How to get your network to a building the cable won’t reach — and why a bridge is not a substitute for a UDM.
Specs checked 17 July 2026. Ubiquiti pricing and stock change — we confirm current pricing on every quote. Prices are indicative CAD. Contact AVNFi for a current quote.
1. Start here: a bridge and a gateway do completely different jobs
This is the question the shop floor gets every week, so here’s the answer first.
A gateway (a UDM) is the brain. It’s the router, the firewall and the controller. It’s where your internet arrives and where your whole system is run from. Every UniFi system has exactly one.
A bridge is a wire. That’s the entire idea. It’s a pair of radios that carries your network across a gap, to a place you can’t or won’t run a cable. It has no brain in it. It doesn’t route, it doesn’t firewall, it doesn’t manage anything.
They are not alternatives. A bridge does not replace a UDM. If you buy a bridge instead of a gateway, you own two radios and no network. If you buy a bridge as well as a gateway, you own a network that reaches the shop.
The analogy: the gateway is the front desk of the building. A bridge is the hallway to the annex. You don’t replace the front desk with a hallway.
Everything else on this page follows from that one sentence.
2. When do I actually need a bridge?
Whenever the network has to get somewhere and a cable can’t sensibly go there.
- A detached garage at the back of the lot.
- A shop, barn or outbuilding across the yard.
- A second building on the same property — an office and a warehouse, a house and a suite.
- A sign, a gate or a kiosk sitting on its own out front.
- A camera across a yard where the only path is over a driveway you’d have to cut.
- A tenant space across a laneway you don’t own and can’t dig up.
The common thread is never distance on its own. It’s whether a cable is possible, permitted and worth it.
3. Bridge vs running fibre or cable — the honest answer
A cable is better. Every time. When you can run one, run one.
That isn’t modesty, it’s physics. A cable doesn’t care about snow, fog, leaves, a new fence, a neighbour’s tree growing, or someone parking a truck in the path.
| Cable or fibre | Wireless bridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability | Effectively fixed once it’s in | Depends on the air staying clear |
| Weather | Doesn’t care | Heavy snow and rain cost you speed |
| Line of sight | Not needed | Required |
| Speed | Whatever the cable is rated for | Whatever the link negotiates today |
| Interference | None | Other radios can crowd the band |
| Cost | Higher up front — trenching, permits, restoration | Lower up front — two radios and mounts |
| Disruption | You’re digging up a yard, a driveway or a road | None |
| Lifespan | Decades | Until the path changes |
AVNFi does directional drilling and fibre, and we recommend it when it’s worth it. Under a lawn, under a driveway, between two buildings you own — often the trench is cheaper than the argument you’ll have with the weather for the next ten years, and we’d rather do it properly once.
Wireless is for when trenching isn’t sensible. A road in the way. A laneway you don’t own. A rented site. Frozen ground and a deadline. A budget that will not stretch to restoration. Those are real, they’re common, and a bridge is a genuinely good answer to them.
The rule of thumb: if the digging is on your own land and under 100 metres of soft ground, price the trench before you price the radios. If the path crosses something you don’t own or can’t cut, the bridge is probably the answer.
4. What a bridge does NOT do
Read this list twice. Every line is a mistake someone has already made.
- It is not a router. No firewall, no DHCP, no VLAN rules of its own. Those live in the gateway.
- It does not replace the gateway. You still need one. See Choosing a Gateway.
- It does not add Protect camera capacity. A bridge carries a camera’s traffic. It does not record it and it does not raise your gateway’s camera ceiling. If your gateway records one 4K camera, it still records one 4K camera after you bolt a bridge on the wall.
- It is not a WiFi extender for phones and laptops. A bridge links place to place, not device to network. Your phone will not connect to it. If you want WiFi in the garage, you put an access point in the garage — and you use the bridge to feed it.
- It does not create bandwidth. Whatever the link negotiates is shared by everything on the far side.
5. The bridging range
Specs from techspecs.ui.com, checked 2026-07-17. Prices are from the Canadian catalogue and are basis unconfirmed — see the pricing note below.
| Product | What it is | Radio | Reach / speed | Power | Weatherproof | Temperature | Price (CAD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UDB-Pro | 5 GHz wireless bridge with PoE output. Links two places, or uplinks to UniFi WiFi. | WiFi 5, 5 GHz, 2×2 | 5 km (3.1 mi), 867 Mbps (BW80), 19 dBi | PoE in; PoE+ required for the PoE output. 9W max. | IPX6 | −40 to 60 °C | $307 |
| UDB-Switch | A compact PoE+ switch that can take its uplink over WiFi 7 instead of a cable. | WiFi 7, 6/5 GHz, 4 streams | 6 GHz: 5.8 Gbps (BW320); 5 GHz: 4.3 Gbps (BW240) | DC jack, 54V. (8) PoE+ ports, 30W max per port. Total PoE: 35W on the 60W adapter, 185W on the 210W adapter. | Indoor | −30 to 40 °C | $462 |
| UDB-IoT | Ultra-compact bridge for a single IoT device. | WiFi 4, 2.4 GHz, 2×2 | 300 Mbps (BW40) | USB-C (5V) or 4-pin DC (9–30V). 2.3W max. | Indoor | −10 to 50 °C | $75 |
| U-AirWire | WiFi 7 client adapter with STR MLO. Gives one wired device a WiFi uplink. | WiFi 7, 6/5 GHz, 4 streams | 6 GHz: 5.8 Gbps (BW320); 5 GHz: 4.3 Gbps (BW240), 11 dBi | USB-C PD, 15W standard / 20W enhanced. 18W max. | Indoor | −10 to 40 °C | $307 |
| UTR | Travel router. Extends your UniFi network to wherever you are. | WiFi 5, 2×2 | Uplink by Ethernet, WiFi or USB tethering | USB-C, 5V/2A (adapter not included) | Indoor | −10 to 40 °C | $115 |
Ports: UDB-Pro has (2) GbE RJ45. UDB-Switch has (1) 10 GbE and (7) 2.5 GbE. UDB-IoT has (1) 10/100M RJ45. U-AirWire has (1) 5 GbE (USB 3.2 Gen2).
Reading that table
- UDB-Pro is the outdoor workhorse. It’s the one for the garage, the shop, the second building. IPX6, rated to −40 °C, pole mount included, and it can power the device at the far end over PoE if you feed it PoE+. This is the default answer to “how do I get the network to the shop?”
- UDB-Switch is a switch first. You buy it because you need PoE ports somewhere and a cable can’t reach that spot. Note the PoE budget depends entirely on which adapter you feed it — 35W or 185W. That’s the difference between two cameras and a lot of cameras. It’s rated to 40 °C and is not an outdoor unit.
- UDB-IoT is for one small thing. A controller, a sensor, a machine with an Ethernet port and no cable. 100 Mbps and 2.4 GHz — that’s the point, not a shortcoming.
- U-AirWire feeds one wired device over WiFi 7. Think of it as a WiFi uplink for something that only has an Ethernet port.
- UTR is for people, not buildings. A hotel room, a job site, a rental. It carries your UniFi network with you.
6. 5G backup vs bridging — different problems entirely
People conflate these constantly. They solve nothing in common.
5G is about your internet dying. A bridge is about your own network crossing a gap.
If your fibre gets cut, a bridge does nothing for you — it’s still faithfully carrying your network to a shop that now also has no internet. If your garage has no cable, 5G does nothing for you either — you’d be buying a second internet connection for a building that’s twenty metres away.
| Product | What it is | Cellular | Speed | Power | Temperature | Price (CAD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U5G | 5G Backup. Compact antenna, plugs into any UniFi PoE port for automatic internet backup. | 5G RedCap | 5G SA: 220 Mbps down / 120 Mbps up. LTE: 195 / 100 Mbps. | PoE | 0 to 40 °C | $140 |
| U5G-Max | Full-speed 5G modem. Also adopts through any UniFi PoE port. Dual SIM/eSIM. | 5G NR | 5G NSA: 3.4 Gbps down / 560 Mbps up. 5G SA: 1.8 / 0.65 Gbps. LTE: 1.6 Gbps / 210 Mbps. | PoE, 14.5W max | 0 to 40 °C | $615 |
| U5G-Max-Outdoor | Same modem, built for outside. Directional antennas, pole or wall mount. | 5G NR | Same as U5G-Max | PoE, 14.5W max | −40 to 65 °C | $615 — Sold Out |
| UDR-5G-Max | A gateway with 5G built in. Not an add-on — this is the brain. | 5G NR Sub-6 | Same 5G speeds; 2.3 Gbps IPS routing | 54V DC, 34.5W max | 0 to 40 °C | $771 |
The Canadian cold problem, again
U5G and U5G-Max are rated 0 to 40 °C. They do not go below freezing. Neither does UDR-5G-Max. If the plan is a modem in an unheated garage, a shed or an outdoor cabinet in Calgary, that plan is already broken. U5G-Max-Outdoor is the one rated for outside (−40 to 65 °C) — and it is currently Sold Out, which is not a small footnote when the whole design depends on it.
UDR-5G-Max is a gateway, not a bridge
It’s in this table only because people find it while shopping for 5G. It is a Dream Router with a 5G radio inside — a brain, with all the usual gateway limits. It records one 4K camera onto a pre-installed 64 GB microSD. It manages 30+ UniFi devices. If you’re choosing it, you’re choosing a gateway, so read Choosing a Gateway first — the camera ceiling is the decision, exactly as it is everywhere else in that lineup.
7. Line of sight, distance and weather — the realities
Line of sight is not a suggestion. These are radios. They need to see each other.
- “5 km” is the UDB-Pro’s published coverage figure, and it’s a best case — clear air, clean line of sight, both ends aimed properly. It is not a promise about your yard.
- A tree is a wall. So is a wet tree, twice over. Leaves in July and bare branches in January are two different links.
- A building in the path ends the conversation. There’s no aiming around it.
- The path can change. A new fence, a new build next door, a tree that grew. A link that worked in 2024 can stop working in 2027 without anyone touching the equipment.
- Weather costs you speed, not usually the link. Heavy snow and heavy rain make the radios drop to slower rates. Well-designed links slow down; badly designed links drop.
- Mounting matters more than the radio. A bridge on a wobbly mast is a bridge that fails on windy days. UDB-Pro publishes wind loading of 69 N at 200 km/h — the radio survives the wind. Whether your pole does is a different question.
- Height is your friend. Getting both ends up and clear is usually worth more than any spec on the box.
What we do about it: we walk the path before we quote a bridge. If we can’t see the far end from the near end, we say so, and we talk about a trench instead.
8. Just tell me which one
| Your situation | Buy this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Detached garage or shop, cable not practical | UDB-Pro ×2 (one each end), plus an access point at the far end | Outdoor-rated to −40 °C, 5 km class, and it can power the far end over PoE. The default answer. |
| You can dig, and it’s your own land | A cable. Ask us about directional drilling | Better in every way that matters. If the trench is sensible, the trench wins. |
| Far end needs several PoE devices, no cable there | UDB-Switch | Switch first, wireless uplink second. Watch the adapter — 35W vs 185W. Indoor only, 40 °C. |
| One machine or controller, no cable, small data | UDB-IoT | Costs almost nothing, powers off USB-C or DC. |
| One wired device that needs a fast WiFi uplink | U-AirWire | WiFi 7, 5 GbE port. |
| Your internet goes down and it costs you money | U5G (basic) or U5G-Max (fast) | Plugs into any UniFi PoE port. Indoors only — 0 to 40 °C. |
| Internet failover, and the modem must live outside | U5G-Max-Outdoor | The only one rated for outside. Currently Sold Out — confirm before designing around it. |
| A site with no wired internet at all | UDR-5G-Max | It’s a gateway with 5G inside. Read the gateway page — the camera limit still applies. |
| You travel and want your own network | UTR | Pocket-sized. Bring your own USB-C adapter. |
If you only remember one line
A bridge carries your network across a gap. A gateway runs your network. You need the gateway either way.
9. About those prices
None of the products on this page are in our cart-verified price file. The figures above are Canadian catalogue prices — they’re the right ballpark, but basis unconfirmed: Ubiquiti’s checkout adds a per-unit memory surcharge that isn’t visible on any product page, so a base figure can grow at the cart.
AVNFi always quotes all-in. We read the surcharge from the cart per product rather than calculating it. See Pricing for how that works and what it does to a number.
AVNFi adds no markup to hardware. Equipment is at cost. We charge for design, configuration and labour.
Related
- Choosing a Gateway — the brain. Read this one first, always.
- Choosing Wi-Fi Access Points — what actually gives your phone WiFi in the garage
- Switches and PoE — how the far end gets powered
- Pricing — why the store number isn’t the number
- Glossary — any word above that didn’t land
Questions about your specific setup? AVNFi can help.