UniFi has been making strides in the enterprise Wi-Fi market, introducing features that cater to large-scale deployments. One critical capability is broadcasting the AP name in beacon and probe response frames. This feature is invaluable for Wi-Fi surveys and troubleshooting, allowing tools to identify AP names directly from these frames. Watch the video to see how it works and why it’s a must-have for real-world troubleshooting.

I’m running an early release version (UniFi Network Application 10.1.68), and I believe this feature was introduced recently, starting from the 10.1.67 release. You can enable it on a per-SSID basis by navigating to: Settings > WiFi > [SSID] > Show AP Name in Beacon.

With this feature enabled, the AP includes a vendor-specific element containing the AP name. Below is a PCAP file that shows this element.

When using tools like Wi-Fi Explorer, you should see the device name displayed exactly as the AP name.

When I checked with the Ekahau tool (11.8.8.1), it still shows the MAC address as the AP name. I’m confident they’ll update their software to read this vendor-specific element as the UniFi AP name, so your site survey results should automatically display AP names in the future.

Next time you perform a site survey or troubleshoot a UniFi wireless environment, make sure to enable this feature beforehand. It will save you a lot of time when analyzing or troubleshooting the UniFi network.