GEN 3 WiFi Devices on Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi Networks

Connectivity WiFi
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For anyone that may stumble across this because you cannot get your GEN 3 devices to consistently connect to a Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi 2.4 GHz network…

Disable the “BSS Transition - Allow BSS Transition with WNM” option on your WiFi network.
On Unifi Controller V6.2.26:

  1. Click the Gear Icon from the left NAV
  2. Select “WIFI” from the next navigation group.
  3. Select the network you are trying to connect to from the right pane and expand the “Advanced” options.
  4. I disabled all advanced options as they are not necessary for IoT but make sure the “BSS Transition - Allow BSS Transition with WNM” option is definitely disabled.
    Save your changes and reconnect your GEN 3 device to the WiFi network.

I have a mix of Photons and Argons in my environment. Some clients are using Unifi and some are not. Those clients using Unifi WiFi I was unable to consistently get GEN 3 devices to connect to (Photons are not affected by this issue apparently). After some digging I found the article on the Unifi Community below. I disabled the BSS Transition option and connections have been rock solid (for now).

Hope this helps someone!

Fast Roaming and BSS Transition with WNM | Ubiquiti Community

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Hi @Skip513 thanks for this contribution. Another user reported this issue. It is good to know.

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I don’t quite get the timeline here
The original post was July 2020 and the last reply November 2021 but Discord stats that this is 4 months later - how?!?!?

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Hey, I think July 20 is the short version of July 20, 2021, and not the short version of July 2020.
If you hover you get the timestamp as July 20, 2021 1:49pm (but the time might be local to me courtesy of my browser hence different from what you see).
Cheers!

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:man_facepalming: of course the American way (month before day) - and I thought they’d purged part of the COV19-history already.
I’d not be too upset about that tho’ :see_no_evil:

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Now you are talking my language :slight_smile:

There are many other settings that should be disabled for OT/low-energy/“dumber devices”.

Here is the full list of what’s recommended to be disabled, for both 5G and 2.4G:

IMG_2306AC7DD836-1
IMG_2306AC7DD836-11170×1702 141 KB

Note that “Optimize IoT Connectivity” only impacts the DTIM (Delivery Traffic Indication Message)
Enabling “Optimize IoT” sets DTIM to a value of “1”.

There are a lot of threads and discussions, among Ubiquity, Cisco, and others about the effectiveness of this, and if it should be “1” or “3”. The short version:

  • 1 = more compatible/better with “OT”/dumber devices
  • 3 = better performance and power saving, especially with mobile radios (chips for iOS, Android, etc)

The rule of thumb is that if you have any “OT”/legacy devices, you want this setting to “1”.

Another very common mistake is enabling Fast Roaming (802.11r). First - this is always up to the device/implementation. The majority of devices ignore the AP’s Fast Roaming requests and do not have a proper 802.11r implementation. In most cases, this setting will cause massive problems.

Another extremely problematic setting (and mainly for things like Ring doorbells, or Door locks) is the UAPSD (Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery) – this is the 802.11e (“power saving”) that is supposed to extend the battery life of devices. Without going too much into this, this is usually auto activated with WMM (needed for 802.11n and 802.11ac). The problem is that when you have devices that go to sleep/have inactivity, the AP will kick them off the network, especially with mobile devices, ie: think iPhone/Android, where the wifi chipset falls asleep as you turn off the screen.