Speed Test Comparison Unifi Wi-Fi 6 Pro vs UAP-AC-Pro access points
Ubiquiti recently released their Wi-Fi 6 access points and I was curious to see if it would increase my iPhone 13 Pro Wi-Fi speeds over the existing UAP-AC-Pro and UAP-AC-HD access points I was using. So this comparison review will cover the Wi-Fi speed differences I noticed when upgrading from the UAP-AC-Pro and HD to the U6-Pro-US (Ubiquiti Access Point Wi-Fi 6 Pro).
Differences between U6-Pro-US and UAP-AC-Pro
The Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 6 Pro (U6-Pro-US) is the newer, Wi-Fi 6, version of the previous Wi-Fi 5 Pro access point, the UAP-AC-Pro. Below are some important specification differences between the two wifi access points.
Speed differences in Access Points (U6-Pro-US vs UAP-AC-Pro)
| Access Point | Throughput Speed 5ghz | Throughput Speed 2.4ghz |
|---|---|---|
| U6-Pro-US | 4800 mbps | 574 mbps |
| U6-LR-US | 2400 mbps | 600 mbps |
| UAP-AC-Pro | 1300 mbps | 450 mbps |
There is a theoretically huge speed performance increase of 3500mbps between the UAP-AC-Pro and the U6-Pro-US at 5ghz and a smaller increase of 124mbps at 2.4ghz.
Radio changes
| Access Point | 5ghz MIMO | 2.4ghz MIMO |
|---|---|---|
| U6-Pro-US | 4x4 MIMO | 2x2 MIMO |
| U6-LR-US | 4x4 MIMO | 4x4 MIMO |
| UAP-AC-Pro | 3x3 MIMO | 3x3 MIMO |
So the Ubiquiti Pro and LR Wi-Fi 6 APs increase from 3x3 to 4x4 MIMO on the 5ghz radio band. The Pro actually went down from 3x3 MIMO in the UAP-AC-Pro to 2x2 MIMO in the U6-Pro-US. The loss of 2 MIMO antennas in the 2.4ghz band may not materially affect performance because many 2.4ghz devices don't support higher levels of MIMO anyway.
The Pro uses a Qualcomm chipset whereas the LR uses Mediatek.
Physical differences
The UAP-AC-Pro I have currently looks to be the exact same size, 197mm x 197mm x 35mm, as the new WiFi 6 Pro AP so I should be able to use the existing mounting bracket I have in the ceiling.
Below is a picture of the back of each access point.
The new Wi-Fi 6 access point feels a lot more substantial between the two. The new Wi-Fi 6 version increased in weight by about 10 ounces over the previous Pro to ~20oz despite the same outer dimensions.
The secondary RJ45 port and USB ports were eliminated from the back of the U6-Pro-US
Lastly, the new Wi-Fi 6 Pro requires PoE+ where the UAP-Pro could use either PoE or PoE+.
Real-world Throughput Speed Tests
I setup iPerf3 in server mode on a gigabit hardwired PC on my local network and used the iPerf mobile app with 5 streams to test the Wi-Fi speed of new U6-Pro-US, the UAP-AC-Pro, and the UAP-AC-HD using an iPhone 13 Pro (which supports 802.11ax and 2x2 MIMO). iPerf runs within the local network so it is unaffected by variances in your WAN internet speeds.
| Access Point | Average | Max |
|---|---|---|
| U6-Pro-US | 778 Mbits/s | 820 Mbits/s |
| UAP-AC-Pro | 508 Mbits/s | 538 Mbits/s |
| UAP-AC-HD | 438 Mbits/s | 598 Mbits/s |
The U6-Pro-US access point has a 52% 5ghz wifi speed increase over the previous Unifi Pro based on the iPerf speed tests.
These tests were conducted with 5ghz Wi-Fi channel width set to VHT80 on the the UAP access points and HE80 on the U6 so that speed shouldn't be constrained by wifi channel width.
Final Thoughts
The Wi-Fi 6 version of the Ubiquiti UniFi Pro router, U6-Pro-US, was a worthwhile upgrade over my previous generation UAP-AC-Pro and even HD access points. The 52% performance increase in Wi-Fi speed on 5ghz puts the new access point on par with wired devices on a gigabit network in terms of download speeds.
Reddit user /u/mccanntech came up with this excellent specifications table showing the detailed differences of the UniFi omnidirectional access points. Visit their blog for more comparison tables like this one below.
