Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien is an expensive black 6 Wi-Fi internet that promises super fast wifi and a unique and enjoyable user experience, as intuitive as these things can probably be. The touch screen of the main unit is perhaps as close as it can be intimidating, with a Matrix-green vertical reading full of graphics and numbers, but I think most people who want it will easily grasp its content. I like to imagine, when I look at the physical design and user interface decisions of the software, that someone asked Ubiquiti if he is committed to the color green and that the company responded with wedding photos from his Responsible zoom ceremony up to the elegant shade. Even if it’s green, the whole thing is so extraordinarily frictionless, geeky, and luxurious, so only things that cost a lot of money can always do it.
Seriously, though. This is an expense. A single Alien sells for $ 380 and you can add more $ 320 for the mesh unit, with an almost simple surface and a single LAN / WAN ethernet port. if you are thinking of buying only the main cylinder and complementing it with smaller AmpliFi units, think again, Bucko. This puppy is only compatible with other Alien routers. That said, it’s not expensive in relation to the other Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems, whenever you compare apples to apples. With a total of $ 700 per pair, it only tops $ 50 more than the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6, while the Linksys MX10 Velop reaches $ 700 if you buy two (a single Alien is cheaper than a single Velop) . The specifications for each are impressive and the only opinion agreed upon between them seems to be that they all it costs too much money, yes, but it seems that Ubiquiti is working a little harder to soften the blow.
When you start to open the container, which looks like you’re taking a feeding cell out of a starship or something, and you grab one of the extraterrestrials coated with material with a soft, gentle touch, it’s obvious that Ubiquiti I wanted it to feel like you made the right call when you ceded this 0% financing agreement to your credit card. You can even hear the one minute setup lavish, with nice tones emitted by a speaker much better than it should be, and a MeshPoint setup that is as simple as plugging it in. The AmpliFi app is great and while it’s not exactly lousy with options, it still offers a fair amount of configuration options in relation to other mesh alternatives. I love, for example, being able to turn the status LED and touch screen on or off, but also adjust the brightness and set a night schedule.
When I decide to check a new router, I usually have to hang out all afternoon just to fix problems with all the smart home devices that don’t connect until I reset them from the factory, which leads to all sorts of frustrations in a smart home. , and irritates my family. This is the first time I’ve set up a new router to review it, and I’ve seen over 35 wireless devices. just connect. I spent the next week hoping something was wrong and it just never happened. Tal luxury!
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Now, there are some commitments to keep in mind. First, even though you have a three-band router on offer, one of these bands only pushes at 5 GHz 802.11ac, while the other 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands do 802.11ax. The Alien uses this 802.11ax 5 GHz band as a wireless backhaul to communicate between the two routers, which means you’ll share traffic with review traffic. The solution is using Ethernet to backhaul or omit the mesh configuration, but most people are not engaging in a long Ethernet cable if it is not already there or if you have purchased a mesh router and are not using the mesh. Also, there are no USB ports in AmpliFi Alien, nor are there Ethernet ports that offer a speed higher than 1 Gbps. For most people, these things don’t really matter: Gigabit Internet is still pretty hard to get, let alone anything faster than that, and if you’re honestly thinking about buying this router, you probably won’t use it for storage. -directly or try to get your internet from a 4G mobile signal. Still, we like our options, right?
Listen, here’s the offer – my internet plan isn’t incredibly fast. It’s definitely not slow by today’s standards: 300 Mbps is more than enough to stream multiple 4K videos at once, while listening to music, while games while shouting at the tubes to tell you how many half cups there are in a cup. My old 802.11ac mesh network provides me with fast internet everywhere except in the farthest reaches of my garden. What happens is you don’t buy a Wi-Fi 6 router because 802.11ac is a slow standard. You do this because Wi-Fi 6 is a much better multi-tasking.
To do this, you can blame multiple user multiple input (MU-MIMO) multiple output and its equally memorable cousin, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). Thanks to the growing presence of portable and smart devices, our networks are growing in complexity, and so is the demand we make for our network hardware. These acronyms bring order to the chaos by allowing your router to send transmissions to each of your devices in multiple spatial streams (ideal for video games or video games) or simultaneous, slightly offset data packets for multiple clients on a single channel. OFDMA, which uses this latest technique, is particularly great and that’s why 802.11ax is so good for a home where they pull data packets from smart home devices. If you want to read it, I highly recommend it this teller, and if you want good views, I like it this video.
There is no indication that the Alien will do any of this especially better than its main competitors, however, and some others reviewers I found it eager. I haven’t personally tested their more direct competition yet, but I’ve tried other Wi-Fi 6 routers and, in relation to these, the numbers were fair, but not exceptional. With an Alien, I saw full ISP speeds up to 45 feet away, outside my home, but about a third performance 80 feet back, with some trees and stuff in the way. Adding a MeshPoint, I saw a stronger fall at 45 feet, but better speeds on the way back from my garden. Compared to the other fastest Wi-Fi 6 router I’ve tested (TP-Link’s Archer AX6000), download speeds were slower from 45 feet, although load speeds remained close. as much as possible at all times.
Of course, the numbers don’t tell the whole story, and in either setting I was surprised at how little thought I gave to my connection. Due to the holiday time, I lived with the Alien system at a particularly demanding time, as my wife and I are at home, and we are doing almost everything: streaming, games, video calls. All this time, I did exactly zero network troubleshooting, and it was glorious.
Beyond network performance, I was immediately delighted with the minor extravagances you don’t see on a normal router. Adjust the brightness of the touch screen and the LED ring on the bottom of the cylinder. A router direction switch so you can make sure a device stays connected to the gateway unit for as long as possible. A speaker that you could legitimately listen to music, but that you almost never hear outside of the initial setup. Haptic feedback on the touch screen. A Pi-Hole-style DNS ad blocker that Ubiquiti doesn’t even promote: it’s just there, waiting for you to find it.
It even has a VPN that lets you route traffic through your home network before it hits the wider Internet, masking your IP address as you go. Like hand-sewn leather in luxury car upholstery, none are necessary; is equivalent to rich mahogany books and bound in leather. But they are the kind of features you add to your fan list when you look at other routers and may be enough to push it to compare it to its main competitor, depending on how you consider some of its omissions: e.g. , does not have a USB port to store directly connected or lack WPA3 or a low-power smart home hub wireless protocol like Thread.
Many of these features are already in AmpliFi HD. And really, that’s all Alien is: an AmpliFi HD, though month. Wider coverage, twice the surface area of its predecessor, much larger total traffic capacity at a theoretical 7685 Mbps (compared to 1700 Mbps in HD) and 8×8 MU-MIMO, that’s more than twice the MU-MIMO! It’s future-proof, though it may anchor a little more in the now than I would expect.
In general, the Alien mesh system has many effects. It’s fast, reliable and I don’t have to think about it; in my opinion, these are the three pillars of Good Internet, and everything else is dressed up. Does it justify the price? Damn not, but I’m willing to bet that for those who leave money in AmpliFi Alien, it’s not usually an unfortunate purchase.
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- It’s incredibly expensive.
- It is incredibly luxurious.
- The Alien includes a touch screen with haptic feedback, switches the different lights, a built-in VPN and a built-in ad blocker.
- The lack of USB or Thread is a nuisance at this price. But it can’t be totally lost.