This is a brief overview of what settings and tips to change in the UniFi Controller to improve your WiFi deployment. For a full, in depth guide on choosing the best APs, lots of details about each frequency band and more, see our UniFi Wireless Best Practices Guide.

Select the most appropriate channel width. Choose 20MHz for 2.4GHz and 40MHz for 5GHz. Not only will this reduce the amount of things you might interfere with and cause latency and speed issues, it'll use less spectrum and cause other people less issues too.

6GHz is much newer and larger than 2.4GHz and 5GHz, so while there is more spectrum available, you should still be mindful about how much spectrum is being used.

This can be done in a few different ways. It can be done at a global level or per AP. As a general rule, each AP should be manually configured for channel and channel width.

Just as important as channel width is the channel itself. For 2.4GHz, you can choose between channels 1,6 or 11 as the 2.4GHz spectrum is very small. This is why it is not recommend to use 40MHz channels on 2.4GHz.

For 5GHz, the spectrum is pretty large, more so in Europe and other places and there is also the option of using DFS channels too. If you have a lot of APs, do what's called a 'frequency plan' or 'channel plan' using building or venue floor-plans if possible. Pick a set of different channels and alternate between them.

In dense wireless environments, it might be best to choose to only use 5GHz for client devices, such as phones, laptops and computers and reserve 2.4GHz to certain APs where it is needed to support legacy or IoT devices.

If you do perform a spectrum scan, there are tools available within UniFi itself. Remember to pick a channel that has minimal interference for each AP's 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios. This means selecting the highest numbers. For example, -90 dBm is a better level than -80 dBm.

Again, just as important as channel width and the actual channel, is AP placement. APs should not be behind televisions, metal objects, down on the floor or crowded with other devices. UniFi APs should be high up on the ceiling or on a wall, with the ceiling being the preference, purely based on how the APs are designed to propagate.

If you do seem to be having some issues with clients with poor signals, take a look as to why. All wireless devices report two RSSI levels, the TX and RX and is based on how the AP is 'seen' from the client and how the client 'sees' the AP.

For those with experience with the airMAX and airFiber products from Ubiquiti, will know that those devices have two signal levels on the GUI and it gives you a good indication as to which end of that PtP link the problem could be.

This theory translates perfectly to UniFi. For example, you could have a device with a low TX MCS level, for example 6mbps but the RX could be 54mbps. This could be for a multitude of reasons - i.e the AP has a larger antenna and the client has a smaller one and it reads unbalanced, but it could be interference causing the client to be drowned out or simply, there could be something in the way.

View a client with UniFi and look at the client signal levels compared to the TX and RX rates (MCS).

Check that the following settings are set with the WiFi Network section in UniFi:

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