So a long time ago I wrote a thread describing my experiences with Ubiquiti's UniFi. I actually had to write it twice as both were under Seth's forum and the data got lost twice. UniFi is basically prosumer networking equipment. I'm not going to gloss over everything or how it's exactly setup but here's the general idea.
I have a USG as the router, an 8 port 150W switch, a cloud key gen2, and 5 access points. The reason I went with UniFi is because we have two houses on our property. Our ISP wanted to charge both as separate connections. That may not have been the end of the world except for the fact that the prices are over $200 a month. So buying UniFi has saved us $200 a month which obviously paid off the initial cost of the equipment very quickly. Our house is extremely large at 4000sqft so we have 3 access points in the house. So I'll go over every product now
- The USG. I didn't quite realize it's over 10 years old when I bought it, so it certainly is showing its age. It can do a 1 gig connection both ways but only do IDS/IPS at 85 mpbs. IDS/IPS stands for Intrusion Detection System / Intrusion Prevention System and basically scans all network traffic for threats. The USG is the cheapest and I'm actually glad I went with it. There are newer products such as the Dream Machine Pro, but they've been plagued with firmware issues since it came out.
- The switch. It's a switch, not too exciting. I have one in each house and they work fine. They do run hot, but I'm getting fans to help with that. It does the only two things I need it to do which is lock an Ethernet port to only one device and assign different VLANS to each port.
- The access points. By far the best thing Ubiquiti makes. The access points are really good. I got the AC Lites which are the cheapest at just $99 each. They aren't the best, but they certainly exceeded my expectations. The range isn't amazing but the speeds are really good. I should have gotten the AC Long Range instead. Ubiquiti has come out with their WiFi 6 access points (U6) but I haven't tested any of them. I did buy one AC Pro and the difference is apparent in range. But seriously, for just $99 it's a pretty dang good access point.
The problem unfortunately is their buggy firmware. I used to upgrade every release. My initial version was 5.14.23 for the controller and 4.3.20 on the access points and switches. I upgraded to the new 6.x versions for the controller and 5.x versions for switches and access points. It got buggier and buggier every update. I actually took down the entire network for a day to redo the entire thing from scratch. I went back to 5.14.23 and 4.3.20 for everything and all the issues went away. I apparently bought my equipment at the right time as it was actually the last good firmware update released by Ubiquiti. Ever since July 2020, the entire software quality went down the garbage. That sort of explains why I had such a bad experience and why people said it was so good. Now that I'm back on the older versions, it actually has been trouble free. There were so many issues and UI changes in the new firmwares, but the old versions are rock solid. Ever since downgrading the equipment has been running continuously for 2-3 months. I would have had to reboot every week on the newer versions.
So that's basically one year with UniFi. Do I recommend it now? No, not really. I was lucky to get everything before it all went downhill but I wouldn't recommend investing in it now
