Many guys here spending $$$$$ for audio gear. But dont do anything for network. I try everything, Wifi ext, power line, mesh wifi system still drop out sometimes, cost me a lot. End up I have Tech come over run Ethernet (cat6 inside wall) and access point anywhere I want. Never have any problem. All my family have 36 devices connected to my router. All my stream dac ethernet, Core ethernet too. Roon never have any drop out from network. I think Roon does very good job , just some of your network not reliable. Please no wifi ext and powerline, upgrade your router up to AC5000 at least.
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It is fair to say that a fully wired setup is the best environment for Roon (the controller can be Wi-Fi of course), but many users have no issues with a Wi-Fi set up. Depends on so many different (audio and networking) equipment and environment factors.
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RF is unpredictable and home grade access points aren’t terribly sophisticated. Don’t turn up the power. This often makes things worse. More APs running low power is what the professionals recommend and do.
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Good move having a blended network. I do the same thing using hard wired Cat6 with the media center system, and office system. 7 station Eero mesh network. Keep the wifi load to a minimum. Some powerline stuff for non audio related equipment.
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I would recommend Unifi gear over an AC5000. Linksys…meh. My only complaint that is remaining network wise is Roon supporting routing. Having multiple virtual nics for the vlans is a bit irritating, but it’s a mild amount of additional effort. Getting it remotely outside the house is more effort, and is frankly just very irritating and not very user friendly.
I say all of this as an engineer in IT, so my needs are different. For the average user who just wants a solid setup and things to work smoothly, Roon arguably is doing fine for them. Flat networks won’t even notice the first problem, and they may just not care about having it remotely.
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Any hardware is best served hard wired. It rids you of all of the potential issues of wireless and insulates you from the impact of channel and power issues caused by neighbours.
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This x2.
I gave up on everything out there once I went Unifi, sht just works.
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Got mine working outside of home using Unifis inbuilt VPN. Was very easy to configure.
I know this isn’t a networking forum, but you opened the door, counselor!
So, I have an older Apple Airport wireless network connected to our cable modem. (One Airport Extreme base station with three individual Airport Express base stations connected to that via ethernet to spread the signal throughout the house.)
(NOTE: all main Roon devices – core and bridges – are connected via wired ethernet)
Time to replace the Apple stuff, and now, because of this thread, the Unifi gear is on the list. Their website has a thousand products, though.
Could you just get four of the “puck” access points?
Or do you need to run something like the Dream Machine Pro off the modem, and then run the access points off that? (Doesn’t look like the Dream Machine is a wireless base station, though… Just a hub/switch for the wireless access points.)
(And then there was the mention above to run the access points off a Linksys AC5000 router.)
Nice thing about the Apple stuff is the airplay functionality. (I don’t use it, but one of my kids does.)
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Yes you can.
You installed their unifi controller and you can manage it from that instance.
I own 4 of their AP and I installed the controller software on a docker instance.
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Ok, to clarify… it sounds like “yes you can” means I could just get the 4 smaller puck units, and control them from software/app on my computer. Yes?
Does the Dream Machine unit provide any added benefit?
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Yes.
Yes, The unit itself becomes the controller and you dont depend on your pc and or software.
You also benefit from other unifi applications and or services such as nVR and remote cloud.
Also Firewall, NAT/SPI, etc…
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Cool. But the DM doesn’t provide a wifi signal itself, correct? (If I relied on my Airport Extreme “main” base station for that, I’d want to add a puck in that location as well.)
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That is correct. Though there is several versions of the DM, this one does not provide wifi.
Edit: here is the one with wifi:
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brilliant, thank you!
Ok, back to your thread! 
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Though I strongly encourage you to check out running separates for all your wired and wireless needs. Getting a all-in-one just means replacing your whole stack when a new protocol arrives. The Unifi Cloud Key is also quite handy when you start managing more systems. Once you get used to the magic of provisioning, you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.
– Back to thread 
–
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haha i don’t know what any of that means 
What I mean is not getting a wireless base station type deal. When a new wireless standard comes (G -> N -> AC, etc) instead of having to replace your router and modem combination, you would just replace your access points.
So a cheap setup could be (depending on your needs, I run the bigger brothers to these)
- https://www.ui.com/unifi-routing/usg/
- https://www.ui.com/unifi/unifi-cloud-key/
- https://www.ui.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/
I personally recommend going for an upgraded cloud key (https://unifi-protect.ui.com/cloud-key-gen2) since it has a battery backup. This is where all your configuration for your AP’s and router would sit.
Unifi works like this:
- You set some settings (wireless channel, firewall rules, etc)
- It then provisions those settings on all connected and adopted Unifi gear
- Profit
So if you replace an AP with the latest and greatest down the road, you just plug it in, adopt it (takes seconds to do, super easy) and it will inherit all previous settings. Which is super useful if you’re running a lot of vlan’s and such like I am. Then you can tweak them to be whatever you want the new ones to be, and it rolls out. Super simple and slick.
Ok I’m done with the advert for Unifi
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2 Unifi Aps, here with Unifi USG router and two unifi switches one can feed and power all my aps and the other switch via PoE saves on nasty power supplies. Controller runs on my NAS and I can control quite a bit from their Phone app as well.
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The unifi switches are also great. I’m running 4 in my house. I love using their software to manage it all.
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