So Ubiquity is trustworthy again? After the 2.4GHz wifi issues with UDM I swore I will never buy them again.
I've been running a base UDM for a long time without any 2.4GHz issues -- is there something specific that was broken?
UniFi 5G
251–260 of 316 posts
Re: UniFi 5G
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
“The UniFi 5G Max lineup was created with a clear goal in mind: deliver a sleek, versatile, and exceptionally powerful 5G internet experience that works effortlessly in any environment.” If it’s fine if you want to build a golf cart, just don’t pretend it’s an ATV.
Put it in a wooden box with a generator outside of it and you are good to go.
That’s got its own set of issues, but more importantly would you call that working effortlessly?
Re: UniFi 5G
#253Re: UniFi 5G
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small businesses? Sure. I've seen Unifi networks with a few hundred MACs often enough. Enterprises? Thousands, tens of thousands of employees? Generally cost isn't prohibitive at the scale so bigger ecosystems with more support make way more sense. Even their enterprise switches aren't really equivalent to Cisco, Arista, Juniper, etc enterprise offerings. They're inching forward, though.
What kinda of small businesses? My friend does consulting and most of his business is on small (100-250 employees) size and sometimes small start up, typically in the office construction phase where he comes in and set up network infrastructure. He never seems anyone asking for UniFi, but again, might just because the cost? He feels UniFi is price competitive at that scale but no one wants it for some reason. When he…
Upmarket electrical trade, engineering offices, MSPs commonly, smallish healthcare, an equine event center, a bank.
I see tons of small businesses (mom & pop, restaurants) with a UI AP or two, of course, but that's not what you meant, I don't think.
The places that COULD use UI often just don't care, and want the cheap toilet paper (netgear, ebay whatever) since cost discipline can be critical. I think there's a niche of biz with enough margin that networking/cameras get sold together and they don't insist on lowest price. My guess would also be the MSP that is quoting the job also heavily influences whether UI is used, plenty of dinosaurs out there.
Bigger places want routing, network virtualization, etc from the big players you mentioned. UI doesn't want to mess with BGP, spine-leaf, sd access/wan, etc. There's also like the 24/7 support options they want, and access to the partner/VAR/contractor networks so you have tons of options. The sales deals and dinners unfortunately factor into this too...
Re: UniFi 5G
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unifi is a bit different than Apple to me. Ubiquiti is one of the few companies doing prosumer hardware - and doing it extremely well. They give you access to advanced, raw configurations without necessarily having to go "full enterprise" deployment. They also have solutions for just about everything. That being said, I generally have moved towards other Wifi solutions as I've grown weary of tweaking Ubiquiti all of…
Where they differ also from Apple, and indeed is insanely amazing for a network hw company is that I'm still getting software updates for my , I don't know, at least 7 years old AP. A consumer device. This is unprecedented and much appreciated.
>7 years of software maintenance is absolutely precedented and expected of any serious networking vendor.
Re: UniFi 5G
#256I am confused, this is just a 5G router right? Like the 5 year old Huawei CPE Pro 2 but with wifi7, poe and eSim? [1] https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/
Unifi is the Apple of networking gear. When something new is released the HN crowd is excited even when the same functionality existed already with another company.
This seems like a stretch. If your position is that the REAL experts are using Cisco gear instead, I guess fine. But the "HN Crowd" loves using Ubiquiti at home because it is light years better than any consumer brand, (1) in terms of giving people who know what they're doing sufficient control to do so, (2) in terms of performance, and (3) in terms of not being a buggy piece of crap.
Contrast with:
(1) eero has no web UI (ONLY mobile phone!) and almost zero network configurability. You can't set a hostname for instance for DHCP. You can have exactly one main and one guest network. You don't get to configure anything about it though. Etc.
(3) I bought a Linksys replacement for my Eeros to get 6E -- I returned it to the store due to how horrifyingly bad the Web UI was and how bad the "app" was too. AND it also had flaws like inability to have reservation IPs outside the DHCP pool range.
Apple is actually the opposite of Ubiquiti -- they don't want you to be able to configure anything or have any visibility into anything. It either 'just works' or just silently fails or fails with "An error occurred."
Re: UniFi 5G
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Unifi is more focused on the needs of businesses and enthusiasts. AVM and Netgear Orbi are products for the consumer market. So they miss a the advanced features Unifi supports. Unifi is used by the tech-savvy homeowner that needs PoE for their security cameras and wants to control and configure their network without needing a network engineer.
I tried out Netgear Orbi and I don't know who it's actually for. It tried deploying it at my dad's place, but had to return it because it just doesn't work. Dropped in Ubiquiti gear to replace it and I had the entire network up and running within 15 minutes of applying power. And it's had zero of the issues that I had with Netgear's system.
Just wanted to drop another data point that Linksys is also trash now. So for consumer-targeted gear it seems the options are:
1. Eero - great performance, no web config (only mobile app), cloud dependent, half the features paywalled for monthly subscription (eyeroll)
2. Linksys - confirmed piles of crap, a 6E mesh kit I tried last year performed worse than my 2018 Eeros so why bother. Config is even more limiting than Eero, the web UI is a slow disaster that times out constantly, and the app is terrible and the features are badly designed.
3. Netgear - sucks as parent comment explains
4. TP-Link - reputation is that it's bad but I haven't tried
5. Asus - never tried
6. Google - no doubt they'll kill and brick these at some point
Any others I'm forgetting?
Re: UniFi 5G
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kinda of small businesses? My friend does consulting and most of his business is on small (100-250 employees) size and sometimes small start up, typically in the office construction phase where he comes in and set up network infrastructure. He never seems anyone asking for UniFi, but again, might just because the cost? He feels UniFi is price competitive at that scale but no one wants it for some reason. When he…
Upmarket electrical trade, engineering offices, MSPs commonly, smallish healthcare, an equine event center, a bank. I see tons of small businesses (mom & pop, restaurants) with a UI AP or two, of course, but that's not what you meant, I don't think. The places that COULD use UI often just don't care, and want the cheap toilet paper (netgear, ebay whatever) since cost discipline can be critical. I think there's a nich…
Thank you! He recently did a job on a newly constructed venue hall for about 300-400 people. He originally quoted full UI which has everything the company is looking for, from network to security camera. The company didn't want that, I think he ended do a combination of Cisco and some odd security system.
Re: UniFi 5G
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where they differ also from Apple, and indeed is insanely amazing for a network hw company is that I'm still getting software updates for my , I don't know, at least 7 years old AP. A consumer device. This is unprecedented and much appreciated.
>7 years of software maintenance is absolutely precedented and expected of any serious networking vendor.
He specifically specified that he was happy with ubiquiti since it was consumer grade hardware
Re: UniFi 5G
#260I really want to want Unifi, but my experience with one of their products (UDM + mesh) was that it was a ton of effort to get something working that ended up being slower and more fiddly than a consumer focused router. When I get home, I don’t want to be an unpaid sysadmin
While Unifi supports wireless backhaul/mesh, the entire system is heavily designed to encourage wired backhaul - all their wireless APs are PoE for a reason. If you are going to invest in the Unifi ecosystem, it makes sense to invest in decent networking - wireless "mesh" is always a compromise for running multiple wireless APs.
If you are in a situation you need multiple wireless APs but can't run ethernet to them (like renting etc), I'd probably pass on a Unifi system personally.