Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#1

Post by jimmcslim » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi
troyhunt.com

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#2

Post by tbrock » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:29 AM UTC

Ubiquiti is the best. Their stuff rivals and even beats lots of the more expensive stuff at a fraction of the price. It's all very high quality but so cheap that you think they are joking when you see the price.

Edge router: amazing

Edge switch: amazing

AC access points: amazing

I've never tried any of the unifi stuff though.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#3

Post by mmastrac » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:40 AM UTC

I have Unifi AC APs in my house. Expensive, but 100% worth it. They've struck a really great balance between configurability+power/ease-of-use.

I compare it to my Mikrotik switch that while being able to do pretty much anything I could want to do, has such a steep learning curve that I ended up just using it as a slightly fancy home firewall/switch.

I'm considering pulling the trigger on the Ubiquiti switches and another three AC units for my house to cover the last few dead zones. It's been one of my favorite purchases. I really want to play around with VLANs for guest networks.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#4

Post by mrbill » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:44 AM UTC

Love my Edgerouters and UAP access points. Currently running an ERX and a UAP-AC-LR.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#5

Post by nikcub » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:44 AM UTC

The best side effect of buying proper WiFi gear is breaking up what is for most people usually an all-in-one device into devices - modem, router, access point - that are dedicated to each distinct task.

The high-end gear many get for running open firmware can get expensive. It isn't hard to spend less money on dedicated devices and get better performance.

What I spent on an EdgeRouter, AP AC Pro and a good managed switch is less than what the top recommendation from this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13113766

cost - $250 for the Linksys EA8500 vs $130 + $50 for the UniFi setup and add $50 for a TP-Link switch.

I now want to get a bit fancier with the router - so i'm swapping it out for an eBay sourced Cisco or similar (I want dual WAN and failover, along with routing some traffic over VPN's) - still cost the same but much better (and a setup that is applicable up to 100+ users)

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#6

Post by dlgeek » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:47 AM UTC

tbrock wrote: post #2

Ubiquiti is the best. Their stuff rivals and even beats lots of the more expensive stuff at a fraction of the price. It's all very high quality but so cheap that you think they are joking when you see the price. Edge router: amazing Edge switch: amazing AC access points: amazing I've never tried any of the unifi stuff though.

The AC access points are UniFi unless you have some now-discontinued product.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#7

Post by finnn » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:47 AM UTC

Since we're all saying nice things about Ubiquiti, I feel obliged to point out that they are actively violating the GPL: http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#8

Post by nodesocket » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:48 AM UTC

Great write up, love all the details. Surprised that nobody is mentioning Cisco Meraki gear in the recent HN networking posts.

My ideal (budgeted) setup is:

  - (1x) MX65 -- 12 GbE with 2 PoE+. PoE+ powers the access points.
  - (2x) MR33 -- 802.11ac Wave 2 powered via MX65.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#9

Post by Thaxll » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

Well unifi had huge issues in the past, and by huge I mean there is a 1000+ page thread on the forum with a super bugy firmware that makes the AP useless for most devices. As of today I still have issue on my iPhone6 / nexus 10 with the patern "full wifi bars slow internet"

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#10

Post by peckrob » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 4:53 AM UTC

I run UAP-AC-Pros in my house (along with pfSense for a router) and have nothing but good things to say about them. Eliminated the wifi problems I was having and they just work. Rebooted the three I have the other day to install newer firmware after 122 days of uptime. It's nice to have something I don't have to think about much.

And they're just a bit more expensive than a good wifi/router combo. For the features it feels like I'm getting the biggest bargain.