Ubiquiti Project Followup: How Reliable are the 283 UniFi Access Points & 12 Switches we installed? ua-cam.com/video/Sv8w_plmYTk/v-deo.html ⏱ Timestamps ⏱ 00:00 UniFi: How Long Has Your Equipment Lasted For? 01:25 The 2016 WiFi Project 04:13 Nanobeam Site to Site 06:02 Final thoughts
I actually bought ubiquiti devices for my home. I bought an edge switch and AP to replace the horrid stuff my ISP provided, and I'll be adding more. The edge switch was a great option providing POE and light routing, while the AP is brilliant and has been in the house for several years now. The edge switch even has SFP connections to do fiber to the new building we are putting in soon. I've had little to no trouble with the software and the company as a whole and would definitely use their stuff again.
I'm currently running internal and external hardware that is deployed to Antarctica and so far we've only seen issues with a single external camera. Here's hoping things continue to go well 🤞🏻
About 400 devices in Hostifi, another 350 devices in Unifi, and over 1250 devices in UNMS, from indoor APs, to outdoor APs, to airMax radios and airFiber radios going over 6+ miles of ocean, Unifi switches and gateways, and Edge switches and Edge routers, a pretty good track record for hardware reliability.
I install 2x ubiquity airMax around 2012 to get cameras on a light pole in a parking lot. They sit in heavy snow when not in blistering hot sun. Both still work great today.
I have been managing the Unifi system with the company I work for since it was first implemented 7+ years ago. We currently have upwards of 250+ WAPs across all our sites. I can't recall a single WAP that had to be replaced due to failure. We've had some die due to water damage from ceiling leaks, but very few if any from the product just failing outright.
I’m currently at 1-1/2 years with my home Unifi system (3 APs, 4 switches, 7 cameras), an EdgeRouter 4, and a NanoStation AC5 Loco wireless bridge to my detached garage. The only issue I had was one time a switch crashed and locked up. I restarted it and it’s worked fine ever since. Everything else has worked flawlessly. Current uptime is 274 days but there’s some firmware updates waiting and that’s bound to change. This is by far the most reliable home network I’ve ever had.
I've been using them in Florida for quite a long time... The biggest problem I've had with Ubiquiti gear was blown and damaged Ethernet ports where they'd fall back to 10Mbps. Even using their special wire, this happened somewhat regularly. A local WISP started building in-line surge suppression devices and ever since we switched to those it's been smooth sailing. I also think UBNT has made their newer gear more rugged as well. Had a few hurricanes and our access points were absolute champs. We never lost connection. We ended up piggy-backing many local businesses off our system until their normal providers (Comcast & CenturyLink) could get their shit together. The WISP ended up getting a few national retail chains as new clients.
Huge UBNT fan. I've installed thousands of UBNT gear. Those outdoor units are more likely to get water in their cables than through the seal. Great video!
I deal mostly with small-medium businesses and I have been all Unifi for years. Only failure I have had was an indoor AP that got water damaged. It was not the devices fault. I work with my ISP who has equipment on my towers uses all Ubiquiti and they have held up well outside of lightning damage and being blasted by RF from my transmitters. After swapping a lot of their stuff on the tower to fiber, some better grounding and some ferrite beads on the copper we have stamped out a lot of those problems. The only thing we have issues with is running out of spectrum/very high noise floors shooting over populated areas that have their own wifi blasting usually in auto mode. If you get power problems between switches use glass wherever you can. You can get 2 media converters and a loop of fiber for like 30-50 dollars and it gives you an air gap between equipment that might be on different circuits/locations/grounds that might put voltage on the cables that can pop switch ports. I pretty much have a rule anything going in or out of the building and/or on different panels I use fiber. If I have a cranky switch port I throw a fiber loop on it and often the problems go away. This applies to using armor cable as well.
I had a terrible wifi situation, then on the strength of Tom's recommendation, bought several Unifi AP's and we no longer have wifi issues anywhere. It's been a year and they've been solid, I just use a PoE powered Raspberry Pi to control them when needed or when I wish to monitor them. Thanks again Tom!
I have had minimal issues with Ubiquiti, one small site with 3 AP's went down and all AP's seemed dead, replaced them all but all were reset and are testing perfectly now. Turns out the phone provider had installed a non-Ubiquiti PoE switch and had plugged them directly to a 48v PoE instead of the 24v injectors they had (they were the original 24v only AP-AC-LR). I also had a powerbeam get hit by lightning which didnt go well but overall they are great.
Thanks for sharing this project. I think it’s the first review I’ve seen regarding longevity on products and installations of more than 5 years. This is exactly how you know you’ve done a good job on design, budget and product choice all in the name of reliability and durability. Really excellent work Tom, thanks for sharing. Ps- keep the honesty level, a lot of us engineers appreciate that.
"Not easy to get ahold of in March 2022". That's an understatement, lol. Took over 2 weeks for me to catch the WiFi 6 LR in stock. Finally got some though direct from Ubiquiti, cuz everyone else is charging an arm and a leg for anything Ubiquiti.
I think a key take-away is price of Unifi hardware. When you go Cisco, it can be hard to get spare hardware past financial because it is just so expensive. When you look at Unifi, it can easily be 1/5th the cost to get the same job done. So then you go and ask for some spare hardware and it is a lot easier to get in a number of cases in terms of the financial department of a company approving it. This can actually be a big boon to minimizing downtime as for example the common thing to do at least used to be get the big Cisco switch for a pile of money, then the warranty would expire / device reaches "end of life", a clock board or something breaks (those things are notorious for losing clock boards), and then that is the end of the whole big switch running the company. You instead get a bunch of smaller Unifi switches and some spares and if anything breaks, you don't lose all that much and you can quickly swap out the broken hardware with a spare. Not to say the Unifi hardware has all of the bells and whistles of the Cisco hardware, but instead as you mention does it have the feature set to do the job? Usually when you talk about a small to medium build, the answer is yes. If you are wiring up a data center or something to the like, the answer is no; you need the feature set Cisco provides or may even get into other data center centric hardware. In terms of is hardware more reliable today, I think the real answer is yes and no. There are some higher quality components, especially capacitors, which is usually what kills a piece of hardware, not the actual silicon, However, power density has gone up with associated cooling issues. The hotter stuff runs, the more likely it is to fail early. Ubiquiti may be running quality components, but they also like to let things run hot, especially switches. I wouldn't be surprised if these don't last quite as long as they should. They really should make it easier for users to adjust this some. Like their Gen 1 48 port switches with dual 10G SFP+ uplink ports. You get the non-PoE switch and the fans are turned off. These switches can run really hot because of this. That can't be good for the longevity of the device. It should be a deal where you can set this for "server room" mode where the fans run fast and loud and home user mode where the fans run at a low, quiet setting. Just simply having the fans off seems like a bad idea. Then you go to the PoE versions of the switch and the fans are on, generally at a high setting. The PoE version of course puts out more heat, but yet it runs a lot cooler than the non-PoE version. It just seems to be kind of nonsensical. Then again as least for business access switches you really want PoE these days.
I have a UniFi camera mounted on top of a building completely exposed to the elements going on 4 years now. The amazing thing is the climate ranges from 100F to -60 F from season to season.
I can't tell you how timely this is, I was just thinking this week how long ago was it that I bought my equipment and I was wondering if it will continue to last for a while, bout to watch now thank you !
APs used for a home environment should last a long time. My Ubiquity APs were 10 years old and still working along with the cloud key. They were wireless N, however since Ubiquity was opting discontinue updates I converted over to Wifi 6 and got a dream machine. Aps have been installed for 2 years now and working reliably. I have 7 wireless apps running a few switches. All in all the investment seems to be decent. Upgrading the equipment they recognized some bugs a couple years ago but the system is running reliably since.
My EdgeRouter X, TPLINK SG108E v2 and Unifi AC Lite AP has been churning for 5 years now with absolutely zero issues. Granted I'm just a house not a commercial network.
I have many sites deployed with UniFi wireless and a couple also using UniFi switches, all have been great. I also have a large fleet of EdgeRouter devices, also great, but Im concerned that UI don't seem to be focussing any energy on the software side of the EdgeMax line.
Great video. Thanks! I also use ubiquiti access points and cameras. The only failures i have had is due to hurricane storm damage (coastal North Carolina). Please continue the videos. They are a great resource
I'm currently in an internship with an official Unify/Ubiquiti wholesaler in France (it's called Wifi-France), we also make official Ubiquiti/Unify certificate and I can say that you are 100% right, we almost had positive feedback for pretty much every ubnt products. Some pro-cisco people don't agree and think it's not that an enterprise level products, more like "plug and play" thing. Guy's, Cisco is not the only one who makes quality product ^^
We use their cameras & the UniFi Project system. And just recently had a G3-Pro get moisture in the sealed lens right after the one year mark. Now what rubbed me the wrong way is if we’d bought directly from Ubiquiti, it would have been under warranty for another year with no questions asked (buying direct gets you two years warranty), but since we bought from an authorized seller, that warranty was only 1 year. Originally our RMA request was denied, but I reached back out & stated that while I didn’t remember why we bought from an authorized seller (and it was a large online & physical store brand), it was during the pandemic & Ubiquiti could have been out of stock when we needed those cameras. Ultimately they changed their mind and approved our RMA Request. Now where they did sorta win me back, was they sent a better camera (G4-Pro), but that could just be a stock issue, it’s hard to say. This also doesn’t necessarily seem to be an isolated issue with at least the G3-Pro line from a quick Google Search I did and when I’m dropping $300+ on a camera, I expect it to last more then just outside it’s warranty period. Hopefully this was just a fluke, but I’m now questioning our other G3-Pro’s and hoping it doesn’t, but now also waiting for them to develop a problem.
I've been in the telecommunications biz for 40 plus years, starting in two-way radio (through the 1980's) then paging (1990's), then cellular macro (outdoors) and now work for a company that provides communications gear for the cellular biz to provide coverage solutions indoors (I design, build and write the software for test systems that test communications hardware). In each case I have noticed generally the equipment outlasts the dominant communications technology of that particular time. Honestly if 5G delivers on its promise, I will likely evolve the components of my home networks (wifi, zwave, zigbee, and other proprietary wireless system) to support those newer technologies and abandon wifi all together since the congestion on the wifi bands around my house is terrible. The key is having systems that work together in harmony instead of a mix of un-coordinated systems that are constantly interfering with each other.
I replaced my routers with Mikrotiks. The Unifi Edge Routers POE operated so hot I could heat my home with them. One of them failed on me. The heat finally got to it. While I was at it I also replaced the Unifi WAPs (which are excellent) with cAPs. Beyond their Edge Routers, I found Unifi products to be solid.
You personally gave me so much confidence on using unifi products (first for the msp that I use to work for and now for my one msp that I am started) And not just for unifi product but overall starting my own msp , u been great help and mentor I would say. On my way to sign my 10th msp client and thanks to you I have tht confidence that I can do it Thanks 😊
I'm in the middle of having my UDM RMA'd right now. It's about 2 years old and has started not letting me log into it (via any method). It still functions, wifi's up, etc. but I can't log into it to manage it, add new devices, update firmware, yada yada. Fortunately, Ubiquiti support asked me to RMA it (even though it's out of warranty) so while it sucks that it's down, I have to give props to them for their support.
I agree with the assessment. Two small college campuses AP's, Switches, Gateways, etc. All pretty darned solid. Probably two AP's total that had true hardware failures over my 10 years here.
I would really love to hear your take about the unifi "Wifi clients dont receive an IP via DHCP issue". Some background from my point of view. I manage a comany wireless for about 2500 employees (Cisco WLC with a CCNA wireless) and i had my eye on unifi as a cheaper, more modern looking solution. I asked my friend who equips mostly schools with wifi what he thinks about unifi. He said its a great solution except for the fact that they have alot of issues with clients dont getting IP by DHCP. This issue is not something that is fixed in firmware X, but comes back every few firmwares and it drives the customers crazy. Because of this, they dont install unifi at customers anymore, they use mostly aruba. I moved to another house about a year after that ant wanted to give Unifi a shot and installed it privately. Everything ran pretty well. But after a certain firmware upgrade, the DHCP bug hit me. Nothing i could do, the wifi is pretty much uslesess. Had to downgrade and wait for a firmare that fixed it again. Read some forums and Reddit is full of posts that unifi solution has this ever re-occuring issue. Now became more cousous with upgrading and pretty much leave it at the same stage. We then, aquired another company that had 6 offices and used unifi as a solution. I talked to the guy responsible and he said you have to be very very careful with upgrading, in order to avoid the DHCP bug issue. So what is your take? Did you have to deal with this on your customers? If yes, what is your reccomendation to get rid of this issue? I heared things like setting a manual ACL on every AP to work around this issue. Can you recommend these products with this kind of track record? Would love to hear your thoughts about this. Just recently subscribed from your video with david bombal on PFsense. Loved the open mindfullness and being honest about the weaknesses of the product as well.
just to add to the convesation i have setup 3 Ubiquoti UAP-M next to salt lake in hambantota Sri lanka, very salty place but upto now no issues with them fingers crossed, runing continuously for 2years...
Been running Unifi network on an school campus for almost 10 years now. Just finally upgraded the oldest APs to new U6 devices a few months ago, mostly due to to the software complaining about them being obsolete. But to be fair, they really were obsolete, the network runs all around much better and faster with the new APs. I am surprised at how many people have devices already that support WiFi 6, which just makes everything better. As I recall, only one of the APs failed over that 10 years and replacing it was not really a big deal. Also had one small POE switch fail, but it's unclear if that switch actually failed on it's own or if someone did something to it as it was not in a totally secure location and the circumstances were suspicious. Rather insignificant costs anyway in the grand scheme of things. Very happy with all the Unifi gear I have worked with so far and I will continue to use it and recommend it to others.
Home USG power supply block died couple of months after warranty. Well, took random 12V with enough amperage and I keep running USG. It is good that supply is an external device so I didn't have to disassemble anything.
I've got one, 1, count 'em one Unifi AP installed in my home and it works well. However, for large deployments such as that stadium, there's one advantage that Cisco has. With the Cisco Unified Wireless Network (CUWN), instead of connecting to an access point, you connect to a controller, with dumb APs acting as little more than a bridge. With Unifi and most other makes, you connect to an AP and as you move, you have to disconnect from one AP and then connect to the next, which take time. Yes, I know about 802.11r fast BSS transition. With CUWN, you are connected to the central controller, not individual APs, which makes moving among them faster, as you don't have to disconnect & reconnect.
Always used netgear and cisco moved to unifi under your video reviews and they are now deployed to most of our client sites they are really good! Only user netgear really now where I need LACP over two switches! Hoping unifi add this feature soon 🙏
Unifi APs (original 2.4G model) - I blew out a protector when I stuck it on 48V, fixed that, still works. Perfectly solid all that time. AC Pros - same, rock solid. Original CK, it corrupted on me once because it has no backup battery. CK2+, solid; UDM Pro, so far so good (fairly recent buy, I just can't get the gear due to the shortages). POE switch (24 port 250W) has at least one port totally dead. 48 port non-POE (I've got 2 of them) - fine. 16 port POE switch (1st series again) - fine. Other than having no stock for ages, the network gear is good in my view. Camera wise, the 3-series dome cameras were super temperamental with not coming back up again. I actually think that killed that switch port. Newer firmware eventually seemed to improve this. Still haven't been able to order a camera for >1 year now. Appreciate the video; Clearly as you install and maintain huge numbers of equipment, assuming non-DOA, the gear holds up well.
I always found Cisco equipment to be the most reliable hense why they are still an industry standard. I still have some Cisco switches that dates back to 2012 still in use today in my server rack.
I had a G3 flex that disconnected I found the lan cable was corroded and the camera base was full of water because the roof was leaking. I took the camera apart cleaned it and the G3 flex worked again 🤯
It’s a trick question. We don’t know because everyone has a hard time getting their hands on any of these devices, particularly the popular ones like the AC-Lite and EdgerouterX. I have been waiting for the X for 6 months, unless I want to buy one at an exorbitant price.
So far have I’ve had good luck with unifi hard reliability. The biggest issue I’ve had is having unifi wifi 6 lr being doa three times in a row. RMA process was quick about getting replacement units. Took a while but I got them.
Just pulled out a 7 year old setup which had no issues. Most issues I have seen are actually from improper installation or dirty power feeds (including a lightning strike 🤯)
Ubiquiti has not failed me this far, great stability even for carrying video feeds across big distances, I have always used the powerbeams M400 and sector antennas both 120 and 360 degrees and Nano M5s. The 48port switches, no issue whatsoever. Cisco equipment and their licensing model has definitely priced them out of the market, mostly government and financial institutions are willing to spend that much, SME's and lower always go for ubiquiti.
I have a UAP-AC-Lite WAP that I installed for my parents in 2017. My parent has a roach infestation and the WAP is a literal roach nest and I refuse to touch it. Despite this, it's still working well and has a strong signal.
Loving Unifi. most Problem Occure because of incorrect setup. thought i recently had a small 5 Port Unifi Switch (flex mini) that wouldnt get adopted at any cost even thought its 7 Brothers happily did so.
For Ever. i have OG equipment and they still work. not as good as new stuff but still get the job done for what I need. but that's just because of software and new tech. good power strip with power cleaning you will be all set.
I have 3 Unifi UAP access points that are no longer supported for our guest network. I'm trying to decide if they represent enough of a threat to replace them, or if I can live dangerously for a while longer.
I bought 2 APs, 3 switches, and an edgerouter-x-sfp-6-port last year. I really like thr product for my home. The only issues I've had is with l2tp and openvpn - i can't get it to work and reading similar issues it looks like a running a really old firmware solves the issue. Unfortunately I haven't seen any firmware updates so that's my only bad experience with it
I love my UniFi gear! I have a UDM-Pro, EdgeSwitch 16 150W, UVC G3 Flex/G4/G4 Pro cameras as well a LAN for other devices. I’ve only experienced some very minor issues with the Protect App freezing. I’m not an IT professional, but an Electrical Engineering student and I believe that Ubiquiti make really robust gear and wouldn’t buy anything else!
well i have unifi AP AC lite 🤣, i install it around 2019, there is one router that kinda weird is the reset button is broken when I try to re-configure my whole network last month. but yah it is still working perfectly. i think for the price, it is kinda pricey for home user tho.
Anyone having great success and long term I am happy for you. 1 key is make sure the environment is a climate controlled and temperature suited environment unless using the actual "fit for outdoors or high temperature" gear. Their software gave us fits, tough switches were not that tough couldn't stand small industrial plants, APs we were swapping out in environments if they were not put in office spaces with heating or air, but I will give them credit their RA dept always worked and was on the spot. Just too much back-end trouble for us to deal with. I love supporting customers but when it becomes an all year job it makes you look bad as well so that is the reason we had to let it go.
the main reason you replace hardware is because of the security patches no longer will be around to prevent a network takeover and the hardware will quit one day too plus wifi 6e will be a great replacement as well its meant for less issues like discounts better coverage too
Great video! Would love to see a video on how many vlans you create for a company between 50-100 employees. For Wi-Fi I guess the max is 4, but what about wired connections. When should I use VLANs and can I have too many or too view?
Hey so I’ve been looking into getting an orbi rbke963 WiFi 6E mesh system. I also plan on hard wiring both satellites into the main router so the satellites are more like access points I guess. What would be something comparable that ubiquity offers. I really like that the orbi system is pretty much plug and play does but have heard a lot people talk highly of ubiquity.
Unifi lasts a long time! I have UAPs installed 7 years ago still working flawlessly! In fact I need to replace them because their 2.4ghz and need some 5G.
My old (about 6-7 yeaars) UAP indoor dishes/ap's seemto be giving up. 2 of 3 died for no apparent reason. They where working fine then out of nowhere they went unadopted, and they won't re-adopt. even factory reset did not change anything. it seems they can be scrapped and that sort of makes me hesitant to buy more ubiquiti (my nanostation P2P still works great)
i can verify that ubiquiti airmax gear lasts about 4-5 years in active salt air/water environment. only solution for longer use would be stainless hardware
My concern with with ubiquiti is not reliability I think they are on par with say Cisco or Aruba, it’s lack or product lifecycle documentation, they need to improve this.
Thank you, Tom,for another valuable post. Do you by any chance know (perhaps via back channel) when Unify will start to have the devices in stock. Is there a backup plan etc. I have few home projects for my family and would like to stick with unify instead of going with a different manufacturer, especially that I already know Unify platform. Thanks
I work for an HVAC company and we are still seeing things get worse, not better. Lead-times on equipment is growing, not shrinking. Used to be if it wasn’t in-stock, it was a standard 4 to 6 weeks (maybe worse case 8 weeks). I just quoted a job where the lead times were all pretty much 20+ weeks with more then a few hitting 30 weeks (which is 9 MONTHS). And all our suppliers don’t have any idea when it’s gonna get better or at least stabilize.
I agree with you on that yes engineering, manufacturing has gotten better. as far as the WiFi goes for Unifi. i will say the 4 to 5 year rang is where i have been seeing the failure rate spike. Outside of the usual one off where 1 has died with in 18 months. I feel that 6 years is pushing it. If you client started look at it at the 5 year mark. well i cant say they are behind.
Solid (organic polymer) capacitors are probably the number one reason why many devices are now more reliable. That and lower power consumption density.
I have a lot of ubiquiti antennas and cameras outside for few years and its build to last. My cameras are juste simple G3 Flex and they are not IP69 and not IP68...dont remember the rating but its only splash and my Flex are direct expose to rain and I have one at 90 feet high in a tower with any protection. I just be careful at the installation to have cable going downward to not have water stream from the cable goin inside the ethernet ports. And of course I always put grease in my ethernet ports to avoid extra humidity. My old NSM5 are still doing great at 90 feet in my tower and they turned yellow with the sun but still rock solid. A lot of PoE unifi switch and unifi APs too with no hardware issue since installation...around 2015 Great hardware so far. EXCEPT FOR 1 PRODUCT LINE......Bullet series...installed a few for companies and it keeps dying. They are too tiny and gets too hot and dies. Or they took water damage.
I’ve had great experiences with UAPs and USWs, but both UDMs I’ve ever deployed have died within 1.5 years - one from a fan issue and another couldn’t boot up.
arg i have 4x EOL UAP LR 2.4ghZ i used in remote operations, they no longer grab DHCPs after updating. Couldn't figure it out so I just bought new AC equipment. But those will still be good hardware if i could get them to resolve... old USG/Controller software required maybe?
Just remember to document the SSH password. The biggest issue I've had is controllers crashing or disappearing and having to reset dozens of devices to get management of them again!
What about Unifi Cameras?? I purchased a few years ago the G3, 5 pack, 2 died just over a year (one failed completely, one the ir switch stopped working), then a 3rd died at 2 years. Then they dropped their software, so I just got rid of them all. Glad I did as the remaining camera's I have (some G3 flexes, which work better than the G3s which images are crap compared to the other brands I have (mix of dahua mostly and hikvision, or rebrands of those).
Home user with 10 G3 cameras, 6 of which failed at 18 to 24 months for IR cut filter failure. By 36 months 2 more for IR and one just failed. So 9/10 failures in 36 months 6/10 in 18 -24 months. Also 1 of three interior AP Lites failed at 24 months.
Is the real ubiquiti question good enough and does it have enough features? now how does it compare with mikrotik? mikrotik appears to be used on more solid projects as well. to date I have only used cisco, hp, alvarion and netgear for the low end. for home, however, I thought of using ubiquiti or mikrotik because I do not have to pay annual subscriptions I would like to create a 10gb network. I was also thinking of creating a small proxmox server based on supermicro what do you think?
I had a unifi 8 port switch die at home after 2 years and they refused to RMA it. I had a 8 port Cisco 2906 die after a few years. It was outside I'm a box in the FL heat. I called Cisco and they sent me a replacement next business day.
They do just last in normal use, for every 1 person who has a failure there are thousands that don't, 10+ years of use for AP's is damn good for some of ours
IF UinFi ticks your use case boxes then I think it is a very inexpensive good quality way to go. Yes the routers are missing some stuff that honestly they shouldn't be missing. I'm looking at you DHCP lease status screen WTF!
It's the software that is the issue. It takes them forever to get something stable then they abandon it. My ER4 was a great example. And the unifi wifi code above v4 is horribly unstable. I run their stuff at home. I trust the Nanostation M5's but not the AC-Pros.
Ubiquiti Project Followup: How Reliable are the 283 UniFi Access Points & 12 Switches we installed?
ua-cam.com/video/Sv8w_plmYTk/v-deo.html
⏱ Timestamps ⏱
00:00 UniFi: How Long Has Your Equipment Lasted For?
01:25 The 2016 WiFi Project
04:13 Nanobeam Site to Site
06:02 Final thoughts
I actually bought ubiquiti devices for my home. I bought an edge switch and AP to replace the horrid stuff my ISP provided, and I'll be adding more. The edge switch was a great option providing POE and light routing, while the AP is brilliant and has been in the house for several years now. The edge switch even has SFP connections to do fiber to the new building we are putting in soon. I've had little to no trouble with the software and the company as a whole and would definitely use their stuff again.
I'm currently running internal and external hardware that is deployed to Antarctica and so far we've only seen issues with a single external camera. Here's hoping things continue to go well 🤞🏻
Verified working in temperatures of -70 to - 10 👍🏼😂
Dang you should contact Ubiquity for an ad partnership 😅
@@jonathandelaughter4102 tens of foot traffic daily!
Who's the dealer down there? Snappernet ?
About 400 devices in Hostifi, another 350 devices in Unifi, and over 1250 devices in UNMS, from indoor APs, to outdoor APs, to airMax radios and airFiber radios going over 6+ miles of ocean, Unifi switches and gateways, and Edge switches and Edge routers, a pretty good track record for hardware reliability.
Hello from Technibble!
I install 2x ubiquity airMax around 2012 to get cameras on a light pole in a parking lot. They sit in heavy snow when not in blistering hot sun. Both still work great today.
I have been managing the Unifi system with the company I work for since it was first implemented 7+ years ago. We currently have upwards of 250+ WAPs across all our sites. I can't recall a single WAP that had to be replaced due to failure. We've had some die due to water damage from ceiling leaks, but very few if any from the product just failing outright.
I’m currently at 1-1/2 years with my home Unifi system (3 APs, 4 switches, 7 cameras), an EdgeRouter 4, and a NanoStation AC5 Loco wireless bridge to my detached garage. The only issue I had was one time a switch crashed and locked up. I restarted it and it’s worked fine ever since. Everything else has worked flawlessly.
Current uptime is 274 days but there’s some firmware updates waiting and that’s bound to change. This is by far the most reliable home network I’ve ever had.
I've been using them in Florida for quite a long time... The biggest problem I've had with Ubiquiti gear was blown and damaged Ethernet ports where they'd fall back to 10Mbps. Even using their special wire, this happened somewhat regularly. A local WISP started building in-line surge suppression devices and ever since we switched to those it's been smooth sailing. I also think UBNT has made their newer gear more rugged as well.
Had a few hurricanes and our access points were absolute champs. We never lost connection. We ended up piggy-backing many local businesses off our system until their normal providers (Comcast & CenturyLink) could get their shit together. The WISP ended up getting a few national retail chains as new clients.
Huge UBNT fan. I've installed thousands of UBNT gear. Those outdoor units are more likely to get water in their cables than through the seal.
Great video!
I deal mostly with small-medium businesses and I have been all Unifi for years. Only failure I have had was an indoor AP that got water damaged. It was not the devices fault. I work with my ISP who has equipment on my towers uses all Ubiquiti and they have held up well outside of lightning damage and being blasted by RF from my transmitters. After swapping a lot of their stuff on the tower to fiber, some better grounding and some ferrite beads on the copper we have stamped out a lot of those problems. The only thing we have issues with is running out of spectrum/very high noise floors shooting over populated areas that have their own wifi blasting usually in auto mode. If you get power problems between switches use glass wherever you can. You can get 2 media converters and a loop of fiber for like 30-50 dollars and it gives you an air gap between equipment that might be on different circuits/locations/grounds that might put voltage on the cables that can pop switch ports. I pretty much have a rule anything going in or out of the building and/or on different panels I use fiber. If I have a cranky switch port I throw a fiber loop on it and often the problems go away. This applies to using armor cable as well.
Thank you for the honest video...6yrs and running for my unifi
We only have a limited unifi installation (
I had a terrible wifi situation, then on the strength of Tom's recommendation, bought several Unifi AP's and we no longer have wifi issues anywhere. It's been a year and they've been solid, I just use a PoE powered Raspberry Pi to control them when needed or when I wish to monitor them. Thanks again Tom!
I've had very good experience with installing Ubiquiti indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi units since moving to them for the past 5 years.
I have had minimal issues with Ubiquiti, one small site with 3 AP's went down and all AP's seemed dead, replaced them all but all were reset and are testing perfectly now. Turns out the phone provider had installed a non-Ubiquiti PoE switch and had plugged them directly to a 48v PoE instead of the 24v injectors they had (they were the original 24v only AP-AC-LR). I also had a powerbeam get hit by lightning which didnt go well but overall they are great.
Thanks for sharing this project. I think it’s the first review I’ve seen regarding longevity on products and installations of more than 5 years. This is exactly how you know you’ve done a good job on design, budget and product choice all in the name of reliability and durability. Really excellent work Tom, thanks for sharing. Ps- keep the honesty level, a lot of us engineers appreciate that.
"Not easy to get ahold of in March 2022". That's an understatement, lol. Took over 2 weeks for me to catch the WiFi 6 LR in stock. Finally got some though direct from Ubiquiti, cuz everyone else is charging an arm and a leg for anything Ubiquiti.
Even worse in Aus. Waited a month for my U6 APs to arrive and I've been told the AC-LRs I ordered in early Feb won't be here until June.
I think a key take-away is price of Unifi hardware. When you go Cisco, it can be hard to get spare hardware past financial because it is just so expensive. When you look at Unifi, it can easily be 1/5th the cost to get the same job done. So then you go and ask for some spare hardware and it is a lot easier to get in a number of cases in terms of the financial department of a company approving it. This can actually be a big boon to minimizing downtime as for example the common thing to do at least used to be get the big Cisco switch for a pile of money, then the warranty would expire / device reaches "end of life", a clock board or something breaks (those things are notorious for losing clock boards), and then that is the end of the whole big switch running the company. You instead get a bunch of smaller Unifi switches and some spares and if anything breaks, you don't lose all that much and you can quickly swap out the broken hardware with a spare. Not to say the Unifi hardware has all of the bells and whistles of the Cisco hardware, but instead as you mention does it have the feature set to do the job? Usually when you talk about a small to medium build, the answer is yes. If you are wiring up a data center or something to the like, the answer is no; you need the feature set Cisco provides or may even get into other data center centric hardware.
In terms of is hardware more reliable today, I think the real answer is yes and no. There are some higher quality components, especially capacitors, which is usually what kills a piece of hardware, not the actual silicon, However, power density has gone up with associated cooling issues. The hotter stuff runs, the more likely it is to fail early. Ubiquiti may be running quality components, but they also like to let things run hot, especially switches. I wouldn't be surprised if these don't last quite as long as they should. They really should make it easier for users to adjust this some. Like their Gen 1 48 port switches with dual 10G SFP+ uplink ports. You get the non-PoE switch and the fans are turned off. These switches can run really hot because of this. That can't be good for the longevity of the device. It should be a deal where you can set this for "server room" mode where the fans run fast and loud and home user mode where the fans run at a low, quiet setting. Just simply having the fans off seems like a bad idea. Then you go to the PoE versions of the switch and the fans are on, generally at a high setting. The PoE version of course puts out more heat, but yet it runs a lot cooler than the non-PoE version. It just seems to be kind of nonsensical. Then again as least for business access switches you really want PoE these days.
I have a UniFi camera mounted on top of a building completely exposed to the elements going on 4 years now. The amazing thing is the climate ranges from 100F to -60 F from season to season.
Nice Stinger. Now I want “after credits” in all your videos.
I can't tell you how timely this is, I was just thinking this week how long ago was it that I bought my equipment and I was wondering if it will continue to last for a while, bout to watch now thank you !
APs used for a home environment should last a long time. My Ubiquity APs were 10 years old and still working along with the cloud key. They were wireless N, however since Ubiquity was opting discontinue updates I converted over to Wifi 6 and got a dream machine. Aps have been installed for 2 years now and working reliably. I have 7 wireless apps running a few switches. All in all the investment seems to be decent. Upgrading the equipment they recognized some bugs a couple years ago but the system is running reliably since.
My EdgeRouter X, TPLINK SG108E v2 and Unifi AC Lite AP has been churning for 5 years now with absolutely zero issues. Granted I'm just a house not a commercial network.
I installed Unifi AP LR back from 2013, yup, that "shouty" AP still work even with the original PoE adapter.
I have a bunch of Ubiquiti installed as well and my experience has been the same. Great video!
I have many sites deployed with UniFi wireless and a couple also using UniFi switches, all have been great. I also have a large fleet of EdgeRouter devices, also great, but Im concerned that UI don't seem to be focussing any energy on the software side of the EdgeMax line.
Great video. Thanks! I also use ubiquiti access points and cameras. The only failures i have had is due to hurricane storm damage (coastal North Carolina). Please continue the videos. They are a great resource
Yes I agree with Lawrence. We're currently using lots of UNIFI devices on our sites until now it is working fine. Love these devices. Thanks
I'm currently in an internship with an official Unify/Ubiquiti wholesaler in France (it's called Wifi-France), we also make official Ubiquiti/Unify certificate and I can say that you are 100% right, we almost had positive feedback for pretty much every ubnt products.
Some pro-cisco people don't agree and think it's not that an enterprise level products, more like "plug and play" thing.
Guy's, Cisco is not the only one who makes quality product ^^
We use their cameras & the UniFi Project system. And just recently had a G3-Pro get moisture in the sealed lens right after the one year mark. Now what rubbed me the wrong way is if we’d bought directly from Ubiquiti, it would have been under warranty for another year with no questions asked (buying direct gets you two years warranty), but since we bought from an authorized seller, that warranty was only 1 year. Originally our RMA request was denied, but I reached back out & stated that while I didn’t remember why we bought from an authorized seller (and it was a large online & physical store brand), it was during the pandemic & Ubiquiti could have been out of stock when we needed those cameras. Ultimately they changed their mind and approved our RMA Request. Now where they did sorta win me back, was they sent a better camera (G4-Pro), but that could just be a stock issue, it’s hard to say.
This also doesn’t necessarily seem to be an isolated issue with at least the G3-Pro line from a quick Google Search I did and when I’m dropping $300+ on a camera, I expect it to last more then just outside it’s warranty period. Hopefully this was just a fluke, but I’m now questioning our other G3-Pro’s and hoping it doesn’t, but now also waiting for them to develop a problem.
I've been in the telecommunications biz for 40 plus years, starting in two-way radio (through the 1980's) then paging (1990's), then cellular macro (outdoors) and now work for a company that provides communications gear for the cellular biz to provide coverage solutions indoors (I design, build and write the software for test systems that test communications hardware). In each case I have noticed generally the equipment outlasts the dominant communications technology of that particular time. Honestly if 5G delivers on its promise, I will likely evolve the components of my home networks (wifi, zwave, zigbee, and other proprietary wireless system) to support those newer technologies and abandon wifi all together since the congestion on the wifi bands around my house is terrible. The key is having systems that work together in harmony instead of a mix of un-coordinated systems that are constantly interfering with each other.
I replaced my routers with Mikrotiks. The Unifi Edge Routers POE operated so hot I could heat my home with them. One of them failed on me. The heat finally got to it. While I was at it I also replaced the Unifi WAPs (which are excellent) with cAPs. Beyond their Edge Routers, I found Unifi products to be solid.
You personally gave me so much confidence on using unifi products (first for the msp that I use to work for and now for my one msp that I am started)
And not just for unifi product but overall starting my own msp , u been great help and mentor I would say. On my way to sign my 10th msp client and thanks to you I have tht confidence that I can do it
Thanks 😊
I'm in the middle of having my UDM RMA'd right now. It's about 2 years old and has started not letting me log into it (via any method). It still functions, wifi's up, etc. but I can't log into it to manage it, add new devices, update firmware, yada yada. Fortunately, Ubiquiti support asked me to RMA it (even though it's out of warranty) so while it sucks that it's down, I have to give props to them for their support.
I agree with the assessment. Two small college campuses AP's, Switches, Gateways, etc. All pretty darned solid. Probably two AP's total that had true hardware failures over my 10 years here.
I would really love to hear your take about the unifi "Wifi clients dont receive an IP via DHCP issue". Some background from my point of view. I manage a comany wireless for about 2500 employees (Cisco WLC with a CCNA wireless) and i had my eye on unifi as a cheaper, more modern looking solution. I asked my friend who equips mostly schools with wifi what he thinks about unifi. He said its a great solution except for the fact that they have alot of issues with clients dont getting IP by DHCP. This issue is not something that is fixed in firmware X, but comes back every few firmwares and it drives the customers crazy. Because of this, they dont install unifi at customers anymore, they use mostly aruba. I moved to another house about a year after that ant wanted to give Unifi a shot and installed it privately. Everything ran pretty well. But after a certain firmware upgrade, the DHCP bug hit me. Nothing i could do, the wifi is pretty much uslesess. Had to downgrade and wait for a firmare that fixed it again. Read some forums and Reddit is full of posts that unifi solution has this ever re-occuring issue. Now became more cousous with upgrading and pretty much leave it at the same stage. We then, aquired another company that had 6 offices and used unifi as a solution. I talked to the guy responsible and he said you have to be very very careful with upgrading, in order to avoid the DHCP bug issue. So what is your take? Did you have to deal with this on your customers? If yes, what is your reccomendation to get rid of this issue? I heared things like setting a manual ACL on every AP to work around this issue. Can you recommend these products with this kind of track record? Would love to hear your thoughts about this. Just recently subscribed from your video with david bombal on PFsense. Loved the open mindfullness and being honest about the weaknesses of the product as well.
just to add to the convesation i have setup 3 Ubiquoti UAP-M next to salt lake in hambantota Sri lanka, very salty place but upto now no issues with them fingers crossed, runing continuously for 2years...
Been running Unifi network on an school campus for almost 10 years now. Just finally upgraded the oldest APs to new U6 devices a few months ago, mostly due to to the software complaining about them being obsolete. But to be fair, they really were obsolete, the network runs all around much better and faster with the new APs. I am surprised at how many people have devices already that support WiFi 6, which just makes everything better. As I recall, only one of the APs failed over that 10 years and replacing it was not really a big deal. Also had one small POE switch fail, but it's unclear if that switch actually failed on it's own or if someone did something to it as it was not in a totally secure location and the circumstances were suspicious. Rather insignificant costs anyway in the grand scheme of things. Very happy with all the Unifi gear I have worked with so far and I will continue to use it and recommend it to others.
Home USG power supply block died couple of months after warranty. Well, took random 12V with enough amperage and I keep running USG. It is good that supply is an external device so I didn't have to disassemble anything.
I've got one, 1, count 'em one Unifi AP installed in my home and it works well. However, for large deployments such as that stadium, there's one advantage that Cisco has. With the Cisco Unified Wireless Network (CUWN), instead of connecting to an access point, you connect to a controller, with dumb APs acting as little more than a bridge. With Unifi and most other makes, you connect to an AP and as you move, you have to disconnect from one AP and then connect to the next, which take time. Yes, I know about 802.11r fast BSS transition. With CUWN, you are connected to the central controller, not individual APs, which makes moving among them faster, as you don't have to disconnect & reconnect.
Always used netgear and cisco moved to unifi under your video reviews and they are now deployed to most of our client sites they are really good! Only user netgear really now where I need LACP over two switches! Hoping unifi add this feature soon 🙏
Unifi APs (original 2.4G model) - I blew out a protector when I stuck it on 48V, fixed that, still works. Perfectly solid all that time. AC Pros - same, rock solid. Original CK, it corrupted on me once because it has no backup battery. CK2+, solid; UDM Pro, so far so good (fairly recent buy, I just can't get the gear due to the shortages). POE switch (24 port 250W) has at least one port totally dead. 48 port non-POE (I've got 2 of them) - fine. 16 port POE switch (1st series again) - fine. Other than having no stock for ages, the network gear is good in my view. Camera wise, the 3-series dome cameras were super temperamental with not coming back up again. I actually think that killed that switch port. Newer firmware eventually seemed to improve this. Still haven't been able to order a camera for >1 year now.
Appreciate the video; Clearly as you install and maintain huge numbers of equipment, assuming non-DOA, the gear holds up well.
I always found Cisco equipment to be the most reliable hense why they are still an industry standard. I still have some Cisco switches that dates back to 2012 still in use today in my server rack.
But you're also paying a 500% premium for the hardware, and then there's the licensing costs for the wifi controllers.
@@nuanil I don't pay anything. My unmanaged Cisco 24port doesn't use software that's been in my rack for over 10 years.
I had a G3 flex that disconnected I found the lan cable was corroded and the camera base was full of water because the roof was leaking. I took the camera apart cleaned it and the G3 flex worked again 🤯
It’s a trick question. We don’t know because everyone has a hard time getting their hands on any of these devices, particularly the popular ones like the AC-Lite and EdgerouterX. I have been waiting for the X for 6 months, unless I want to buy one at an exorbitant price.
So far have I’ve had good luck with unifi hard reliability. The biggest issue I’ve had is having unifi wifi 6 lr being doa three times in a row. RMA process was quick about getting replacement units. Took a while but I got them.
Just pulled out a 7 year old setup which had no issues. Most issues I have seen are actually from improper installation or dirty power feeds (including a lightning strike 🤯)
Dude, haven't seen your channel in a while. Whatever you've done recently as far as visuals go look great. New camera? lens? lighting?
Welcome back! And I built a new studio.
Obsolete only really matters if there are major security vulnerabilities that would require an update.
Ubiquiti has not failed me this far, great stability even for carrying video feeds across big distances, I have always used the powerbeams M400 and sector antennas both 120 and 360 degrees and Nano M5s. The 48port switches, no issue whatsoever. Cisco equipment and their licensing model has definitely priced them out of the market, mostly government and financial institutions are willing to spend that much, SME's and lower always go for ubiquiti.
I just upgraded my 5 yr old UniFi switches, usg, and APs. Not a single one died. They all work fine still.
I have a UAP-AC-Lite WAP that I installed for my parents in 2017. My parent has a roach infestation and the WAP is a literal roach nest and I refuse to touch it. Despite this, it's still working well and has a strong signal.
Unifi needs clean power! I have had a few die. But like you mentioned they should have been on a UPS anyways.
Loving Unifi. most Problem Occure because of incorrect setup. thought i recently had a small 5 Port Unifi Switch (flex mini) that wouldnt get adopted at any cost even thought its 7 Brothers happily did so.
For Ever. i have OG equipment and they still work. not as good as new stuff but still get the job done for what I need. but that's just because of software and new tech. good power strip with power cleaning you will be all set.
I'm running a couple dozen nanobeam and Powerbeam radios, With Poe pass through enabled on the aircubes. They seem to be having a lot of issues.
I've had 2 unify access points for a couple of years no problems
I got a fair bit of point to point gear going over the ocean, I'm impressed but have had a 1 year old cloud key gen2 plus go bad
I have 3 Unifi UAP access points that are no longer supported for our guest network. I'm trying to decide if they represent enough of a threat to replace them, or if I can live dangerously for a while longer.
I bought 2 APs, 3 switches, and an edgerouter-x-sfp-6-port last year. I really like thr product for my home. The only issues I've had is with l2tp and openvpn - i can't get it to work and reading similar issues it looks like a running a really old firmware solves the issue. Unfortunately I haven't seen any firmware updates so that's my only bad experience with it
I love my UniFi gear! I have a UDM-Pro, EdgeSwitch 16 150W, UVC G3 Flex/G4/G4 Pro cameras as well a LAN for other devices.
I’ve only experienced some very minor issues with the Protect App freezing.
I’m not an IT professional, but an Electrical Engineering student and I believe that Ubiquiti make really robust gear and wouldn’t buy anything else!
Another excellent video by Tom!
well i have unifi AP AC lite 🤣, i install it around 2019, there is one router that kinda weird is the reset button is broken when I try to re-configure my whole network last month. but yah it is still working perfectly. i think for the price, it is kinda pricey for home user tho.
Anyone having great success and long term I am happy for you. 1 key is make sure the environment is a climate controlled and temperature suited environment unless using the actual "fit for outdoors or high temperature" gear. Their software gave us fits, tough switches were not that tough couldn't stand small industrial plants, APs we were swapping out in environments if they were not put in office spaces with heating or air, but I will give them credit their RA dept always worked and was on the spot. Just too much back-end trouble for us to deal with. I love supporting customers but when it becomes an all year job it makes you look bad as well so that is the reason we had to let it go.
recent firmware/update of aclite no longer can connect to in app. still works, but now unstable software experience.
Interesting talk as always Tom! Have you any experience with hotel installs with more then 200 APs?
Yes I have, they work.
the main reason you replace hardware is because of the security patches no longer will be around to prevent a network takeover and the hardware will quit one day too plus wifi 6e will be a great replacement as well its meant for less issues like discounts better coverage too
Great video! Would love to see a video on how many vlans you create for a company between 50-100 employees. For Wi-Fi I guess the max is 4, but what about wired connections. When should I use VLANs and can I have too many or too view?
Hey so I’ve been looking into getting an orbi rbke963 WiFi 6E mesh system. I also plan on hard wiring both satellites into the main router so the satellites are more like access points I guess. What would be something comparable that ubiquity offers. I really like that the orbi system is pretty much plug and play does but have heard a lot people talk highly of ubiquity.
Unifi lasts a long time! I have UAPs installed 7 years ago still working flawlessly! In fact I need to replace them because their 2.4ghz and need some 5G.
Interested about how long different companies support their devices/firmware/security
Great video thanks for your input!
Glad it was helpful!
Our 11 Gen 1 switches lasted 9 years still going strong just replaced them because we are rolling dice now
I work with a lot of people that love the unify AP but I have yet to work much with the there routers and switches.
What lens are you using in this video? Any info is appreciated.
Here is all my studio gear kit.co/lawrencesystems/lawrence-systems-studio-parts-list
My old (about 6-7 yeaars) UAP indoor dishes/ap's seemto be giving up. 2 of 3 died for no apparent reason. They where working fine then out of nowhere they went unadopted, and they won't re-adopt. even factory reset did not change anything. it seems they can be scrapped and that sort of makes me hesitant to buy more ubiquiti (my nanostation P2P still works great)
i can verify that ubiquiti airmax gear lasts about 4-5 years in active salt air/water environment. only solution for longer use would be stainless hardware
My concern with with ubiquiti is not reliability I think they are on par with say Cisco or Aruba, it’s lack or product lifecycle documentation, they need to improve this.
Not me sitting over here still running a Gen1 UAP... Something about that green circle.
The wireless products I can’t promote enough. They just work, even the older devices still just work. Hope the quality stays!
I’ve had two AP-AC-IW devices fail. Out of warranty. All other UniFi devices have worked without issue for years
Thank you, Tom,for another valuable post.
Do you by any chance know (perhaps via back channel) when Unify will start to have the devices in stock. Is there a backup plan etc.
I have few home projects for my family and would like to stick with unify instead of going with a different manufacturer, especially that I already know Unify platform.
Thanks
Not that I know of, we are all waiting for the supply chain to catch up with demand.
I work for an HVAC company and we are still seeing things get worse, not better. Lead-times on equipment is growing, not shrinking. Used to be if it wasn’t in-stock, it was a standard 4 to 6 weeks (maybe worse case 8 weeks). I just quoted a job where the lead times were all pretty much 20+ weeks with more then a few hitting 30 weeks (which is 9 MONTHS). And all our suppliers don’t have any idea when it’s gonna get better or at least stabilize.
I agree with you on that yes engineering, manufacturing has gotten better.
as far as the WiFi goes for Unifi. i will say the 4 to 5 year rang is where i have been seeing the failure rate spike. Outside of the usual one off where 1 has died with in 18 months. I feel that 6 years is pushing it. If you client started look at it at the 5 year mark. well i cant say they are behind.
Solid (organic polymer) capacitors are probably the number one reason why many devices are now more reliable. That and lower power consumption density.
I have a lot of ubiquiti antennas and cameras outside for few years and its build to last. My cameras are juste simple G3 Flex and they are not IP69 and not IP68...dont remember the rating but its only splash and my Flex are direct expose to rain and I have one at 90 feet high in a tower with any protection.
I just be careful at the installation to have cable going downward to not have water stream from the cable goin inside the ethernet ports.
And of course I always put grease in my ethernet ports to avoid extra humidity.
My old NSM5 are still doing great at 90 feet in my tower and they turned yellow with the sun but still rock solid.
A lot of PoE unifi switch and unifi APs too with no hardware issue since installation...around 2015
Great hardware so far.
EXCEPT FOR 1 PRODUCT LINE......Bullet series...installed a few for companies and it keeps dying. They are too tiny and gets too hot and dies. Or they took water damage.
I’ve had great experiences with UAPs and USWs, but both UDMs I’ve ever deployed have died within 1.5 years - one from a fan issue and another couldn’t boot up.
Great video!
Spend $5000 ish so far on my unifi home network 😐
Planned out $2000 more for this year
Hey hey Hey!!!! How about the unifi Cameras and Protect??? Thanks
Well, I have noticed with my AP is the soft-touch plastic coating has started the react with dust and looks really grubby.
arg i have 4x EOL UAP LR 2.4ghZ i used in remote operations, they no longer grab DHCPs after updating. Couldn't figure it out so I just bought new AC equipment. But those will still be good hardware if i could get them to resolve... old USG/Controller software required maybe?
Just remember to document the SSH password. The biggest issue I've had is controllers crashing or disappearing and having to reset dozens of devices to get management of them again!
Dear Ubiquiti, please don’t EOL the second hand kit I bought last year - not just yet 😂
What about Unifi Cameras?? I purchased a few years ago the G3, 5 pack, 2 died just over a year (one failed completely, one the ir switch stopped working), then a 3rd died at 2 years. Then they dropped their software, so I just got rid of them all. Glad I did as the remaining camera's I have (some G3 flexes, which work better than the G3s which images are crap compared to the other brands I have (mix of dahua mostly and hikvision, or rebrands of those).
Home user with 10 G3 cameras, 6 of which failed at 18 to 24 months for IR cut filter failure. By 36 months 2 more for IR and one just failed. So 9/10 failures in 36 months 6/10 in 18 -24 months. Also 1 of three interior AP Lites failed at 24 months.
Is the real ubiquiti question good enough and does it have enough features? now how does it compare with mikrotik? mikrotik appears to be used on more solid projects as well. to date I have only used cisco, hp, alvarion and netgear for the low end. for home, however, I thought of using ubiquiti or mikrotik because I do not have to pay annual subscriptions I would like to create a 10gb network. I was also thinking of creating a small proxmox server based on supermicro what do you think?
I had a unifi 8 port switch die at home after 2 years and they refused to RMA it. I had a 8 port Cisco 2906 die after a few years. It was outside I'm a box in the FL heat. I called Cisco and they sent me a replacement next business day.
10 years ago unifi😁 still use never fails
They do just last in normal use, for every 1 person who has a failure there are thousands that don't, 10+ years of use for AP's is damn good for some of ours
IF UinFi ticks your use case boxes then I think it is a very inexpensive good quality way to go. Yes the routers are missing some stuff that honestly they shouldn't be missing. I'm looking at you DHCP lease status screen WTF!
It's the software that is the issue. It takes them forever to get something stable then they abandon it. My ER4 was a great example. And the unifi wifi code above v4 is horribly unstable. I run their stuff at home. I trust the Nanostation M5's but not the AC-Pros.