From DEAD ZONES to FAST WI-FI: Our UniFi Mesh Setup

[@TinyShinyHome]

🛜 GET THE GUIDE OR READ THE ARTICLE HERE! tinyshinyhome.com/wifimesh

[@DumpsterDivingDragon]

THANKS, JON & ASHLEY & family! 💜's Always!

[@BasilJackson-e1d]

The easiest way to get good internet is to ask a teenager to do it. I used to run an entire computer department. We had technicians that were certified by Microsoft, had degrees, and years of experience. Nonetheless, the trainee, who was 19, could often walk circles around all of us! It was a shame that he only made a fraction of our salaries... but don't tell the boss!

[@eeroala5132]

I called BS. I run teams of engineers of all different ages and generations, and the young people that we get are terrible and incompetent. The most technical savage generation is Gen X. The younger generations, believe that they are digital natives, but they’re only digital natives in the sense of consuming technology not in creating technology.

[@CAM-wk3dj]

Kids ARE OUR Future, they come to earth HARDWIRED for the FUTURE❤️ That’s why the devil wants them… to keep us stunted and him in control👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 But our God is bigger Jesus is kKING and he reigns forever✝️✝️✝️✝️

[@Sickoloko24]

Degree speak little about anything computer related lol everything I learned I did my self and my I am a serious engineer and yet I don’t have a HS diploma 😂

[@deniseslusher4251]

Can't believe I watched this whole video. I'm 70 and am not tech savvy. But I do love watching your family and the progress on your homestead.😊

[@maryleereid3675]

Well said and exactly what I was going to express Denise.

[@jeanineacree6355]

Dito

[@HamburgerNetwork]

Ubiquity was such a good choice

[@fredk4136]

Excellent video. This video definitely wouldn't be the same without Ashley's comments. Funny and educational. Ashley's reactions and comments are priceless

[@dionbass5212]

Ubiquiti should pay you for putting this video together - explaining how their products work together

[@StoneKathryn]

You mean UniFi? What is Ubiquiti?

[@lievdorfman4817]

​@@StoneKathrynUnifi is a line of products owned by ubiquiti, other ones ate amplifi, UISP, and their edge series.

[@paulm7267]

@@StoneKathrynUbiquiti is the company. UniFi is their product line

[@gooseythelucy]

@@StoneKathryn Ubiquiti is the company who makes UniFi.

[@ELRay000]

Awesome video. Unifi network and wifi engineer here. I did review the AP antenna patterns and have a few suggestons to squeeze out every ounce of available signal strength and coverage from your exsting equioment. BTW, reviewed your products list and could have made a sugestion to save about $450 by selecting a few different Unifi devices which would have simplified your setup and cost less at the same time. Anyway, I would suggest mounting the antennas on poles. Based on the published radiation patterns, all antennas should be at the same elevation from the ground, and then you should point the front panel of the Goat Barn and Airstream directly towards the main building. The main building antenna should point towards the Goat Barn. To be exact, draw a line on a satellite map directly from the location of the Airstream and Goat Barn antennas. At the point where that line passes the main building at 90 degeees draw a line through the antenna pole on the main building. That line, perpendicular to the first, is the plane which should bissect the antenna front and back with the front pointing towards the Goat Barn side. This confguration will give you the best signal all around. If you want to dive into the software, you can adjust the transmit signal strength of each antenna to perfect the coverage and reception. I sent an email separately to you in case you'd like more advice. Cheers, Ray.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Yeah had to find the balance between coverage and winds (we have up to 100+mph updrafts during monsoon) so pole mounting wasn't something I was interested in for this project.

[@ELRay000]

Well then, sir, looks like you have done a pretty damn good job given the circumstances.

[@chimpo131]

​@@TinyShinyHomeyou both really have really annoying voices and punchable faces 😂😂😂

[@sth.777]

That company needs to sponsor you! They need to send you more devices for future expansion!

[@UKsystems]

Play the office sponsorships if you have used their products in about 50 videos or more

[@icu_frosty]

Usually ubiquiti will sponsor companies and more techy youtubers since they will gain more sales from it

[@Shadowdragon132]

I work in networking and I am not the biggest Unifi fan, but what I will say is that it is designed for the exact use case that you used it for and does it well. It simplifies the networking aspect and makes it so people who dont have degrees in networking can build a relatively stable network and is modular enough to fit a lot of use cases. Also, with meshing generally, each "hop" you will loose a percentage of speed. This is because some of the radios in the Access Point become dedicated to connecting to other mesh devices. So if it has 6 internal radios it might use 2 of them to transmit and receive (1 radio for each) to other mesh devices to create the backbone network. Great job on the setup though, should serve you well!

[@Nancelot13]

Love how thoroughly you covered this subject without causing me to fall asleep. Nice job! Y'all are building a beautiful, high functioning homestead. Really beautiful place.

[@klee88029]

🎉I am only 6 minutes into this and it's hysterical! By far the funniest video ever created about internet connectivity. And I think that it's because each of you has grown SO much in becoming your individual selve's. Yet at the same time, over the years on the land, paradoxically, you as a couple have "meshed" together (pun was not intended but I can't think of a more accurate word!) in your journey together as husband, wife and guardians to your children and all of the animal and plant life within your little "Peace in the Desert". Enjoy the Joy! 👍🙏🥳🧓

[@camilleszalma4556]

Congratulations! Look at all your succes stories here! Jonathan, I know your children's reaction didn't include all the acknowledegment of your accomplishment that you'd hoped it would, but all things considered, I see it as very high praise, indeed (and all of it richly deserved). One day they'll look back on this moment in your lives (i.e., from a month ago) and they'll say exactly what you would have liked to hear when they came home and found everything working 'like it should've all along.' They're super good kids. They're just not there yet. One day they'll know what an awesome childhood they had, what awesome parents.

[@Deerhavenoffgridhomestead]

This is a perfect topic right now for us. We are just about ready to move out to our 5 acres and will be getting ready to do the exact same thing.

[@charlenehuff19]

I love the nerdiness!! I love the silliness that makes y'all sooo much fun to watch. Y'all make me smile!!

[@curthale8605]

Put a little comedy in nerding out. You all rock !!!

[@renegaddy]

We need this for our off grid homestead! I love how technical you get while entertaining us!

[@ggraham1301]

I put up a ubiquiti network for us too! It works great! We can use the same WiFi net between the house, garage, orchards, garden and garden shed. And when we get that far, I can put up a mesh net for weather sensors further down the property. I originally picked it for us because the UniFi console provides great data about the network that is easy to access. It is so much easier to troubleshoot. Very satisfying to be able to see what the problem is and succinctly tell the isp ….. and not take a ton of time doing it.

[@TinyShinyHome]

It works so good I'm kind of sad I don't have to mess with it anymore 😂

[@StoneKathryn]

So Ubiquiti is the company that makes the UniFi Wi-Fi Mesh equipment? I somehow missed that step. Good to know!

[@georgiasimmering359]

The bell sound you used made me think I was on an airplane cuz it's the same sound as the seatbelt sign 😂 After my eyes glazed over they rolled back in my head, I have noooo idea what was said (my husband would've understood every word) 🤣😂🤣 but you still managed to entertain so well done!! 🙌🥰

[@BrendaRoe-zm8ll]

We lived in Winslow, AZ for years and had 4 kids in 4 years time so we had to add on to our trailer( when they were called trailers) fast. Everything has changed so much in 50 years. I think you all are doing extremely well in all you have done in such a short time. It takes a lifetime to get things done the way you want and need it to be. Your kids grow up so fast and off they go to start their own lives. As the Holy Spirit of our Creator tells us in the book of James....Our lives are like a vapor. Keep on truckin' and you will get it done. God bless you and keep you in your journey here....brenda

[@dragntheground]

Lol Ashley cracks me up. Beautiful and funny!

[@SteampunkSteve]

Thanks for this video. I'll save it for future reference as I'm not there in my building yet. One of the pluses when I was looking for property was internet connectivity. I was very happy to see a marker at my gate saying there was fiber optic cable buried there.

[@debbieshort9660]

Good morning everyone.

[@brenathens3744]

Always fun to see how you are meshing around on the homestead.❤

[@StoneKathryn]

I love the pun! Thanks for making me chuckle!

[@paulas_lens]

So MANY cords! hahaha :D

[@nathantonning]

You two are adorable to watch. The energy of the interchage in this video had me laughing! :D

[@jimoray3]

You all amaze me but than again I expect it as you are probably one of the greatest teams on KZbin. Prayers and many blessings for you all. Great content as it’s better than professional it’s the highest quality anywhere

[@theresalloydevans4862]

Love your double act. Laughed so hard.

[@Nancelot13]

I can not wait to see what your round house looks like when y'all are "done" with it. I'm sure it will be stunning!

[@jenniffersantana13]

Great! It feels so good drinking coffee and watching you! Y’all amazing! Hugs from Texas!

[@aaronsparling1743]

I had to rewatch the part about Repository as the first time I thought she said Suppository and spit coffee out my nose, thanks for all the usefull information😝

[@sickpuppy555]

Hi guys, First off I wanna say great job figuring this out, this is a cool network! one issue you might run into however with unifi mesh is related to the system being in whats called "half duplex" meaning your central hub for mesh will essentially divide its bandwidth depending on how many paths it has to cater towards. to fix this you could run a backhaul link, a ubiquity LTU rocket and dipole antenna on the roof where your routers switch is located, and an LTU lite anywhere you wish to send your wifi to. this LTU could then plug into a flex, WAP and security camera. this is called a Point to Multi-Point link (PtMP) and would give you 300Mbit(plus) link to any corner of your property, while also allowing you to stream CCTV without tanking your mesh's bandwidth. as an additional bonus, if the LTU ever goes down, the mesh should automagically kick in as a backup link and save the day, thank you RSTP.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks! Yes we almost went point to point for the buildings, but realized we needed the Wi-Fi outside the buildings too, and could do it far simpler and cheaper this way. We're already getting 300mb speeds inside the buildings with the mesh so we're really happy with the results. Fun big plans for the house once we get it built, though!

[@lydialebiecki]

Wow. Not too nerdy cuz I understood most of it. Hubby not have a clue but he also refuses to own a phone. You guys always explain so well and so understandable Thanks.

[@seansysig]

The advertising potential of this video is huge. As a network manager I have a tip for you. The software allows you to design and troubleshoot antenna meshing overlap to saturate your coverage area.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks! Yeah, our setup was pretty unique so the software wasn't much help without a lot of time spent setting it up. It'll be interesting to see if I can feed our earthbag roundhouse plans into it when we get to that point.

[@montyspellman2560]

Awesome, very informative.

[@theducklinghomesteadandgar6639]

Very cool video!!! Thank you for sharing all of this and doing so using both techie and normal speak!! All of this with all of the comic relief!! Perfection!! BRAVO!!❤❤❤

[@paulvanhouts3365]

Hi Ash and Jon, this was a great overview, thank you. It helped me understand some things that I seemed to get into the dumb zone about. I am like ash in the not quite getting it place with this stuff. Jon you certainly are a great teacher. Thanks for sharing.

[@thestillness3967]

I think this is your best video yet. You guys have so much chemistry together. Ashley is cute with the glasses.

[@wandaspaabeck4996]

Awesome nerdy presentation! I even basically understood how this works....that's sayin' something! I think your kids just take it for granted that whatever project you take on it will all work out the way it is supposed to. 🙂

[@biddiemutter3481]

5:38 I'm impressed and you made it fun to watch!

[@bethhubbs9937]

You two should take your show on the road. You're the comedy duo that this world needs. Great timing, great bits, great banter. You made the subject appeal to a wider audience by making it entertaining. Kudos!

[@TinyShinyHome]

Hey thanks!

[@StoneKathryn]

Can you believe that they are both professed introverts? Jonathan used to perform in a band. That's how Ashley met him. They are sooo good together. I'm so glad they found this KZbin niche to "shine in." Introverts get exhausted when they have to be with crowds. This way of sharing seems to bring out the best of them both. I love the humor! So much said in the videos with the looks between them! I'm so glad they can share all this with us in a way that doesn't exhaust them. So much fun!

[@TheArtisanbard]

Ashley’s side comments were the best!😂

[@soniclab-cnc]

I love my unifi setup. It’s been so reliable and easy to manage.

[@sunnilee5058]

I've been watching you guys for years and you are so adorable together 💯❣️

[@richardburguillos3118]

Great video. Love the setup. This is one I’ll be coming back to when I decide to eventually update our system. Thanks for sharing!

[@lynnethebeautifulone4145]

You two make any video you make the best, no matter the content. Loveeeee them all!!!

[@VenusSantaCruz]

Congrats! I love my Fiber!

[@traviswatson6527]

Been running Ubiquiti equipment for years. Rock solid. I've only had 1 equipment failure on an access point and the RMA process was absolutely painless. Can't go wrong!

[@Jaantoenen]

Cheers! Great job as always. You are impeccable in all you plan and do.

[@OLDMANDOM42.Dominic]

Brilliant!! I am an IT guy with over 30 years' experience, I don't think I could have explained your setup in such a normal person way. An oh yeah, NICE Network!! Cheers!

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks!

[@HockeyJock]

First of your videos I’ve seen. You guys are adorable. But I’m burying the lede: this has got to be the most fun, most helpful, most in-depth, most unique, and most enjoyable KZbin video I’ve seen this year. UniFi user here about to do a major expansion from just a gateway, 2 APs and a few PoE switches, to adding several of their security cameras and doorbell cam. UniFi was such a smart choice - they even make key fob tech for all the future visitors to your homestead. God bless you both, and thank you for providing me so much value. I’ll be buying that PDF and subscribing.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks so much for the kind words :)

[@joannwidney2764]

You all are a fun loving family. We love watching you do things on your homestead. Perfection.

[@LauraThiry]

I learned so much!!

[@Thingsmyfathertaughtme]

Loved the banter you two had in the video. It made it fun to watch. Kept me engage through out. Being a homestead you have to provide all of the infrastructure and it matches the channels content. Glad they had a grant for the fiber. Good Job as always sharing your experiences and sharing in a way that provides value to the viewer.

[@geoffgilbert2152]

You made a great choice, and looks like a great install!

[@andrewvousden8339]

Your WiFi is mind glowing 😮😮😮

[@marilynlautner2454]

Whoa! So modern!😊

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info. I am in IT and this is great that you were able to setup. Awesome. Have a great day

[@mc5366]

🤣this was super informative and fun to watch! Thank you Jonathan and Ashley. 😆

[@dragon90815]

I am, good video, loved how y'all did the property map of signals.

[@jeffmorris348]

Good Vid! Thanks!

[@paulas_lens]

That stained glass cactus is beautiful! :)

[@paulm7267]

The quality of this video is top notch professional. So much so that I thought it was done by Ubiquiti themselves. I am blown away by the graphics, the production quality of the video, the organization/storyline/flow of the video, and the PDF about it.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Hey thanks!

[@elainemartin7141]

16:25 cactus wren ❤

[@lua-nya]

Thank you for showing how an ubiquiti gateway can be valuable for a smaller set up and not only for massive deployments.

[@alexjohnson6589]

Read most but not all the comments, I have been using UniFi for years. WRT the FE issue, it’s possible that your original cable was a CAT 5 which will deliver 100Mbps. You need a minimum of CAT 5E to get 1Gbps. I’m sure you read the bigger comments on every hop reducing your bandwidth by half etc. So do not double hop :-). Great video, great explanation, great work!! Thanks for sharing as I am sure you have helped a lot of folks out.

[@TinyShinyHome]

It was the right cable (literally bought the same one to replace it with). No slowdowns inside the buildings at all :)

[@FAJADEVIL]

I missed You !! You are hard working with some level of stress - yet You are able cheer up ppl on the other side of the screen - Thank You

[@jacobcapeles2870]

I'm an IT nerd great choices in equipment.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks! :)

[@jim9520]

Great video. Thank you for all of the information.

[@atashalynn]

Wow I gotta learn this. Too cool ❤

[@infotoons212]

Ashley's version of this video: "We got better internet! We'll see you soon😁"

[@ChristineKelly1000]

😊😊😊

[@RiggerBrew]

Not sure if you noticed, but the Flex switches and the extra LAN ports on them also get connected to the network over the mesh. it's a great way to get multiple benefits as you don't have to trench Lan Cable. I have been using Ubiquity products for a long time and they just keep getting more features over time.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Yep that’s how we’re using the setup in multiple buildings :)

[@monoshock57]

Beam me up Scotty. Now my brain is exhausted.

[@aliciaweber7519]

love the nerdy!

[@maryhart637]

Nicely done, Jonathan!!❤❤ I am about as enthusiastic as Ashley and totally ignorant of all this nerdy stuff!!😂😂😂

[@idiotluggage]

Thanks for sharing this. I have been looking at mesh networks on and off for a year now and your information is pretty helpful.

[@stephenkennedy7931]

Great informative video. God Bless from your Canadian Friend.

[@AskMeWhen]

Switched my home network to Ubiquiti years ago. Best decision I’ve ever made.

[@ElijahAnderson1112]

I'm a big fan of Ubiquit and its products. I've recently been getting into their UniFi Protect system and have been very pleased with the performance of the UNVR and the G5 series of cameras!

[@TinyShinyHome]

You bet, definitely looking forward to the future of a much larger install in our hyperadobe roundhouse :)

[@homey381]

I own an IT Company out of New Hampshire. We use Unifi exclusively for all our clients. If you have any questions or need help feel free to ask any questions. I would be happy to answer them for you.

[@VacuumFluctuation]

Superb video... Much needed.

[@lucdestrube]

Great video, I did something similar on a 11 acre heavily wooded property. I used direct burial ethernet cable to connect Ubiquity APs PoE. This allows APs to be 200-300' apart with no loss in speed. It would also reduce the number of Flex you buy. Ubiquity UISP Design Center was super helpful in designing the outdoor components of the system.

[@TinyShinyHome]

With our lightning if we buried cable here we’d do all fiber. But for this project didn’t want to turn the property into Swiss cheese:)

[@elishaskelley4002]

I ❤️ you guys 😂 you crack me up!

[@loispolley6339]

To show you how much I enjoy you guys I watched this whole video when all I heard was blah blah blah! But that's ok I will never need this very informative and well-done info that I'm sure will help many others. Just watching Ashley was where I could relate and she made me smile a lot!!

[@joegomez5807]

Nice video. Very thought out. Nice to see those mesh6 working so well.

[@needtogopattaya1101]

I am a huge fan of Ubiquity products. I started using their products in 2018 and never strayed. Great equipment.

[@evanjury8478]

First video of yours I've watched, stuck around for the whole thing. I've been thinking of moving to ubiquiti from a store bought consumer mesh set up but was overwhelmed by the endless combinations you can put together with these systems. I liked your easy to read diagrams and easy to follow terminology...sometimes you need a normal person to be saying this thing goes into that thing and does this, rather than a IT professional speaking a lot of technical jargon only 10% of people understanding

[@TinyShinyHome]

Haha yes. We work pretty hard to take complex ideas and make them easy to follow. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@MactelecomNetworks]

Oh wow this looks like a cool project. Great vidoe

[@u2cancatchme]

So informative and helpful. Thanks for sharing your beautiful family 💖

[@Billsfan2012]

Love these type of video’s.

[@rccollins8160]

Thank you guys! We have 250 acres in Maine and need to connect our buildings..

[@MuhsinunChowdhury]

I get the feeling that this guy is great at teaching his kids things. I loved the teaching style. Felt like I was watching one of those kid shows where they define a new word every couple minutes haha

[@malk315]

This is really cool -- great job. Only thing about several mesh pros as your backhaul -- they will all be on the same channel and its all half duplex so only one can talk at a time and it can slow things down. You might consider some Airmax radios for dedicated backhaul and you can then use different channels on your outdoor radios and get some speed back. We do outdoor networks for campgrounds and we only use mesh as the "last hop" so just single-hop meshes off radios that have dedicate backhaul on airmax like rockets / nanobeams. The airmax stuff is pretty easy to setup like unifi. Cheers. One last thing -- the mesh pros are technically omnidirectional yet you installed some as if they only radiate out the front... best if they can be clear on all sides such as on a j-pole to clear the roof. Also -- mesh pros max height about 14 to 15'. If you mount them 20' or higher you get like no signal on the ground... did a campground with mesh pros 20' up and had to lower them to 15' to get things to work (to clear campers and be good on the ground).

[@TinyShinyHome]

Wind was a big consideration for antenna mounting (we get 100+mph microbursts during monsoon season) so that was a tradeoff we had to make. All in all I know there are much more expensive and complicated ways to do it to get more throughput, but for our family size and acreage size this is working great so far :)

[@ernestestrada2461]

I used to work for electrical contractor and one of my duties was to make sure that we properly should protected contracts required surge protection. On your goat trailer, you need to run a copper wire directly to the ground. Steel has a high resistance and you do not want to rely on it for your ground path. You need to run the copper wire because of its low resistance providing an unrestricted ground path ground. It seems like such a hassle that you have to get a Poe adapter to use the system. You would think that they would build that in but they're just trying to cut costs. You did a good job and very informative.

[@krisalis709]

Ubiquiti does sell PoE switches that take AC input. I don't know why they needed PoE injectors.

[@StoneKathryn]

They have an ufer ground for the goat barn but you're saying that maybe a lightning rod with a direct copper wire to ground would be better? We have a lightning rod on the top of our galvanized steel cupola on our barn that has copper wire all the way down to the ground. The rest of the roof is corragated galvanized steel roofing. The upstairs is wood and the first level is concrete block. I hope Jonathan reads your comment.

[@TinyShinyHome]

@krisalis like we mentioned the Flex is powered that way. Didn't really need/want to get a bigger more expensive one. The only other thing we could have gotten at that size/price point would have been the Lite 8 POE 🤷🏼‍♂️ .

[@TinyShinyHome]

@ernestestrada2461 a copper wire would probably be better, but the surge protector is specced to install on steel poles for the path to ground. And I don't remember how much we covered in this video, but the entire solar system for the goat barn (AC power, charge controller, inverter, solar panels, solar panel mounts) are joined inside, grounded to the container and then to a 20' ufer ground because the container is up on blocks. As far as including the surge protector, not everyone uses these outside or in a situation where they would need it so providing it as an add-on made sense to me.

[@wadeprior5203]

Good morning how are you folks doing today how's the animals everybody's okay today and have a good day you guys keep up the good work

[@BillSands2112]

Great informative video. Thanks for sharing

[@GardeningwithDave]

Perfect topic even if I don’t own a homestead 😂. First time here and I already subscribed ❤

[@roadtripslifeandredox]

Interesting, and thank you for trying to keep it simple.

[@sassfireluna659]

Ashley trying not to crack up while pretending to know what he is talking about 😂😂

[@StoneKathryn]

That was really fun to watch huh? She just smiles and nods! So cute! They are so fun to watch together!

[@deloresbradner8928]

Good morning love you videos 😊

[@anaclark5751]

Love your blue t shirt Jonathan.

[@iamyourmuse]

This is awesome! I've been looking at land out in the middle of nowhere in the desert but these parcels are like in grids as I think they are trying to set up communities but I'd like not to be in some huge development, either way, it's good to see what works and what don't and helps with deciding whether to get some land that isn't ins some town or city and no where near it.