{"id":2278,"date":"2018-07-25T20:27:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T01:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/?p=2278"},"modified":"2018-07-25T20:27:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T01:27:43","slug":"you-dont-need-it-but-you-might-want-it-any-way-ubiquiti-unifi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2278","title":{"rendered":"You don’t need it, but you might want it any way: Ubiquiti Unifi"},"content":{"rendered":"

TL;DR;<\/h2>\n

The Ubiquiti Networks UniFi<\/a> products are absolutely worth considering if you’re looking to upgrade your home or small office network to a reasonably affordable, manageable, configurable, and expandable setup.<\/p>\n

A complete setup probably costs more than you’re comfortable spending on network infrastructure, but you’re worth it.<\/p>\n

Details<\/h2>\n

There’s a lot of information available generally about this company and their products available on the Internet. I won’t attempt to do a 15-25 page Ars Technica<\/a> style expose on the details. Instead, I’ll focus on the features that I’ve been using and the some highs and lows of the product experience.<\/p>\n

Lesson 1<\/h3>\n

\"Cloud<\/a>I made the mistake of installing the controller software on a laptop first. I hadn’t understood that for maximal data logging and the best management experience, it’s best if it’s installed on a server or workstation that is available 24×7. I decided the ideal option is the Ubiquiti Cloud Key<\/a> was the most effective choice. Low power, no moving parts, plug and play. The cloud software uses a bunch of software like Java that you may not want to install on your server or shared workstation, so take my advice and include one in your budget for a robust Ubiquiti setup. There are instructions available for installation on a Raspberry Pi if you’re so inclined to go it on your own tiny hardware.<\/p>\n

I will say that I’ve needed to reboot the device\/software a few times over the past few months, but it’s been generally very stable. I’m not sure what caused the issue. So, make sure you don’t tuck this away so far you can’t unplug and restart it if necessary.<\/p>\n

Devices<\/h3>\n

I live in a larger house and when we built it I had 4 ethernet jacks installed in nearly every room. Rather than try to determine which jacks had equipment installed, I’ve always had every jack wired for ethernet to a series of network switches. So, for the Ubiquiti equipment, I bought 3 Ubiquiti US-24<\/a> managed switches. These switches don’t support power over ethernet, so if you’re considering it, you’ll need to upgrade to the more expensive US-24 250W<\/a>.\u00a0 Not wanting to connect the switches with a boring Ethernet cable, I opted for several sets of the fiber connections, the\u00a0Ubiquiti Networks\u00a0UF-MM-1G<\/a>. Compared to the overall setup price, these and the corresponding fiber cable is inexpensive. By using the fiber connection, none of the ethernet ports were used as interconnects.<\/p>\n

Patch Cables<\/h3>\n

\"SlimRun\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

I took it as an opportunity to recable the patch panel connection terminals as well with what is now my favorite network cable, the Monoprice SlimRun Ethernet 6A patch cable<\/a>. As my new setup was about double the length from where I’d mounted two network switches in the past, new cables were necessary. I bought a few different colors to indicate types of connections …, but the result was so pleasing…, just a nice manageable bundle of cables. It felt almost organized vs. a cabling nightmare. These cables are more expensive and the boot is 50-100% longer than typical patch cables. So, be sure that you have room to accommodate them, especially if you’re using a patch panel. My patch panel with these cables isn’t a perfect fit, but I made it work.<\/p>\n

I picked colors based on cable prices. There’s a variety of colors and it seems if you buy them on Amazon that they vary quite a lot in price depending on the color and length combination. Blue and a gray were the least expensive when I purchased. I bought some orange to indicate “interconnects” (between managed switches) and “red” to indicate a power over Ethernet style connection or other critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Software Defined Networking<\/h3>\n

I’ve explored quite a few networking switches, routers, firewalls, SOHO devices, custom firmware, including consumer, prosumer, and professional models over the years. There have been a lot of highs and lows. I used various open source routers for many years with a “Tomato<\/a>” based firmware replacement (on various pieces of hardware). While it was generally very stable and had a number of useful features, it wasn’t fun anymore (and new features useful to me weren’t being added). I wanted to try something new.<\/p>\n

My first attempt was Google’s OnHub and later I added a more complete\u00a0Google’s Wifi<\/a>\u00a0setup. Admittedly, I bought in too early. The Google Wifi was missing a lot of features from the Tomato firmware (and other competitive products). But, over a period of 18 months, it reached a reasonable feature parity (and exceeded in several cases). Most of the functionality was easy to use. I liked the setup well enough that I bought one for my father’s house so I can help him when he’s having trouble. It’s been rock solid for 9+ months for him with no unplanned reboots needed. If you read reviews of Google Wifi, make sure the reviews are recent, as there was a lot of people that bought it too early, and then complained LOUDLY when they realized that it didn’t have the features they wanted (even though Google hadn’t mentioned them in marketing literature — there was just an expectation that it would have an identical or better feature set).<\/p>\n

My biggest issue was that I have a number of Internet of Things devices that just wouldn’t work with the Google Wifi. Several of the devices in my house still require 2.4Ghz connections and couldn’t successfully negotiate with Google Wifi. So, I had to strategically place a few older 2.4Ghz routers around my house to provide service to the older devices. Honestly, it was workable, but sucked from a configuration and reliability perspective. I’m sure I didn’t have the frequencies adequately arranged and there were likely constant conflicts.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I decided that I wanted a setup that would allow me to have more control over my network without needing multiple Wifi access points around to service both new and old devices. I also really wanted a\u00a0web<\/strong> based portal for configuration. Google Wifi is only through an Android or iPhone app (there isn’t even an app that takes advantage of an iPad’s larger screen — it’s simply a scaled iPhone app).<\/p>\n

In the prosumer price point, Ubiquiti hardware seems to lead the pack. They have lines for consumer as well, but I wanted the middle ground option.<\/p>\n

Their Software<\/h3>\n

Given that their solution is built to provide a software defined networking stack, I’ll walk you through a bit of the experience from my perspective.<\/p>\n

Firstly, I mentioned I had some experience with a number of hardware and firmware options. The easiest to use overall was Google Wifi. The hardest is a race to the bottom, many of the options blur together in my memory to form a perfectly awful experience. Ubiquiti can never be as simple to use as Google Wifi — they just are not in the same markets nor are the features comparable. That being said, I’m remarkably competent using the Ubiquiti Cloud Controller software. Thankfully Ubiquiti has seriously good documentation for many real world scenarios that you might want to use. Some of the documentation is a bit out of date, but the core is generally still accurate and gets the job done.<\/p>\n

For example, it took about 10 minutes to setup a robust L2TP\/IPSec VPN service so that I could connect from my devices back to my home network. It’s great as it’s supported on iOS and Windows 10 out of the box.<\/p>\n