*** Official Ubiquiti Discussion Thread ***

[RoyMi6]

Not sure how I lived without these bad boys.

Just got the pair to replace my N66U that I was using purely as an access point.

Don't take this image as an exact replica of my coverage. The top and ground floor obviously aren't placed side by side like that.


Ars did a better review than I ever could: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/

For me moving from a dual band 2.4/5GHz router to just the 2.4GHz versions was a no brainier. The walls in my 100 year old house just stop 5GHz dead and even the perfect placement under the stairs on the ground floor (slap bang in the middle of the house) wasn't enough to make it usable - unless you were under the stairs next to it

I've always said that I'd never use extenders as I've never seen it work correctly. Best solution with consumer grade stuff has always been to just name them differently so you can manually select which hotspot to use. But these things allow you to move between them flawlessly.

Even when I make a FaceTime call I'm able to walk from ground to top floor and have it switch in the background without dropping more than a second or two of video.

Even disconnecting the AP I'm connected to results in a seamless switch.

Love it and highly recommend them (after 48 hours of usage...)

 

[RoyMi6]

I can take a stab at answering some of that fester.

So first of all, the zero handoff is actually something you don't need to enable with the Unifi kit.

Your experiences match mine when it comes to AP roaming with consumer gear, it just never seems to work and you end up being kind of "stuck" to a slow AP with weak signal even though you're right next to another AP.

With the Unifi kit that just doesn't happen.

From what I understand, because the two AP's talk to each it can tell when the signal drops for one AP and check if the other AP has got a better signal, then do the switch.

This all happens WITHOUT "zero handoff".

The limitation with this is that in the background there may be some lost packets, but the way almost every device, and piece of software, is designed these days means that it isn't an issue to loose a couple of packets or two.

My testing, without zero handoff - using facetime I am able to walk from the ground floor to the top floor and watch my iPhone move between the two access points. Once upstairs I'm able to physically disconnect the upstairs AP and watch my iPhone flick back over to the weaker signal downstairs. I can even reconnect and I'll jump back to the better signal AP. All this without loosing connection BUT I do get a little choppy video / audio when I make the transitions.

"Zero handoff" tries to completely avoid these drops and maintain every packet but it comes at the added expense of perfect hotspot placement and more configuration stuff to go wrong. It's also vendor specific with the Unifi kit (at least the non-pro versions) as well as NOT being available with the AC capable AP's.


Multiple SSID is something that it also does quite well and from my short tinkering with it (I only have one SSID) I think you can do everything BUT the setting up OpenDNS as the DNS server for a specific SSID.

You might need to have a separate system running DHCP. Unifi will let you assign a VLAN based on the SSID then from that VLAN you could do what you need to do.

I'll have a look when I get home tonight for you.

 

[RoyMi6]

EDIT: Slight caveat - This is for the lower end Unifi stuff. I paid £70 for these AP's. They have "pro" versions for £120 which might let you do more.

Ok, from my understanding (I'm not an networks specialist and only had the devices for 48 hours!) you wouldn't be able to set up OpenDNS servers for just the "Child WiFi" by JUST configuring the AP's

The most you could do is create a separate SSID and set that SSID to use a different "network" (which I understand to be creating a new VLAN really) and assign that to the child WiFi SSID.

When you create a new VLAN these are the options you get:



When you create an SSID these are the options you get (note the option to choose which VLAN it uses)



Annoyingly "user group"s are quite limited as well - I thought you might be able to change a little more in there.



If you want to schedule use of the "Child WiFi" that can be quite granular though, which is nice!

Below is settings on a per SSID basis. When scheduled to be "off" the SSID is disabled completely. So there's no getting around it.



So yeah, long story short - if you want to have OpenDNS set up for just kids then you'll need something inbetween to get it working exactly as you want.

Alternatively use OpenDNS for everything configured at the modem side of things and that would also likely work fine enough.

Once thing this has got me interested in is a proper managed switch.

The idea of being able to schedule devices that are on the wired network (like a childs desktop computer or roku) is appealing

 

[RoyMi6]

The controller is running on a Pi2 along with Pi-Hole and OpenVPN.

I've been putting off buying the Unifi controller for AGES because of the cost, but always wanted to carve it off my storage box onto something else! Genius! 2nd RaspberryPI bought that will actually have a purpose!

As much for me as anyone else but hoping to use these details to get it up and running:
http://www.lowefamily.com.au/2016/06/02/installing-ubiquiti-unifi-controller-5-on-raspberry-pi/

 

[RoyMi6]

Quick tip, rename the hostname on the Pi before installing the Unifi controller software on it.

IE, call it 'unifi' or something other than 'raspberrypi'

Cheers - I take it the controller doesn't make it easy if you change hostname once up and running?

 

[RoyMi6]

If you have a USG and you statically set it.. currently not.

Gotcha!

P.S. damit, add a like button so I don't need to bump a thread to show appreciation!

 

[RoyMi6]

I've got a pair of "UAP-LR AP" (the 2.4Ghz ones).

I bought them early last year when the price difference made sense given that we hardly use WiFi other than internet browsing for mobile phones, everything else is hard wired and 5Ghz (even with two of the AP's) likely wouldn't get everywhere I want in my 100 year old house.

I currently use the provided POE injectors but as part of an ambition to add some POE cameras to the house, I thought I'd get a POE switch.

Am I right in saying that the AP's I have use some alternative POE power levels that mean I can't just buy any POE switch?

Two things putting me off replacing my current 24 port switch with the Unifi POE option are:
1) My current switch is silent
2) £395 is possibly a little too much

An alternative to me is simply adding an 8 port POE switch - and I'm trying to decide between:
1) TP-LINK TL-SG1008PE 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch including 8-Port PoE 124W - £120
2) Ubiquiti UniFi Switch 8 Port 60W - US-8-60W - £144
3) Ubiquiti UniFi Switch 8 Port 150W - US-8-150W - £200

What do I need to consider with wattage requirements? Would the cheaper Unifi 60W switch let me run 2xAP and 6xHiikvision cameras?

 

[RoyMi6]

How many items are you powering? I have an 8 port switch with 4 POE ports and that was £50.

In the first instance, I'll just have 2xAPs. When I buy the camera equipment I'll start with 3 to get the minimum coverage I want - so at least 5 ports required in total.

The TP-Link PoE switch won't power your access points as they use 24v passive PoE so you need a Unifi switch. The US-8-60W is 802.3af only so you'd need to look at the US-8-150W out of the 3 switches that you mentioned.

Edit - You can run those access points on 802.3af but you'll need an adapter such as this.

Cheers - wanting to avoid adapters and they just add to the cost so looks like the US-8-150W is winning at the moment.

I can't link them (I don't think) but Ubiquiti actually do both an indoor and outdoor version of a PoE converter to take it from 48v down to the 24v should you need to, they're not much money if you had other kit on your network and didn't want to go nuts on switches that have variable outputs.

Given I'd need to buy 2xconverters that would bump the price of the TP-Link switch to £180 in total. In turn, I'd happily pay the £20 extra to remove additional complexity to the network and buy the Ubiquiti switch.

Do I get more pretty graphs?!?! Which is the real reason I'm buying the POE switch of course!

Ninja Edit: Has anyone bought any of the Unifi cameras actually? How do they compare to Hiikvision stuff?

 

[RoyMi6]

Drooooooooooooolllllllllllllll #pretty green graphy bits!# uuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh