The AmpliFi Alien router and MeshPoint kit (basically two of these towers) comprises my home networking setup for the past few years. I had never used any Ubiquiti or AmpliFi products before but heard great things. One of the main reasons I was intriguted in this setup was its support for WiFi 6.
While WiFi 6 supports a much greater theoretical max (9.6Gbps vs 3.5Gbps for WiFi 5), the main benefit of WiFi 6 is better performance when dealing with many wireless devices on the network.
The AmpliFi Alien is unlike any other router I've had. It has a touchscreen so you can keep an eye on network status, run speed tests and see connected devices at a glance. It has an internal fan which is nice to see as I know my previous Eeros always got super hot.
Peformance with the new setup has been great and honestly had me questioning if I even needed more than one unit for my place. When setting up the MeshPoint you have some options for how to connect it to the main Alien router. You can either wire it with Ethernet if you can (what I do) or wirelessly. Here's where the main downside with the Alien comes into play: the Alien doesn't have a dedicated wireless backhaul band for the router and MeshPoint to use to communicate between each other. You can, however, select what band is used for the backhaul: 5GHz for faster speeds or 2.4GHz for extended range.
One of the most useful parts of this AmpliFi setup for me is a feature called Teleport. With zero setup you can immediately begin using your home internet connection as a VPN on your devices when you're out of the house.
