This is an impressive little unit for less than $100. It is an enterprise class outdoor access point, for the price of a mid-end consumer router and it has the form factor of a long and large pen (or the box of it). For the price, it is hard to beat the value. I use these for testing out a hotspot service at a marina and use several of them mounted on the halyards and masts of sail boats to extend coverage. All units are heavily exposed to harsh weather conditions, including rain, moisture and wind. They have not been up and running for too long yet but they haven't encountered any problems under almost constant rain for 48 hours.
Before I go further, let me tell what this is and is not. First of all, this is not a router. It is only an access point, meaning you will still need a router that does routing, NAT, DHCP, DNS, filtering and access-lists (if you need them) etc. Most consumer grade routers combine access point functionality with a router that does many other things, this will not have those (at least without specific add-ons). Also, based on the reviews and questions I have seen there seems to be some confusion about the mesh capabilities and how and where it can be used. Some of the answers I have seen were not correct, at least not for the current firmware as of this review. I will clarify them here:
1) This unit will work perfectly standalone, inside or outside as an AP (without router functionality as I explained above)
2) If you have more than one of these units, they can form a wireless mesh network. One of the units needs to be connected to a wired uplink, others can be connected wirelessly to that wired unit. You DO NOT need an existing AC AP Pro or other non-mesh Ubiquiti AP to form a mesh (some comments, even some of the older documentation from Ubiquiti implies the opposite, which initially confused me. I run a mesh with multiple UAP-AC-Ms and they work without issues).
3) If you have more than one of these units and can provide wired uplinks to all, they will also work greatly without a mesh. Having mesh in the name doesn't mean that these are built for mesh networks only. Mesh concept is interesting but make sure that is your only viable option before deciding to go down that path. Among possible wireless topologies, mesh is the least interesting from a performance perspective. If you have the possibility, wired uplinks will provide vastly superior performance to mesh as each mesh hop will halve the available bandwidth. Mesh is ideal if you have power but no connectivity at a given location.
You will also need a controller software to control these units. Ubiquiti provides the software for free and it is available for Windows, Mac and Linux (Debian/Ubuntu). These are not configured from a web interface. There is also a mobile app which I believe can be used to configure them but I haven't tested it, so I cannot confirm. The software itself is also pretty impressive and is an enterprise class wireless network management system. I manage all the access points in the marina from a controller I installed in the cloud on a Linux/Ubuntu machine. Certain functions for the controller requires additional products to be purchased (like Unifi Security Gateway) but those are optional. I am actually impressed that this software is free to download and use when you simply buy a $100 device. To obtain any real practical value from the software you will need to have several of these units though. If you have only one, the software is probably not going to provide much value and may even be a hindrance. The downside of this model for non-tech savvy users or simpler use-cases is added complexity. Mobile app version of the software may address this issue but you need to check the reviews of it separately as I haven't used it.
In terms of performance, as I mentioned, I use these in a marina, mounted on halyards and masts at about 30 ft height. And marina is close to several industrial complexes (to give you a reference, 641 neighboring access point seen over the last 72 hours as measured by the controller software). As such, there is a high degree of interference at especially 2.4Ghz, also some at 5 Ghz. Still the performance is pretty decent. Longest wireless uplink is made at 460ft line-of-sight with default rubber duck omni antennas at speeds 117 (Tx) / 234 (Rx) Mbps, which is more than adequate for this scenario.
Default antennas are ok but nothing outstanding. If I had one complaint, it would be to have slightly better antennas but I won't cut a star for it, keeping the price point in mind. Also another relatively negative issue is the lack of antenna options. These are dual band antennas and there are not that many options for dual-band antennas to extend the range. Ubiquiti itself doesn't have a dual band antenna for these units as of this writing, but based on forum discussions I understand they are about to announce one. I didn't play with the Pro version of these units as their form factor is not suitable for mounting on boats directly but if you need a more powerful unit, that's what I would look at. They have more powerful 3x8 dbi internal antennas, their max transmit power is higher and they are 3x3 MIMO as opposed to 2x2 MIMO for this.
All in all, I really think this is an amazing value for an access point that costs less than $100. Prior to this, I tested a Open Mesh OM2P for a similar Hotspot use case. Total price for one OM2P with the unit itself, weather proof case and PoE adapter is more than the cost of this and it doesn't come anywhere close in terms of specs or features. This could even be a replacement for consumer grade access points as long as the user needs multiple units, is a bit tech savvy and/or is willing to play with things and learn. This will certainly be more complicated to set up and requires some technical knowledge or experience.
This was Fulfilled by Amazon from seller We Love TEC. The UAP-AC-M date on the box was August 2017 so this particular unit was at least 8 months in the box.
Needed to extend the wireless signals to an unattached garage approximately 35ft away. Currently, have an all Ubiquiti Unifi setup (Unifi AP's, router, switches and cloud key). Decided that mesh was the easiest/best way to extend the signal for what was needed and the UAP-AC-M fit the bill (compact and strong enough wireless signals with the included antennas). Though this AP can be pole mounted outdoors, I wall-mounted it indoors since I didn't want to have to worry about grounding the UAP-AC-M.
With initial setup, connected the UAP-AC-M directly to a Unifi POE switch and then opened the Unifi cloud key controller and then adopted the UAP-AC-M. The controller software also indicated that a firmware upgrade was available so did that next. Then enabled the Wireless Uplink for the antenna.
After the wireless uplink was enabled, disconnected the UAP-AC-M (access point) from the POE switch and then walked over to the garage and mounted the antenna and the included POE injector inside the garage (note that there were no screws for the injector wall mount included in the box, only for the antenna wall mount). Connected a Cat6 cable between the POE injector and the UAP-AC-M and then plugged the injector power cord into a wall outlet. The UAP-AC-M turned on and started with a blinking white light and then eventually turned into a solid blue light which meant a successful wireless uplink to a wired AP. I left the wireless uplink on auto in the controller software so it chose the strongest signal available from a wired AP for the wireless uplink. In this case, the wired AP it connected to was a UAP-AC-HD model.
Checked back on the controller for the wireless uplink strength between the UAP-AC-M and the auto chosen wired AP and it was reading 71% (-61.0 dBm). It has since been fluctuating between 81% and 71% so now have really good. wifi in the unattached garage.
Using this outside as just a simple Access Point to cover my 2 acre yard. I can move anywhere in the yard and have WiFi, stream music, get email. Don't let the Mesh title fool you, it works wonderfully as just a simple outdoor access point with the capability to add better coverage later. I have Unifi AP-AC-lite's inside the house and office. I can move from the house to outside and into the office and never miss a beat. Seamless hand-offs. Excellent Product.
Used this in conjunction with this Reolink PTZ PoE IP Security Camera 4 Megapixels Super HD 2560x1440 Pan Tilt 4X Optical Zoom High Speed Dome Outdoor Indoor RLC-423 to live stream Hurricane Irma from our dock. Hurricane strength winds didn't seem to bother the operation.
This is an outstanding piece of equipment from UBNT, all other electronics manufacturers should take note!
It was easy to setup, has all the way up to wireless a/c connectivity so it’s super fast, and is a well-made and durable piece of equipment that can work indoors and outdoors!
Two things that are important for you to note, this is an access point, which means you have to connect it to a router for it to work correctly, it can’t just plug in to your modem. And secondly, you have to power it via PoE (Power over Ethernet), which just means you need to use the included adapter to power the device through the ethernet cable, or a special router (which you’ll only have if you are a large enterprise user).
So. Why else is it great? Well. I plugged it in to my router, downloaded the app from the app store, fired it up and BAM, everything was working. As in, immediately it was working. I will upload pictures of the setup, but I don’t think a router has ever worked for me out of the box like that. So there. You want to extend your WiFi? Buy this AP!
Feature Product
- UPC: 810354025594
- Weight: 1.450 lbs
Description
High-Performance Wide-Area Wi-Fi with Unifi Mesh Technology.
I used this unit to replace a TP-Link EAP-110 which suddenly started giving me problems. It is much easier to set up than the TP-link and unlike the TP-Link the antenna is somewhat adjustable so you can direct the beam. I bought it based on the advertised range of 600 feet but I am only getting about 200 feet range (direct line of sight) with the standard antenna that comes with it. It should be noted that in order to get the 600 foot range you will need the separate UMA-D antenna for another $100+. This should have been made clear thus minus one star
Do not plan to use these wirelessly if you don't have an existing Access Point that covers the 5Ghz spectrum (like the original UAP, which is 2.4Ghz only).
I have 4 of the original UAP access points in my two story house and those have worked great for years. They finally solved the annoying spotty coverage in our wood frame, lath and plaster walled 1911 craftsman. Coverage in the backyard was still weak but I didn't care until I installed a wireless Yi Home camera to watch my chicken coop back there. It soon became clear I would need an outdoor access point.
I purchased this UAP-AC-M access point for it's weathproof-ness, and because it would connect via wifi so I wouldn't have to run a Cat6 wire out to the back yard. Unfortunately when I was trying to configure it last night I could only get it to appear on my Unifi Controller when it was hard wired to the LAN. It wouldn't appear as a wifi only uplink.
My suspicion was a conflict between the original UAPs, which are 2.4Ghz only, and this new Mesh AP which has 2.4 and 5Ghz. To test it, I connected the Mesh AP in place of one of my UAPs (so the Mesh AP was hard wired to the LAN) and then enabled the original UAP to uplink to the mesh via wifi. Bingo - now I had an AP that connected to the Controller via wifi only.
This is kind of a nuisance since now I will have to install my non-weatherproof UAP in the outdoor shed where I was going to install the weatherproof Mesh AP, but without buying another Mesh AP I don't have much of a choice. I'm hoping the sheltered spot where I put the 2.4 UAP will protect it enough to run for a couple years, at which point I'll pay for another Mesh-AP.
The great news is that adding the one AP fixed the poor connection in the backyard. My new wifi camera works great, and I get a strong wifi signal on my phone.
I continue to love, love, love my Unifi system. It was an investment to set up the whole thing (cloud key, security gateway, unifi switches, and APs), but it's lasted well and I love having the centralized controller to adjust radio signal strength, update firmware etc. Just be sure you have a 5Ghz enabled AP for this to connect through and you should be fine.
Recently moved into a three story, 5500sf stone and large timber built house with an additional 2000sf of basement on 3 acres of land. It's in a rural area with only one (crappy) ISP option other than satellite internet. Cellphone reception is two bars outside and one inside and zero in the basement. So I had to make do with what I had and make my WiFi as strong as possible.
* On the back of the property there is a 45 foot radio tower about 100 feet from the back of the house. A trench was dug from the house to the tower and ran Cat6 cable Cat6 Outdoor, Shielded FTP, 500ft, Waterproof, Direct Burial Rated CMX, 23AWG Solid Bare Copper, 550MHz, ETL Listed, Bulk Ethernet Cable, trueCABLE
* AP is mounted about twenty feet off the ground and pointing towards the back of the house. I am now able to get WiFi on a good portion of my back yard, at least most of the areas I need it.
* AP Mesh is easy to setup and and just as easy to deploy.
I was updating an older, failing, UAP Outdoor access point. it had served me well for quite sometime but finally started to give up the ghost with frequent power cycling. That, and the fact that the old UAP only supported 2.4GHz, made it time for an upgrade.
After a little research to make sure this would work as a stand alone AP (along side my other units) I placed my order. So far I've been pleasantly surprised. The unit itself is slightly smaller than a typical TV remote (no counting antennas) and it's all weather construction and flexible antennas means it can be positioned anywhere you need it. Another surprise is that this unit worked on good old 802.3af PoE without the need of either the (included) Ubiquiti injector or one of their PoE adapter connections that its predecessor needed to function with my switch.
Over all a fantastic access point for outdoor use.
I have been using products from this brand for several years and have never had any complaints. I purchased two of these about two months ago to test an outdoor mesh network. So far, so good. They are placed roughly 300 feet apart, outdoors in line of sight. The connection between the two access points is roughly 50% which allows for great coverage. I find that I can easily connect to this access point in a building 150ft away with no loss of connection.
This access point comes with a couple mounting options - for both pole and wall mount. The antennas are removable. The power supply also includes a mount. Installed outdoors, I have had no water infiltration with these units even with the antennas on the top side. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase and this product. I would highly recommend these access points as well as this brand.
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