Scope WiFi radio tuning, RF optimization, roaming, multicast
Outcome 4/4 changes applied, verified, no downtime
01Summary
Connected to the UniFi controller on the Cloud Gateway Ultra and reviewed the wireless network:
one gateway and two access points (“U7 Lite”, “U6 Mesh”) serving 18 clients
across a main WLAN, a guest VLAN, and a WireGuard VPN. Diagnostics were pulled read-only first;
four specific, low-risk changes were then proposed, confirmed by the user, and applied. All
devices remained online and adopted throughout.
02Network Inventory
Device
Role
Model
Firmware
Status
Cloud Gateway Ultra
Gateway / router
UDRULT
5.1.33.34087
Up to date
U7 Lite
Access point
UAPA693
8.7.11.19419
Up to date
U6 Mesh
Access point
U6M
6.8.2.15592
Up to date
03Findings (Before)
2.4GHz congestion — U7 Lite’s 2.4GHz radio sat on channel 6 at 62% channel utilization with only 2 clients attached, indicating heavy neighbor interference. U6 Mesh’s 2.4GHz (channel 1) was healthy at 16%.
RF auto-optimization disabled — UniFi’s built-in nightly auto-channel optimizer (radio_ai) existed but was off, so channel 6 congestion could not self-correct.
5GHz underused — both APs ran 5GHz at 40MHz width with only 2–4% utilization, leaving clear throughput headroom unused.
No roaming assistance — with two APs covering the home, devices had no nudge to roam to the nearer AP when signal weakened.
IGMP snooping off — minor inefficiency for multicast-heavy traffic such as casting/streaming.
04Changes Applied
#
Change
Before
After
Status
1
RF auto-optimization (2.4GHz channel, nightly)
Disabled
Enabled — scoped to 2.4GHz, runs daily 03:00
Applied
2
5GHz channel width — U7 Lite & U6 Mesh
40MHz
80MHz
Applied
3
Roaming assistant — main WLAN & guest WLAN
Disabled
Enabled (−75dBm threshold)
Applied
4
IGMP snooping — Default network
Disabled
Enabled
Applied
Design note
RF auto-optimization was deliberately scoped to the 2.4GHz radio only. The “conservative”
preset rejected an 80MHz width on 5GHz, and enabling full auto-optimization across both bands
risked the nightly job reverting the 5GHz width change back to 40MHz. Limiting it to 2.4GHz lets
it fix the actual congestion problem (channel 6) without undoing change #2.
05Verification
U7 Lite
state=1, adopted=true
U6 Mesh
state=1, adopted=true
Cloud Gateway Ultra
state=1, adopted=true
radio_ai
enabled=true, radios=[ng], cron=0 3 * * *
Default network
igmp_snooping=true
WLAN / WLAN-Guest
roaming_assistant_na_enabled=true
U7 Lite / U6 Mesh (na)
ht=80
All three devices remained online and adopted throughout. Session cookies, CSRF tokens, and
temporary payload files were deleted after the controller session was logged out.
06Out of Scope — Untouched
Left unchanged, by design, as none showed a problem and all carry higher risk of breaking connectivity or compatibility: