Unifi or other AP attached to Pace 5268ac

[johnmashall]

Does anyone have any experience with setting up additional wireless AP to their Pace 5268ac?

I am looking to get two Unifi AP-AC-Lite setup at either end of my house to give better wifi coverage. At the moment the Pace struggles to cover the apartment, let alone the back garden. Each room in the house has an ethernet port, with a connection back to my router which is in the middle of the house in a cabinet.

I'm specifically looking to amend the router settings so it will continue to assign IPs in the same subnet for devices connected to the Unifi APs and hardwired to the router, while disabling the wireless in the Pace device.

I'm comfortable about the latter requirement, but unsure about the first. I have looked at other AP options like Google Wifi, or Eero, but want to make use of the ethernet connections rather than mesh wifi while keeping costs down. The Unifi will cost me around $160, while others are coming in at over $250 for similar coverage.

[paulcoldren]

Hey John,

This is a common setup, one that I install frequently for friends and family. What you proposed will work just fine.

If you disable the wifi on the Pace box, it will continue to function as your internet gateway + firewall + dhcp server. The Pace box will provide IP addresses to the Unifi access points themselves, as well as to any wireless clients connected to them. Everything, including wired clients connected directly to the Pace box, will be on the same layer 2 network.

Keep in mind that with Unifi, the individual access points don't have a configuration webinterface. You configure them via their "controller" software, which can run on any PC in the house, or a dedicated controller box (like their Cloud Key product).

Just make sure you set up the Unifi access points to be on non-overlapping wifi channels, and you should be good to go.

[johnmashall]

Thanks for the advice Paul, I went ahead and installed them today. The setup was easy and smooth and I now have solid wifi throughout the house.