New Home, Professional Wifi Solutions?

To start, do NOT put the main router WiFi propagation point in the basement. I know that is quite common for the mancave or entertainment room, but that is the absolute worst place for a WiFi signal.

As for the rest? WiFi is as much an art as it is a science. Every house is different.

If you're running ethernet cable everywhere, a few access points sprinkled around might work well.

If you are going to run the cable you can just put the AP in the middle of the ceiling like a commercial installation. Most AP are not much bigger than a smoke detector. Makes them easier to get to than in the attic.

I have never seen that technology you link but I have installed many of the other 2 that this site claims they are as good as. I have my doubts since if that was truly a better solution cisco,aviya,HP etc etc would license the technology. There are systems that use long coax cable and put indoor antenna in many rooms off a single AP but that has fallen out of favor since the new problem is not so much the coverage but pure radio capacity. The users are running huge amounts of traffic. I really don't know how their system works. Just putting in big radios generally doesn't work and the antenna systems are based on the old single antenna protocols.

Lets say you were to buy high quality microwave cable and splitters and and put a antenna in every room. This would solve the problem of the roaming but now your end user machine can not directly hear each other and will transmit over the top. This is similar to the repeater problem. The larger issue is you have given up all the abilities to mimo which requires the interference pattern between antenna. I suppose you could put 3 antenna per room but it gets expensive very fast. Good microwave cable is very expensive.

If your budget allows I would run a AP per room or area. A real AP tends to run PoE which make the wife proof installation much more acceptable since you are not dependent on power plugs.

The roaming issue as you found is just one of those things you are going to have to tolerate. If you were in a warehouse driving a forklift around between the AP zones I can see needing it. Most times I recommend people set the SSID to different SSID and then manually control it. It not like it takes that long and how many people are pacing up and down the hall watching a video. Unlike the commercial system that will tolerate even IP changes between AP in a home you should not even drop your connections. If you want to try the automated method with windows you can change the roaming aggressiveness and then turn the power on the AP way down so they barely overlap.

Be aware 802.11ac only runs on 5g. You will likely also have to design for 802.11n running on 2.4g for some of the older equipment.

Then cable as much of your equipment like ip cameras as possible. There really is only so much wireless bandwidth to go around and the less you use the more that is around for the other devices.

Sounds like you're going about things the right way. Not much else to add here to what the pros have said except to say anything that goes in the attic must be rated for outdoor use so it can stand the heat. I have an Engenius ENS200EXT outdoor AP in my garage here in Houston that does quite nicely. It is rated for up to 158 degrees F. How well ventilated is your attic?

http://www.engeniustech.com/business-networking/outdoor-access-points-client-bridges/16748-ens200ext

I am considering the same AP for my attic. How well does it work inside and outside of your house?
Thank you in advance!

I'd add another vote to PoE WAPs. It reduces the cable clutter, and means you can wall-mount access points near the ceiling and it looks fairly professional.

Handoff isn't always a major issue, but some devices are better than others. Most WiFi cards have a 'swappiness' or 'roaming aggressiveness' settings, but these aren't usually exposed on Android/iOS devices.

Most 802.11ac WAPs are simultaneous dual band, meaning that they've got an 802.11n radio on 2.4GHz.

Ubiquiti's a fairly large brand, and I know a bunch of people with their long-range outdoor stuff. Can't say I've heard of Unifi, though.

I'm unsure how much trouble handoffs would be. Remember that they only really occur when you're moving between areas, and the main issue is clients that wait for the signal strength to drop very low before switching. I wouldn't bother with central management in a home space, personally.

Ubiquiti uses a non-standard 24V PoE system, and most of their APs are 2.4GHz-only. I'd probably avoid them - they blow up when connected to a 48V supply.

How far away from other (neighbouring) networks would the house be, and what are the interior walls made of? It's possible that you'll be able to run the whole place off one AP, depending on how it's laid out.

Most of their APs only run off PoE - you can't use a plugpack.

One big switch is almost certainly the way to go, possibly with a second smaller one for PoE if you go with VoIP phones or something.

I can max out my GbE links quite easily...

Bit harder to generate a second stream of traffic that size, though.

It is in the far corner of my garage to provide WiFi within the garage, behind the garage where an RV is parked, and in my back yard. I get great service from it penetrating the plywood interior and clap board exterior walls. The closest inside access point had to penetrate insulated brick walls and the garage and so only gave spotty service in those areas.

500m cat6 cable should work for 10g. They may just not have paid to certify it. Normal cat6 cable will work at 10g to 55m according to the specs. This may be long enough for most your runs anyway. So with this better cable and shorter runs you likely can get 10g.

Just one comment: Cat6e doesn't exist; it's just marketing.

Cat6a is rated for 100m at 10G, cat6 for 55m. Both will do 100m+ at GbE.

Not sure.

It would depend on how much of my stuff could handle 5GHz, how much interference there was around, and how much i ended up roaming.

Think also about installation and your skills if you are planning on doing this yourself. Can you get access to the ceilings where you need to put the Unifis? Do you have a place to set up the POE? Do you have places on furniture convenient to electricity and Ethernet to set the consumer access points? What are the walls made of in case you make a mistake, paneling or drywall? Do you or your spouse want to see the access points on the furniture at all? In my experience it is much easier to run wire in a ceiling with an attic above than pull it down a wall.

Most consumer APs have mounting holes.

I'll see if I can grab a pic of my router.