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UniFi Express

ui.com

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Re: UniFi Express

#121

Post by windexh8er »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #113
Someone1234 wrote: post #82

This product that has a huge caveat that limits it to many people's applications: > UniFi Express supports up to 5 connected UniFi Network devices, including other UniFi Express units, switches, and WiFi access points. Even my home has one AP per floor (3x) and 3x Unifi switches. This is clearly an artificial limitation for market segmentation reasons. I'm not going to rip out Unifi switches to go unmanaged, just for…

The 50 vlan limit on their top of line stuff is the only reason we don't deploy them exclusively across our biz.

The former, EdgeSwitch / EdgeRouter (all black in color), didn't have this low of a limit. I still run a 48 port, 500W PoE switch in my main rack at home and it's got limit of 255 active VLAN.

Re: UniFi Express

#122

Post by windexh8er »

davweb wrote: post #95
chunkyks wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought into their unifi ecosystem years ago. Separate devices, prosumer pricing, features and quality, single pane of glass. ... And I haven't upgraded anything since. Their new products are totally undirected, they aren't making items that are obvious and needed. Their software is falling behind and they just don't care. Case in point: the usg pro 4 is years old but they havent released an updated affordable just-…

> Case in point: the usg pro 4 is years old but they havent released an updated affordable just-the-border device. Isn't the UniFi Gateway Lite[1] just that? [1]: https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/cloud-keys-gateways/uxg-lite

That device is so suspect. Old, dual core processor, 1GB of DDR3 and, supposedly, "next-gen" security features including IPS. Riiiiiight.

Re: UniFi Express

#123

Post by pugworthy »

Someone1234 wrote: post #82

This product that has a huge caveat that limits it to many people's applications: > UniFi Express supports up to 5 connected UniFi Network devices, including other UniFi Express units, switches, and WiFi access points. Even my home has one AP per floor (3x) and 3x Unifi switches. This is clearly an artificial limitation for market segmentation reasons. I'm not going to rip out Unifi switches to go unmanaged, just for…

It's $149. I think you're expecting more from it than what your more advanced home setup needs. Mind you it talks a big talk for that price.

Re: UniFi Express

#124

Post by izacus »

pugworthy wrote: post #123
Someone1234 wrote: post #82

This product that has a huge caveat that limits it to many people's applications: > UniFi Express supports up to 5 connected UniFi Network devices, including other UniFi Express units, switches, and WiFi access points. Even my home has one AP per floor (3x) and 3x Unifi switches. This is clearly an artificial limitation for market segmentation reasons. I'm not going to rip out Unifi switches to go unmanaged, just for…

It's $149. I think you're expecting more from it than what your more advanced home setup needs. Mind you it talks a big talk for that price.

Having a few APs to cover a house is far from"advanced" setup.

We live in times where lawn movers need wifi.

Re: UniFi Express

#125

Post by nilespotter »

aetherspawn wrote: post #86
barkerja wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but since buying the UDM-Pro years ago, I feel like the software has gotten great. And recently, they've baked in Wireguard replacing L2TP. Personally, I'd like to see more prosumer devices that support 2.5GbE/10GbE.

People always raise Wireguard as the end-all of VPN and yet its 2023 and there's virtually no way to deploy it in a business context. InTune doesn't even list it as a supported VPN, and everything I see to deploy it suggests some kind of hack to bypass UAC for one specific app because the end-user software requires Admin permissions to startup and hook. When we use L2TP with UDM Pro we get ~0.1Mbps across the wire fr…

> virtually no way to deploy it in a business context.

...there is tailscale

Re: UniFi Express

#126

Post by xvector »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #106
xvector wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda hate Ubiquiti routers. My UDM Pro felt like a total scam, with the IDS/IPS being nowhere close to advertised. They promised but never introduced WireGuard. I also experienced strange bugs in the stack. I eventually moved to OPNSense but the router I bought from them died. The interface was too cumbersome anyways, from the perspective of someone that just wanted WireGuard server+client, IPS/IDS, and VLAN. I fi…

Firewalla looks like ~$500 for a $50 device, closed source, includes free VPN, and ad blocking DNS… Seems like all you can do I hope they do not spy on your traffic and sell data. I run a reputable VPN for that very reason I don’t trust even my publically traded ISP. IDK, seems suspect. Or at least requires more trust than I am willing to hand out.

I think your privacy concerns are misplaced.

You seem to be confusing the built in VPN server for a VPN provider. I do not see a "free VPN" mentioned anywhere on the website or in the app. All this enables you to do is access your home network remotely, your data isn't being funneled to a third party server because the server is your router.

The DNS defaults to Cloudflare if I remember correctly. You can replace it with Unbound or DNS over TLS with your provider of choice.

The ad blocking is done with locally downloaded blocklists.

And you can do much more than VPN/DNS, so I'm not sure why you walked away with the impression that this is all you can do. You can configure VLANs, you get IPS/IDS, push alerts to your phone, tons of other features that put it more than on par with OPNSense/PFSense for my use case.

Regarding price, the value is in the software. Firewalla's UX is so far ahead of OPNSense or a UDM that I can't fathom going back to one of those. Seriously, both feel positively prehistoric in comparison. And I'm fine with paying for that, because software is expensive, and apparently no one else has managed easy to use software that supports a prosumer featureset, and I was sick of spending hours configuring my UDM or OPNSense router.

I get your concern about closed source, but that's not a problem for me personally - most of my devices run closed source code, including my Ubiquiti gear, and it's not like anyone compiles OPNSense or PFSense from scratch when installing onto their router anyways.

The thing cools fanlessly/passively, can do IDS/IPS + WireGuard server and client at 1Gb speeds, and is trivially easy to configure even with a smartphone, which neither my OPNSense DEC-840 or my UDM Pro could do (at much greater price points.) If you can find similar functionality and ease of use at a lesser price point, I'd love to know.

Re: UniFi Express

#127

Post by lldb »

donatj wrote: post #79
lldb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mikrotik RB5009 is very affordable and has both SFP+ and 1x 2.5G Ethernet. And you can use either port as WAN or LAN depending on your setup. Will still need a switch however if you have more 2.5G clients.

$200 for a router without a built-in wireless AP isn't what I would call a deal for a home router.

Arguably, > 1G is outside the range of home equipment as most consumers have no need for it. You're asking a 2.5G router, a WiFi 6 AP, and a multi-gig switch all in one package. Most people who care about these also know better than to buy an all-in-one router since they are typically very limited in configuration options, especially if you need any sort of routing tables.

ASUS has some all-in-ones with 2x 10GbE ports but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Re: UniFi Express

#128

Post by unethical_ban »

sebazzz wrote: post #100
CobaltFire wrote: post #28

This is effectively a Dream Router minus any other app support and the switch. For a typical home user who doesn't want/need Protect this seems decent, but I think the $50 upcharge for the UDR is absolutely worth it. That said, the UDR is heavily limited in running Protect. I started hitting occasional problems running Network and Protect together when I hit 4 cameras.

It's annoying, Dream Machine is more powerful but doesn't support Protect. Even not when you could imagine recording directly to SMB or NFS storage.

Ubiquiti lost me as an advocate when they stopped releasing Protect software as a software package and required running it on their hardware.

I was intrigued to run protect on a cloud server with a 5g failure wan connection. But they got greedy. And now this.

I still run a uap6 and will do so until I get a wifi7 router. Currently running opnsense vm on proxmox but that crashes upon occasion and I need to stop start the vm.

Re: UniFi Express

#129

Post by aetherspawn »

nilespotter wrote: post #125
aetherspawn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always raise Wireguard as the end-all of VPN and yet its 2023 and there's virtually no way to deploy it in a business context. InTune doesn't even list it as a supported VPN, and everything I see to deploy it suggests some kind of hack to bypass UAC for one specific app because the end-user software requires Admin permissions to startup and hook. When we use L2TP with UDM Pro we get ~0.1Mbps across the wire fr…

> virtually no way to deploy it in a business context. ...there is tailscale

It is not compatible with UDM Pro wireguard server directly, so it’s basically a standalone solution.

Now that you mention it, the small PowerEdge is not that expensive and might be the best way to deploy as Intel Xeon has AES NI.

Re: UniFi Express

#130

Post by jonathanlydall »

handy2000 wrote: post #36
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is UniFi Express? > UniFi Express is a complete UniFi Networking stack in an ultra-compact, plug-and-play form factor. It runs UniFi Network and features a powerful gateway engine and built-in WiFi 6 with seamless meshing.

Read this several times. Still don't know what I am looking at. What is "UniFi Networking stack", what is "UniFi Network"? Is it a WiFi router? I use a TP-Link router at home, and they don't sell it as "TP-Link Networking stack".

While TP-Link offers simple routers and basic networking equipment (which I’ve found to be 100% reliable at home), they do also offer their Omada based products which seem to compete with Ubiquity’s products.

All their Omada products can communicate with a controller which can auto configure the devices and actively coordinate handover of clients between WiFi APs.

I’m running it in my house and I’m pretty happy. Through the controller web page UI you centrally define your VLANs and wireless networks and then it updates all your equipment configuration for you.

I don’t think I’d ever bother with their gateway product as pfSense seems to be way more capable.

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