UniFi’s first WiFi 7 access point U7 Pro has just been released. New technology is always exciting, but having new access point does not automatically equates to better performance. Let’s take a close look at U7 Pro’s specification.
Disclaimer: Although I will talk about real world performance, I currently do not own any WiFi 7 compatible client device, and at the time of this initial writing MLO feature is not yet implemented. So U7 Pro full potential is not assessed.
Specifications
| U7 Pro | U6 Enterprise | U6 Pro | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | ||||
| Chipset | Q Home 3210 | ? | Q Home 216 | |
| CPU | Quad A53 1.5GHz | ? | Dual A53 1.0 GHz | |
| Power | PoE+ | PoE+ | PoE | |
| 2.4 GHz | ||||
| WiFi Version/MIMO/Max Channelization (MHz) | 7/2×2/40 | 6/2×2/40 | 6/2×2/40 | |
| Max PHY rate (Mbps) | 688 | 573.5 | 573.5 | |
| Tx Power (dBm) | 22 | 22 | 22 | |
| Antenna Gain (dBi) | 4 | 3.2 | 4 | |
| EIRP | 26 | 25.2 | 26 | |
| Minimum Receive Sensitivity (dBm) | ? | ? | ? | |
| 5 GHz | ||||
| WiFi Version/MIMO/Max Channelization (MHz) | 7/2×2/160 | 6/4×4/160 | 6/4×4/160 | |
| Max PHY rate (Mbps) | 2882 | 4800 | 4800 | |
| Tx Power (dBm) | 26 | 26 | 26 | |
| Antenna Gain | 6 | 5.3 | 6 | |
| EIRP | 32 | 31.3 | 32 | |
| Minimum Receive Sensitivity (dBm) | ? | ? | ? | |
| 6 GHz | ||||
| WiFi Version/MIMO/Max Channelization (MHz) | 7/2×2/320 | 6E/4×4/160 | N/A | |
| Max PHY rate (Mbps) | 5765 | 4800 | N/A | |
| Tx Power 6 GHz (dBm) | 23 | 26 | N/A | |
| Antenna Gain | 5.8 | 6 | N/A | |
| EIRP | 28.8 | 32 | N/A | |
| Minimum Receive Sensitivity (dBm) | ? | ? | N/A | |
| Features | ||||
| Uplink port (Gbps) | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1 | |
| Concurrent User (density) | 300 | 600 | 350 | |
| Special Features | ||||
| Price | ||||
| Price (Official) | $189.00 | $279.00 | $159.00 |
Highlights
The key highlight of U7 Pro specifications are followings:
- Qualcomm Immersive Home 3210 chipset
- 6 streams tri-radio with each radio supporting 2×2 MIMO, WiFi 7 standard.
- Uplink port 2.5 Gbps
- Requires PoE+ power
- $189.00
Dual to quad core
My personal theory is CPU spec is one of the most predictable factor for access point performance, especially Wi-Fi efficiency, which is the measure of how close the AP can squeeze out the maximum theoretical throughput. In the past generations, UniFi APs have ranged between 50-60%. This in contrast, the same generation WiFi 6 enterprise AP were upper 60’s to 70%. This means there were 100-200 Mbps throughput gain by using enterprise AP when compared to UniFi on my recent comparison tests.
When we look at CPU, it was evident in WiFi 6 generation, enterprise APs used quad core A53 while UniFi had dual core A53. On U7 Pro, the chipset now uses quad core A53 so based on my theory, U7 Pro should be able to attain closer to enterprise WiFi 6 AP performance on WiFi 6 clients.
2×2 WiFi 7
Source: https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-7
There are already many great articles and videos about WiFi 7. So I won’t go into detail about it. In brief, new technologies from WiFi 7 can improve single client maximum throughput over 2x when compared to WiFi 6E generation, and 4x for many of us who come from WiFi 6 client. This drastic throughput leap primarily comes from 320 MHz channel width option. Latency and stability improvement will primarily come from Multi-link operation (MLO) technology, which is analogous to link aggregation in wired network.
They all sound great, and exactly what we want with newer WiFi generation; however, we have to remember that we can only get these benefits if we have both WiFi 7 capable access point and client.
In regarding to 2×2 MIMO on all 3 channels, U7 Pro does not support MU-MIMO support, and if you have 3×3 or 4×4 client device they won’t be able to take the full advantage. However, in many home use situation, where majority of clients are 2×2, and MU-MIMO may not operate, the loss here may not be significant.
Uplink 2.5 Gbps
Unlike U6 Pro, U7 Pro comes with 2.5 Gbps uplink. This is practical and necessary. With the 160 MHz and wider channel width support, real throughput can reach over a gigabit. So in order to take this advantage, we need 2.5 Gbps supporting switch.
PoE+
It is important to note that PoE power requirement for U7 Pro is PoE+, which is different from U6 Pro. So if you plan to power U7 Pro over the ethernet, be sure to have the compatible switch.
$189
One of the main sales point of U7 Pro is its price. Since WiFi 7 is still fairly new, there is no second hand market. So we have to pay retail price. This makes U7 Pro’s price point to be extremely affordable for those who wants to try out WiFi 7.
| Ubiquiti UniFi | Ruckus | Zyxel | EnGenius | TP-link Omada | TP-link Omada | ||
| U7 Pro | R770 | WBE660S | ECW536 | Omada EAP780 | Omada EAP770 | ||
| Hardware | |||||||
| Chipset | Q Home 3210 | Q Pro 820 | Q Pro 1220 | Q Pro 1220 | ? | ||
| CPU | Quad A53 1.5GHz | Quad A73 2.2GHz | Quad A73 2.2GHz | Quad A73 2.2GHz | ? | ||
| Power | PoE+ | PoE++ | PoE++ | PoE++ | PoE++ | PoE++ | |
| Price | |||||||
| Price (Official) | $189.00 | $1602.99 (CDW) | $799.00 | $1199.00 | Not yet available | Not yet available |
Speed
Now let’s start to look at actual test results. Let’s start with speed, or throughput.
WiFi 6
Better performance in 5 GHz radio has the most impact in quality of WiFi in our home because most of our performance dependent client devices right now use WiFi 6. So let’s look at this first.
Setup:
- Client device: iPhone 14 Pro Max (2×2 WiFi 6 @ 80 MHz)
- AP to client distance: < 5ft, full line of sight
- Method: At least two iPerf tests and pick the better of the two. If significant difference between two, repeat additional times until the results look to be stabilized.
The result here is a quite impressive. Based on the CPU specification, I had expected U7 Pro to be able to achieve significantly better numbers than the U6 Pro, and be much in close to the enterprise AP range, but the actual result showed U7 Pro is compatible to the higher performing, Ruckus WiFi 6 APs than the HPE Aruba series.
U6 Pro (left) and U7 Pro (right)
Another important part of the test result to me is the minimum throughput. In the previous generation UniFi APs e.g. U6 Pro, SHD etc. took several seconds to ramp up to its average or peak throughput. The initial throughput was always significantly lower than the average. This what I call “rise time” (from electronics term) phenomenon, or similar to zero to sixty in cars.
Although this is just my personal opinion, the majority of WiFi data transfer such as web browsing and small local file transfer need just the first couple seconds of throughput, this “rise” time difference felt to have practical impact in daily WiFi quality. Whether this is true or not, U7 Pro has finally essentially eliminated this.
WiFi 6E
U7 Pro is my first access point supporting 6 GHz radio as I had made a decision to skip WiFi 6E generation all together. So I do not have a direct comparison data myself.
I have only 3 WiFi 6E capable client devices in our household right now, but one of them is wired for 10 Gbps connection. The other two are iPad Pro 2023, and Windows desktop that uses Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6E AX1675. Both are 2×2 clients.
Setup:
- Client device: iPad Pro 2023 (2×2 WiFi 6E @ 160 MHz)
- AP to client distance: < 5ft, full line of sight
- Method: At least two iPerf tests and pick the better of the two. If significant difference between two, repeat additional times until the results look to be stabilized.
The WiFi efficiency here calculated 60% for upload, and 51% on download. The rise time here are nearly instant with either 0 or 1 second.
WiFi 7
There are users reporting nearly maxing out 2.5 Gbps wired link speed with their Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which WiFi 7 client that supports 320 MHz channel width. This is indeed expected, and advertised result of WiFi 7. Unfortunately I currently do not have any WiFi 7 client device myself to test this.
WiFi 5
With the performance gain seen on WiFi 6, I got curious about how this translated into WiFi 5 devices. Since they share 5 GHz radio with WiFi 6 device, their improvement will help overall network performance.
Similar to WiFi 6 clients, WiFi 5 clients showed improved max throughput with U7 Pro.
Range
Next let’s take a look at the range of coverage and performance. Practically, this may be more important on our daily WiFi quality than maximum throughput.
2.4 GHz
The lower the frequency, the longer the range of coverage. So if someone is looking for the absolute best range of WiFi, we will look at 2.4 GHz though they are have less throughput, and can be less stable due to interference.
Based on EIRP specifications, we can expect U7 Pro to provid e similar range of maximum coverage to U6 Pro and U6 Enterprise.
With the transmission power set to maximum, U7 Pro’s 2.4 GHz radio is able make a stable connection to IoT device located at one end from the other end in the 3700 sqft two story home. This connection requires to go through several walls including insulated garage wall.
Although Ubiquiti UniFi use their Long range (LR) product lines for better 2.4 GHz radio coverage, I don’t see any need for this at our home with current U7 Pro’s coverage, especially I plan to deploy multiple APs for 5 and 6 GHz radio coverage.
5 GHz
Overall, when compared to U6 Pro, the test result here was mixed.
For the 5 GHz range comparison, I’ve been doing two test at 30 feet distance.
Setup
- Client: iPhone 14 Pro Max (2×2 WiFi 6 @ 80 MHz)
- AP to client distance: 30 ft with line of sight
- Method:
- RSSI using AirMac app i.e. client point of view signal strength measure
- At least two iPerf tests and pick the better of the two. If significant difference between two, repeat additional times until the results look to be stabilized.
For the RSSI, the smaller number indicates, less negative; hence, more stronger signal seen by client i.e. better range. Here we see U7 Pro matching the best in class range AP, Ruckus R750, and outperforming U6 Pro significantly.
However, when the actual throughput is measured at this spot, U7 Pro turned out to be the slowest. With ranged throughput, we will be dealing with a lot of factors such as interference, other client device air time utilization, and antenna design. Since my test are not scientific, I think any of the combination may be contributing to the result. In another word, there is a possibly the throughput result maybe just by a chance.
So I looked at another, even less scientific range performance data. This is “storage” area throughput measurement at our home.
Our storage area is located in basement and surrounding by concrete walls. So the best way to get WiFi signal in there is to use AP located floor above.
With U6 Pro, despite it looked have reasonable average throughput, the connection was very unstable as shown by minimum throughput of 0. Basically, it looked as if I kept losing connection during iPerf testing. With U7 Pro, this is no longer happening and actual average throughput is now matching Ruckus R750, which is more inline with the RSSI data.
I’ve also noticed good throughput in elsewhere in our home with U7 Pro. So overall, my subjective range performance of U7 Pro 5 GHz is awesome.
6 GHz
As I have said earlier, I do not have reference here because U7 Pro is my first AP with 6 GHz radio support. Based on the specification, U6 Enterprise have over 3 dBm EIRP advantage. dBm is logarithmic scale, so 3 dBm difference translates into 2x transmission power difference. Now this does not translates to 2 time physical distance range. Actual physical range truly depends on the home construction and WiFi environment, but based on the specification, I am fairly certain U6 Enterprise have significant advantage here.
Stability
Stability is one of the key element for network devices for me.
Since I have been using U7 Pro for only last a few days, I cannot say the long term stability, but so far it has been working well for me.
The only, and consistent stability related issue I have encountered is if I connect to U7 Pro right after it reboot, after a few minutes, I get disconnected. This maybe related to currently listed as fixed bug on upcoming releasee candidate firmware 6.6.65 where it talks about “fixed 6GHz channel change causing a full provision (leading to all clients disconnecting) for ~60 seconds.”
Otherwise, I have not observed any random device disconnect, or any client connection issue. WiFi call roaming has worked well without any drop so far.
Concerns
Although Ubiquiti UniFi products have been more stable and reliable than consumer grade gears for me, they seem to have tendency of releasing new products before thorough quality and control. In another word, their product at launch feel a beta rather than complete product. U7 Pro is functional usable product but not free of concern. At the time of this writing, there are some issues that I am experiencing.
VLAN throughput degradation
Known issues
SSIDs using RADIUS assigned VLANs or on different VLANs from the native VLAN may operate at slower than expected speeds. This is our top priority to resolve.
UniFi Access Point 7.0.37
The first issue is officially recognized and reproducible. When you use U7 Pro with VLAN tagged SSID, the throughput is halved. This is a major issue. At the time of this writing, even the latest early access firmware version have not yet fixed this.
6 GHz Roaming
My current UniFi WiFi setup uses one U7 Pro and one SHD, as I’ve sold other UniFi APs. With this setup, iPad Pro 2023 never seem to roam to 6 GHz. Now, I have not manually configured radio parameters but I can confirm for the most part disconnect and reconnect to the SSID will pick 6 GHz at the same spot. So it feels like “roaming” can improve a bit here.
Unreliable 6 GHz
Personally, the main concern about U7 Pro at the moment. Even though I am connected to U7 Pro on 6 GHz radio, the performance is unpredictably inconsistent. I have no other 6 GHz AP to cause interference on the radio. Yet, when I check the actual throughput it often falls in the range slower than typical 5 GHz.
I’ve tried to disconnect and reconnect, play around with other radio band parameter, see if 5 GHz upper band can be interfering etc. I have not yet been able to find a consistent, reliable solution.
Conclusion
U7 Pro boosts WiFi 5 and 6 client’s performance compatible to top of the line enterprise WiFI 6 AP. Since majority of our home WiFi clients are WiFi 5 and 6, these WiFi quality improvement alone is sufficient reason for me to consider upgrade even though I currently do not own any WiFi 7 product.
On the other hand, the known VLAN half throughput reduction issue, along with unpredictably inconsistent low 6 GHz performance, and poor 6 GHz roaming made my first 6 GHz experience rather unimpressive from the practical stand point.
However, if Ubiquiti can fix these issues and still able to maintain current high WiFi efficiency performance, U7 Pro will be the reference standard for all other WiFi 7 APs on the market given its highly affordable price point.
I am very thrilled about UniFi’s WiFi 7 product lines now. In fact, I am waiting for 2 more U7 Pro to test full WiFi 7 AP setup at my home next.