It's down to the use case! If you only have 1 AP and you happen to live in a townhouse with say 3 floors (ground, 1st and 2nd), if you put the AP on the wall like a clock in the middle floor, set the transmit to high and find the right frequency /channel you will have great results across all 3 floors, depending of course of the dept of the middle room! If you put it on the ceiling, either you will need multiple APs (for each floor of the house), or you will have to put it on the top floor/attic but your ground floor will have 1/5 of the throughput. It's really down to the use case.
This time I am not sure I can fully agree. On one hand, if I mount the AP on a wall I do not expect coverage behind that wall. And in many environments the propagation of the signal will be directed more into the room due to the reflections of the walls, floor and ceiling. While I am a fan of placing the AP in the middle of the room on the (not too high) ceiling, we have seen in real life measurements that in most cases the differences are marginal in comparison to a wall mounted version. Regarding polarization this is a relation between sender and receiver antennas. So it is easier to predict for laptop PCs, as they usually stand on a desk, but harder for devices like mobile phones and tablets. And - to be fair - many laptops have a few antennas to account for different polarization, on the edges of the screen or in the base.
Hello Markus, thank you for sharing your experience! I was thinking about real world values and experience, especially related to "polarization". I know that a polarization mismatch can cost up to 6dB, especially on PTP links. But I‘m not sure if the same applies in indoor environments with all the moving devices, reflexions and the way the different devices are used/positioned.
I have only ever used a wall mounted Omni in staircases to provide a simple solution to vertical coverage. But like Keith says WiFi tends to be resilient
My problem with this example is using a football pitch to model a room, then proceeding to hang the AP to an imaginary wall in the middle of the pitch. I get it that in some situations this will become important, but outside professional deployments where you also have the luxury of pulling wires as needed, most situations call for less then ideal deployments and some lateral thinking. Mathematically it may be wrong, but from an engineering standpoint, we can rely on some wifi resilience.
With the Ruckus R710 that you show your polarization statement is inaccurate. Most Ruckus AP have polarization diversity built in which will adjust the polarization to match the client device. Even if the AP is mounted on the ceiling, the polarization of the client is likely to be dynamic (phone, tablet) and not match the AP, unless it can also adjust. Lookup PD-MRC for more details.
That sounds like a cool feature/technology! Especially in indoor environments, where devices are constantly moving and are also used in different ways and positions.
what if you wanted to keep the wifi in only your house? Having a couple on the perimeter walls and one or two central ones on the ceiling depending on home size
I have maybe a strange question, but after a purchase of Unifi U6 Enterprise AP I see in manual that it can be mounter both on wall and cieling, so why Unifi then is recommending wall mounting if your story is correct?
Because the title is - sort of - a clickbait. It depends on the user case. The behavior described here might be even deserved like putting the AP on the outside wall in a middle floor of 3 floor building ;) it's not about "You shouldn't" - it's more about knowing what you're doing ;)
Great explanation of how signal work. I found myself in a predicament where the service stack runs up the core of the house. I had to for space restrictions put an access point on the middle level of a three story house like a clock to cover the area that the metal stack was blocking. It now covers all the dead zones the stack naturally generates.
There may be times when you want to mount on a wall. However, check the radiation pattern before you choose the AP you're going to install. Some have better signal on the dome side than others. Of course, the back side will always be poor. Also, some brands, such as Unifi, have APs that are intended to be mounted in a utility box on the wall.
Thanks a lot! I bought enterprise grade Aironet 3800 APs for home with internal antennas and actually thought they're frontally directional. Then I was wondering, how can one thin wooden wall be such an interference for signal :D
Absolutely incredible I'm troubleshooting a factory at the moment and used your video as a basis for installation checks. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and knowledge I'm extremely grateful.
Just thought of another problem, what is the polarization of a smart phone, a tablet, a watch, a laptop, or even an IOT device for that matter. Sometimes the rules are not the best solution. For the most part your video holds up to best practice.
Excellent, your quick clips have saved me time again in having to explain to clients why they should be using a professional designer and why their existing deployments are suboptimal! Keep up the good work
My house has two stories - this means I should not install the ap in the first story on the ceiling but should install it on a table to optimize it for the second floor :-) But ubiquity calls it's mounting kid "wall mounting kid"....
I didn’t want to look at an AP on my ceiling , so I built a corner shelf in my living room about 4’ high ,and mounted it underneath. Doing a speed test I don’t see any loss in download speeds whether my iPad is under the AP or where I sit in my living room . So all I’m saying is so far so good
It's down to the use case! If you only have 1 AP and you happen to live in a townhouse with say 3 floors (ground, 1st and 2nd), if you put the AP on the wall like a clock in the middle floor, set the transmit to high and find the right frequency /channel you will have great results across all 3 floors, depending of course of the dept of the middle room! If you put it on the ceiling, either you will need multiple APs (for each floor of the house), or you will have to put it on the top floor/attic but your ground floor will have 1/5 of the throughput. It's really down to the use case.
This time I am not sure I can fully agree. On one hand, if I mount the AP on a wall I do not expect coverage behind that wall. And in many environments the propagation of the signal will be directed more into the room due to the reflections of the walls, floor and ceiling. While I am a fan of placing the AP in the middle of the room on the (not too high) ceiling, we have seen in real life measurements that in most cases the differences are marginal in comparison to a wall mounted version.
Regarding polarization this is a relation between sender and receiver antennas. So it is easier to predict for laptop PCs, as they usually stand on a desk, but harder for devices like mobile phones and tablets. And - to be fair - many laptops have a few antennas to account for different polarization, on the edges of the screen or in the base.
Hello Markus,
thank you for sharing your experience!
I was thinking about real world values and experience, especially related to "polarization". I know that a polarization mismatch can cost up to 6dB, especially on PTP links.
But I‘m not sure if the same applies in indoor environments with all the moving devices, reflexions and the way the different devices are used/positioned.
I have only ever used a wall mounted Omni in staircases to provide a simple solution to vertical coverage. But like Keith says WiFi tends to be resilient
My problem with this example is using a football pitch to model a room, then proceeding to hang the AP to an imaginary wall in the middle of the pitch. I get it that in some situations this will become important, but outside professional deployments where you also have the luxury of pulling wires as needed, most situations call for less then ideal deployments and some lateral thinking. Mathematically it may be wrong, but from an engineering standpoint, we can rely on some wifi resilience.
if you hang it like a clock on a boundary this looks good (apart from the 6db loss ) as your neighbour is in the deadzone
Would placing it on a floor or a table be as good as the ceiling if there are no obstructions?
With the Ruckus R710 that you show your polarization statement is inaccurate. Most Ruckus AP have polarization diversity built in which will adjust the polarization to match the client device. Even if the AP is mounted on the ceiling, the polarization of the client is likely to be dynamic (phone, tablet) and not match the AP, unless it can also adjust. Lookup PD-MRC for more details.
That sounds like a cool feature/technology!
Especially in indoor environments, where devices are constantly moving and are also used in different ways and positions.
keep dreaming, it does not work in practice, very well tested
what if you wanted to keep the wifi in only your house? Having a couple on the perimeter walls and one or two central ones on the ceiling depending on home size
build a faraday cage into your exterior walls.
I have maybe a strange question, but after a purchase of Unifi U6 Enterprise AP I see in manual that it can be mounter both on wall and cieling, so why Unifi then is recommending wall mounting if your story is correct?
Because the title is - sort of - a clickbait. It depends on the user case. The behavior described here might be even deserved like putting the AP on the outside wall in a middle floor of 3 floor building ;)
it's not about "You shouldn't" - it's more about knowing what you're doing ;)
Great explanation of how signal work. I found myself in a predicament where the service stack runs up the core of the house. I had to for space restrictions put an access point on the middle level of a three story house like a clock to cover the area that the metal stack was blocking. It now covers all the dead zones the stack naturally generates.
There may be times when you want to mount on a wall. However, check the radiation pattern before you choose the AP you're going to install. Some have better signal on the dome side than others. Of course, the back side will always be poor. Also, some brands, such as Unifi, have APs that are intended to be mounted in a utility box on the wall.
What if I just put it on a wall on the edge of my property?
Thanks a lot! I bought enterprise grade Aironet 3800 APs for home with internal antennas and actually thought they're frontally directional. Then I was wondering, how can one thin wooden wall be such an interference for signal :D
Absolutely incredible I'm troubleshooting a factory at the moment and used your video as a basis for installation checks. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and knowledge I'm extremely grateful.
Cool you made the Omni semi-directional 😅
Just thought of another problem, what is the polarization of a smart phone, a tablet, a watch, a laptop, or even an IOT device for that matter. Sometimes the rules are not the best solution. For the most part your video holds up to best practice.
Great useful video and well presented. Answered my question! Thanks
Alternatively, you could put it on the floor of a basement, like in a garage.
Thank you! Excellent video.
Excellent, your quick clips have saved me time again in having to explain to clients why they should be using a professional designer and why their existing deployments are suboptimal! Keep up the good work
Glad to help, Steve! Thanks for watching!
But how about wall panel ap?
Don’t you love marketing departments “put it on the wall it looks better.”
Well, there you have it. You must mount on a wall! 🙂
My house has two stories - this means I should not install the ap in the first story on the ceiling but should install it on a table to optimize it for the second floor :-)
But ubiquity calls it's mounting kid "wall mounting kid"....
It all depends on the AP itself. Ubiquiti even sells APs which "are designed" to be mounted at/in the wall: inwall.ui.com/
@@WiFiTube I found a link with the unifi's antenna patterns help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005212927-UniFi-UAP-Antenna-Radiation-Patterns
Thanks for this great video💪🏻
Glad you liked it, Tobske!
Great! Thanks
Excellent video. 👏
Thank you, Nelson! 👍
I didn’t want to look at an AP on my ceiling , so I built a corner shelf in my living room about 4’ high ,and mounted it underneath. Doing a speed test I don’t see any loss in download speeds whether my iPad is under the AP or where I sit in my living room . So all I’m saying is so far so good
great video
Thanks for watching, Abbes!
Please make a video on significance of the OPERATING CLASSES..
Thanks for the suggestion, Ravi! You can check out our other posts about operating class on our website!