Well, the first WiFi 6E devices are finally arriving. As an example, the still in early access Ubiquity Access Point WiFi 6 Enterprise (U6 Enterprise) is available. At the maximum, it has 4×4 MU-MIMO in 6, 5, and 2.4GHz. It does need a 2.5Gbps Ethernet connection to really make this work and the new 2.5Gbps switch is what you will need if you have Ubiquiti equipment like the Ubiquiti Switch Enterprise 8POE which you cannot upstream with 10Gbps SFP+ ports.
Then on the equipment side, there are very few WiFi 6E clients, there are a few phones like the Samsung S22+ and some others, but no Apple devices yet have WiFi 6E, so you have to wait for the next product cycle. Maybe the iPhone 14 might have it.
Bridging WiFi to a remote LAN
Ok, one of the nice side uses of the Unifi AP is that any of these access points can be used in bridge mode simply by using the POE injector. Then you get a single Ethernet port that you can plug in. In the old days, the old APs had two access points, but with the POE Injector, you get it setup this way:
- Get a new access point and set it up wired and make sure the bridge mode is enabled.
- Now automagically when you plug it in with a POE injector, it will fall into Wireless uplink mode
- Then take the Ethernet LAN port labels LAN and this can be used for wired devices. If you have more than one, then stick a switch on the end and you are good to go.
The old Unifi AC Pro includes two ports so this was easier and you didn’t need to use the POE injector trick:
