Lite has a very popular round outer shell today, with a diameter of 160mm. It has a multicolored LED under the small inner circle, which will flash blue or orange, depending on the connection status. Inside the white hard plastic case, there are 2 dual band antennas with 3dbi gain per antenna.

There is only one Gigabit RJ-45 Ethernet port on the UAP AC Lite. You will need a separate router to do all network routing tasks, such as IP address assignment (DHCP) and local area network (LAN) management. A reset switch is located next to the Ethernet port, in case you need to hard reset the AP.

Reviews on UniFi AC Lite

Test method

To measure the performance of this WiFi router, I chose to run speed tests with 3 different apps / websites, including Speedtest by Ookla, Meter.net and Ubiquiti WiFiman. The tests will be performed on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ and Google Pixel 2 XL, with a 1Gbps internet connection (about 800Mbps in the real world). Upload / download speeds, at a distance of 1 meter without obstacles and 5 meters with a concrete wall, will be recorded. Each test will be taken 2 times, the average score will be recorded in the chart.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+

• SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
• RAM: 12GB
• Support: WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac / ax

Google Pixel 2 XL

Efficiency

UniFi AP AC Lite performed quite well in all 3 tests. At about 1m, both the Note 10+ and the Pixel 2 XL can achieve around 400Mbps down and 200Mbps up. Pushing the distance up to 5 meters with a concrete wall in the middle, the speed dropped about 40%, down to around 260Mbps down and 120Mbps up.

The two smartphones performed similarly in the tests. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is faster than the Pixel 2 XL in all download benchmarks, while the Pixel 2 XL has the advantage of uploading. The WiFi coverage of the two devices is the same, and the AP will automatically switch to a 2.4GHz connection, if the 5GHz connection is weakened due to obstacles and distance.

main function

AC Lite uses the UniFi Controller to manage all network and radio settings, providing a suite of useful features. For example: “High Performance Devices” The device can be switched to a higher 5GHz bandwidth connection, depending on the needs of the device. You can also set up a guest WiFi network with virtual LAN (VLAN) support, which isolates the clients from the primary local area network. Overall, the software is very comprehensive, extremely flexible and scalable, but requires a certain amount of network knowledge.

You can learn more about what the UniFi Controller can do on the Ubiquiti website.

https://dl.ubnt.com/guides/UniFi/UniFi_Controller_V5_UG.pdf

Conclude

Although the Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite is not very user friendly, it is a versatile and powerful WiFi transmitter with a lot of features inside the UniFi Controller software. This device is admirable in terms of pure download and upload speeds.

If you are looking for a built-in device to handle both wired and wireless networks and essential routing tasks, AC Lite is not the best choice. Reliability, configurability and expandability are the points that make this device shine. You can customize the AP and tailor your network to suit your unique needs.