Are Ubiquiti still the gold standard?

Ergates

Ergates

Ergates

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I've been thinking about putting in a WAP (or maybe 2) to improve wifi round the house for a couple of years now but without actually getting around to it (I'm disorganised and lazy like that).

When I first started looking, everyone recommended Ubiquiti UniFi kit, pretty much every time. So I always thought that if I did anything it would be using UniFi.

I've just started looking into it again, but now there seem to be a few more competitors on the block and I've also read some not so good things about some of the newer Uni kit - mainly about the security camera stuff (which I don't care about) but more worryingly about their firmware.

Is this a sign that they've lost (or are losing) their crown? Or are they still the go-to for basic WAP stuff ?(assuming I don't need cameras/doorbells/etc)
 
They are high end prosumer/SMB stuff. I’m not sure their stuff was ever the gold standard, though if you get your information from tech influencer social media then their sponsorship deals could make it seem that way, so you’d be forgiven for drawing that conclusion.

I’d probably use their APs for small deployments depending how important it was, maybe their switches, wouldn’t touch them for routing and have no experience with their CCTV, door entry or VoIP offerings though I have preferred options for them already and see no need to change.
 
OK, bad choice of words (I couldn't think of a better phrase) - it just used to seem like whenever anyone asked for recommendations they'd get pointed to UniFi stuff any everyone said how easy it was to set up etc, and nobody had a bad word to say against their kit (almost suspiciously so). Now it seems that there are a few bad words floating about - which happens sometimes with companies, they start believing their own hype and rest on their laurels and suddenly they're not top dog any more - except most of the recommendations still point to their kit over, say, Synology APs. So I was just wondering if that was because they're actually "the best" (at this level of consumer) or they've just become the default option (Like IBM)(Except IBM are terrible, don't use them)

This is just APs for a house (so I can watch YouTube videos about guttering whilst taking a dump - what else is modern technology for?), so sounds like they're still the go-to.
 
Depends on your use. For most people it will be overkill. I mainly use them at work due to the extra features they offer but even for my own home use I don't use any of them. And even then, I have trouble recommending their consumer products as it's generally rather expensive.

These days I tend to suggest mesh setups for home use as it's easier for them to set up and much more budget friendly.
 
Firmware and software is generally fine, as long as you stay off the beta/unstable channel. It truely is beta/unstable. The kit is expensive, and there are cheaper options. They are also slow on new standards, like wifi6/6e. Ubiquiti also have a home mesh setup, which sits somewhere in between.

I have UniFi. If you like to geek out, have a fancy UI, all the bells and whistles, like a decent phone/tablet app, then there is nothing to compete with them. It really comes down to working out if the additional shiny features are worth the extra cash to you.

you can do it on a budget mind, run the controller on a pi, etc. But you will get drawn in overtime and upgrade to the next shiny thing… bit like the Apple of network kit in my eyes.
 
I had a whole raft
Of terrible aps, patchy wifi and general bad quality of life. Then is said ok no more messing about so I gutted it all and put in 3x ac pros (2 upstairs one downstairs) poe switch and unifi cameras. Everything works wifi is super fast and stable (40 clients on it) unifi protect works great for home. Id recommend it. Is there anuyhing better and cheaper ? Probably yes and yes but ive had good experience with unifi
 
I've had two AP-AC Pro's in this house for 4 years now and they've been solid, but from what I hear the build quality and general support from Ubiquiti has gone through the floor in recent years, with lots of faulty devices, failed lines that aren't replenished and generally bad code, but the APs i'm using I would definitely recommend, I have one for upstairs and one for downstairs and I split SSIDs between them to keep things sensible.

I have discovered that you can flash OpenWRT on them and make them autonomous, but I found the whole cloud setup thing to be setup-and-forget, I still have the app running in a docker container but I almost never go into it!
 
Ergates said:
I've been thinking about putting in a WAP (or maybe 2) to improve wifi round the house for a couple of years now but without actually getting around to it (I'm disorganised and lazy like that).

When I first started looking, everyone recommended Ubiquiti UniFi kit, pretty much every time. So I always thought that if I did anything it would be using UniFi.

I've just started looking into it again, but now there seem to be a few more competitors on the block and I've also read some not so good things about some of the newer Uni kit - mainly about the security camera stuff (which I don't care about) but more worryingly about their firmware.

Is this a sign that they've lost (or are losing) their crown? Or are they still the go-to for basic WAP stuff ?(assuming I don't need cameras/doorbells/etc)
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The ‘gold standard’ is Cisco Meraki and you pay an annual licensing fee.

Unifi isn’t the hardware. Unifi is the controller. The access points, switches, routers for the UniFi controller are pretty ordinary from a hardware point of view. It’s the software that makes using that hardware a nice experience. One controller interface, a change to one changes everything else to keep it working properly etc.

Somehow Ubiquiti has built Unifi into a brand of almost mythical proportions. It’s Ozk, but it’s not as good as the hype.

The access points are definitely the best bit about Unifi but they can’t defeat the laws of physics.

The switches are perfectly decent switches. And you could probably even say they were competitively priced.

The routers/consoles are junk and should be avoided unless you just need something roughly equivalent to a BT Homehub in terms of features.

Protect is a hobby project for the man who owns Ubiquiti and when he gets bored of it, he’ll ditch it. In a recent IPVM report it was described as

“IPVM Report” said:
Summary

Protect offers tightly integrated people and vehicle analytics and solid low-latency live streaming to web and mobile clients. However, it is missing common VMS and VSaaS features (e.g. multi-camera playback, mapping, 3rd party camera support, cloud video backup, multi-imager camera support, etc.) and we found several UI issues and inconsistencies between the web client and mobile app.

Person and vehicle detection analytics offered on G4 cameras (Bullet/Dome/Bullet Pro) were generally accurate, though consistently missed running subjects and infrequently classified vehicles as people or detected stationary vehicles.

Its low cost and tight integration with Ubiquiti's networking devices make it a far less expensive option to Meraki and Verkada while its pricing is similar to Dahua and Hikvision while being NDAA compliant. However, Ubiquiti's VMS and analytics do lack certain features as we describe in the individual sections.
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So pretty ordinary considering how much more expensive than Dahua/Hikvision the system is.

For me, I would continue to do your research, and then buy what suits your needs best.
 
Got a lot of Unifi networks setup, recently started reccomending the Eeros for home users though due to simplicity of use and how reliable it seems to be.

Work really well and it really is a setup and forget job, haven't touched mine in a year and no issues.
 
Unifi have a home use sub brand (Amplifi) that was popular, but not sure they have put much effort into it recently.

I have an Amplifi HD router and a couple of mesh points which work well and were well priced when I got them, but are getting a bit long in the tooth now as they don't support WiFi 6 etc
 
Using UniFi APs (AC-LR and AC-Lite) at home. They work pretty well, but require an investment of time and potentially money to get the controller setup, which is where the real value is. I have mine running on a Raspberry Pi 3b, which isn't bulletproof (it eats SD cards, definitely other ways to do it) but the overall options for configuration are fantastic. Once setup, it's very solid as well in my experience.

I have had a few issues:
- Legacy devices - sometimes weird issues with older WiFi chipsets (solution - replace devices or mess about with controller settings to help legacy support, which took some time)
- AirPlay/multicast setup - couldn't get this right without some changes to config.
- Grazed knuckles from getting the AP into the ceiling mount.

Most of these are probably my ignorance, but it's maybe not as immediately compatible out of the box as typical consumer stuff.
 
Ice Tea said:
You rarely see people mention Mikrotik these days.
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That’s because people value good looks over functionality.

The UniFi dashboard and app look amazeballs but they don’t really do very much while Mikrotik’s UI looks like they designed it in the dark and then decided that was too easy to use so they made up their own words for industry standard features. Once you get into it, it’s everything you could ever want but the learning curve is STEEP.
 
I fell out of love with Ubiquiti after they started gathering telemetry by less than salubrious means (https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/07/ubiquiti_networks_phone_home/), went to Meraki with OpenWRT. It's OK, but I do miss Unifi's interface and simplicity.

Mikrotik have great featured hardware at very reasonable prices, but every Mikrotik device I've ever kept has been running OpenWRT. Agree with what Walt says, their UI is pony but features and stability are great.
 
MikroTik are really poor for Wi-Fi access. I think the issue is that all the latest Wi-Fi radios only have closed source drivers, and MikroTik can't load the binaries in RouterOS that isn't version 7, so you either run a beta OS or you run severely feature limited open source drivers in OS 6.

I just don't really consider them an AP vendor and can't see my opinion changing any time soon.
 
Caged said:
MikroTik are really poor for Wi-Fi access. I think the issue is that all the latest Wi-Fi radios only have closed source drivers, and MikroTik can't load the binaries in RouterOS that isn't version 7, so you either run a beta OS or you run severely feature limited open source drivers in OS 6.

I just don't really consider them an AP vendor and can't see my opinion changing any time soon.
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Indeed. I don’t think @randal or I was suggesting that we would promote Mikrotik’s WLAN hardware. It’s terrible.

To be completely fair to Mikrotik they don’t see themselves as a hardware vendor. They sell hardware only to promote the sales of RouterOS licences. That’s why their routers are cheap and fast. Even most of their switches are really routers. And they make most of their money by being the routing software supplier to Facebook so if no-one buys their WiFi access points then I doubt they care much.
 
I've installed thousands of Unifi AP's over the years and by and large they've been OK. Hardware failure rates are relatively high, their QA on firmware is absolutely non-existent and there is no meaningful vendor support. The last couple of years they've just been throwing firmware out the door with all sorts of show stopping bugs and regressions and I don't touch them any more.

For smaller/budget deployments the Aruba InstantOn AP's and switches are a better bet now with free cloud management included. I'd pitch Aruba or Cisco (Catalyst, not Meraki) for gold standard enterprise use.
 
Needing to put in the mfa code on the iOS app every time is annoying too :( it is needed though, so you cannot disable it safely. You end up with a UniFi account that has web access in to you network (management)
 
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