Ubiquiti rebuilt UniFi Design Center in late September, and it changes how we spend the first hour of a Wi-Fi job. If you have ever asked us how many access points you actually need, this is the tool behind the answer.
Design Center is free. You upload a floor plan, it figures out where the walls are, and it proposes access point locations with predicted coverage. Ubiquiti announced the new version on September 24 and says there are no recurring software fees for it.
What changed
The parts that matter for the kind of work we do:
Automatic wall detection. You give it a floor plan image or a PDF and it reads the walls instead of making you trace every one by hand. On a new build we usually have the architect's PDF already, so this is the difference between ten minutes and an afternoon.
Automated AP placement with zone capacity. You tell it a room is a 40-person open office and not a quiet bedroom wing, and it places access points to suit, rather than spacing them evenly and hoping. It suggests channel plans too.
3D and multi-floor views. A two-storey house with a finished basement is three RF environments stacked on each other, and flat floor-by-floor drawings have always hidden that. Looking at the whole building at once catches the case where one second-floor AP is quietly doing all the work for the basement as well.
There is also syncing between the web tool and mobile, plus a handoff into Site Manager so gear can be pre-provisioned before anyone shows up with a ladder.
Why this matters if you are getting a quote
A predicted plan gives you something to argue with.
Before tools like this, a Wi-Fi quote was a number and a promise. Now we can hand you a picture of your building with the proposed access points on it, and you can see why one goes in the mudroom instead of the hallway. If you think we have over-specified, the plan is right there to point at.
It also makes the cabling cost visible early, which is where most of the budget actually goes. Access points are cheap next to the labour of getting a wire to them. Our Cat6 drops start at $195 installed, so a design that needs six instead of four is worth a conversation before anything is ordered. Our guide to how many access points you need covers the sizing side, and wired versus mesh explains why we keep pushing for the wire.
Where a predicted plan falls short
A prediction is a model of a building, not the building.
Design Center does not know about the foil-backed insulation from a 1970s renovation, the radiant floor heating, the mirrored closet doors, the steel studs the last owner used on one wall, or your neighbour's access point parked on the same channel at a strong signal. Rural properties around here are full of that sort of thing: stone foundations, an addition with two exterior walls now sitting in the middle of the house, steel roofing on the shop.
So we treat the predicted layout as a starting point and verify it on site. For anything past a straightforward bungalow, or anywhere the owner has already been burned by a Wi-Fi job that did not work, we do a proper Wi-Fi survey with measured heat maps, from $395. Walking a building with a meter tells us things no floor plan will.
The other limit is scope. The tool designs radio coverage, not an installation. It will not tell you the panel is full, the crawl space has no access hatch, or that the only route from one end of the house to the other runs through a finished ceiling.
How we use it
On new construction and renovations we build the design before rough-in, so the electrician puts boxes where the access points are really going. That is the cheapest possible moment to move a drop. Our network closet checklist for new builds covers the rest of what to get right at that stage.
On existing buildings we sketch the design first, then confirm it during the site visit or network audit and adjust. Usually the plan survives mostly intact. When it does not, far better to find out with a meter in hand than with an unhappy client in month two.
Either way you get the plan along with the quote, and every job is priced in writing before work starts.
If you are outside our Norfolk home zone there is a visit minimum that the day's work counts toward: $395 for 31 to 60 minutes out, $595 on the Hamilton, Burlington and Oakville side. No minimum close to home.
Want to poke at the tool yourself? It is free at design.ui.com, and Josh covers the hands-on side of it on his own site. If you would rather hand us a floor plan and get a design and a price back, get in touch or have a look at where we work.
Sources
Cabling, networks, cameras, access control, smart homes, hosting and software for homes and small business across Southwestern Ontario. Twenty-plus years in the trade, and we still answer the phone.