When building a Unifi network with APs, it’s tempting to find an open channel, free from neighboring networks, and put all your APs on that same channel, but that would be a mistake.
Channel frequencies are, at their core, radio signals on a certain frequency. If you put to APs close enough that their radio signal can be seen by a device like a laptop, that device will jump between them endlessly. From the device’s standpoint, it sees radio signals coming from both directions, with the same SSID, and neither AP backing down – each one demands “Connect to me” over and over. The result is your device see WiFi as “unstable”, and to be sure, it is.
A better way to do this is to look at the frequencies and pick two that, if they are seen by the same device at the same time, at least are on different frequencies. At this point, the device is still confused, but it does see two different APs – progress.
Better still, use a minimum RSSI value to allow “hopping”. This allows the signals to overlap with different frequencies, as stated above, but now at a minimal RSSI level – typically about 70- 75 dB. Let’s say you set each AP’s minimum connection threshold to 70 dB. By taking your laptop and moving from room to room, you should move farther away from one AP (its signal value will go up in dB as it weakens), and you’ll also move closer to the other AP (its signal value will go down as it gets stronger). Somewhere in this journey, your laptop will say “I have a signal of 65db from one AP and an 85 dB from another,” and it will choose the AP with the lower dB value. This is how your laptop knows to “hop” from one AP to another. It sees one as weakening and the other getting stronger, and “hops” to the stronger AP.
But how do you know what dB level to set the AP at? Trial and error? A good gut feel for networks? That used to work: a notebook, lots of pencil scratching, and some math. Or you can use Claude, my preferred method. Let it do the math for you, and it will tell you what to set your RSSI values to. But don’t expect it to spit out numbers instantly. It will need you to move from room to room, run some tests in each room, adjust your APs, and rinse and repeat. This is a process, but it can tune your network as well as (maybe better) than a professional network installer.
So, in summary, don’t let the AP channel frequencies overlap unless they are well out of range of each other, and if the APs are close enough that their signals overlap, use Claude to help you adjust the RSSI values.