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One of the reasons I have used Ubiquiti over the last few years is their product quality over other networking hardware. The inclusion of ads leads me to revisi
by errantmind 6y ago
One of the reasons I have used Ubiquiti over the last few years is their product quality over other networking hardware. The inclusion of ads leads me to revisit those assumptions before my next purchase.
Ads, even if self-promotion, are a bellwether for a company being desperate or greedy, neither of which bodes well for their long-term product quality, usually because it indicates sales people are making the decisions. They also often lead to a slippery slope of increasing user data collection
- andremedeiros 6y agoThe funny thing is that I have a UDMP on the way, because one of my APs died and I figured it was time to upgrade the network a bit, but now I'm refusing delivery and sending it back for a full refund.
- jonpurdy 6y agoI was considering replacing my AP AC Lite with whatever 6E equivalent comes out when 6E is approved. I considered picking up a NanoHD for the extra MIMO speeds, but in the meantime I keep seeing problems with reliability, the 6.x Unifi version, UDM needing to be rebooted, etc. Even if Ubiquiti was as good as it was pre-2019, if they pulled this advertising stunt then I'd not consider upgrading. There's now no chance I'll be sticking with Ubiquiti for my 6E upgrade.
- anyfoo 6y agoMy nanoHD reboots frequently with current firmware. Sometimes it needs readoption, sometimes a manual reset to be readopted. The AP AC Pro seems less affected.
- jonpurdy 6y agoThanks for that input. My AP AC Lite has been absolutely rock solid so I wouldn't want reduced reliability; it's the reason I went with Unifi in the first place. Not that it matters; no chance I'll be going with Unifi in the future.
- anyfoo 6y agoYeah, and thanks to your comment it actually got me thinking that I can (at least temporarily) mitigate my current situation by taking the nanoHD out of the loop entirely, as I do have another spare AP AC Pro in my closet. I also got the nanoHD because of extra MIMO speed (among other things, it's feeding my home office setup wirelessly), but the egregious loss in stability is not worth it.
- vetinari 6y agoDowngrade your nanoHD back to 4.x firmware. That way you get to keep your MIMO speed with stable device, you will only lose WPA3 support (if you use it, it is a new thing in the latest controller).
- greg5green 6y agoMy FlexHD is perfect on my USG, so ymmv.
- hderms 6y agoI was on the fence about buying some ubiquiti stuff. Now there's little chance. Do you have any recommendations for competing products?
- crocsarecool 6y agoWe upgraded to Ubiquiti a few months ago. I was so impressed by the hardware for the price. The dream machine firewall had such a good interface compared to more expensive firewalls I’ve used in the past. I’ve been very pleased so far, but this and another article have me worried they’re going downhill.
- andremedeiros 6y agoMind sharing the other article?
- crocsarecool 6y agoSorry! It was this one. I guess it wasn’t the article so much as the comments on it. Former employees were lamenting the management at Ubiquiti, and users in the thread mentioned they noticed some rumblings of a decline in quality. Like I said, I’ve been happy so far, and I’m hoping that lasts. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25735032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25735032
- gregoryl 6y agoAs a flip side experience, I have a dream machine too; it ignored my auto update settings and updated itself anyway, there's no way to roll back, and it now regularly stops responding, has high packet loss over wifi and supports response was effectively "go jump". Very unhappy.
- xvf22 6y agoI have all aps and controller blocked from the internet for that very reason. Don't tell me when to update heh. Really sucks about not being able to roll things back.
- jnsaff2 6y agoYea, I've had a few problems with UDM as well. The management UI/controller container has died numerous times so to get visibility into whats happening I need to ssh in and restart that container or restart the router. I've also had numerous cases where routing has stopped for no reason. This I find really bad as, "it has one job ...".
- dkdk8283 6y agoUbiquiti products are not quality. They beta test in prod, more less.
- nodesocket 6y agoTechnically it's an advertisement for their own product. I have around $1,500 worth of various routers, switches, and cameras from Ubiquiti in my house and don't really mind. Agreed, the "ad" is very large and there should be a way to close it and never show again (cookie or local storage). However I think this HN title is misleading (clickbait and outrage driven) as they are not making ad revenue as one would infer.
- andremedeiros 6y agoHow is pegging and selling the successor to what I have not making ad revenue? The difference is that they’re not selling pixels for money, they’re trading pixels for sales.
- noahtallen 6y agoThe main difference in my opinion is that typical advertising is a lot more privacy invasive and malicious. Tons of cross-site tracking, ads of dubious quality, getting 3 ads per 5 minutes of YouTube, etc. I’m not frustrated when I get an email or dismissible banner ad from a company regarding a new product. It’s possibly interesting to me, and easily dismissible if not. Sure, technically, this is advertising. But the biggest problems people have with advertising (privacy invasion, seeing too many ads, or seeing low-quality ads) aren’t present in this example. It’s advertising in the exact same way that GitHub might show a banner informing me of a new plan they have. While it can be annoying, yes, I would disagree that it’s “as bad” as typical advertising practices.
- pseudalopex 6y agoThey said it can't be dismissed.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630127
- EveYoung 6y agoEven if they only advertise their own products, they will probably become interested in conversion rates and customer segmentation at some point. Or they want to advertise on other sites as well. One way to do this, would be to include trackers from ad-networks, such as Merkle M1, in the admin dashboard.
- philsnow 6y ago> Ads, even if self-promotion, are a bellwether for a company being desperate or greedy from 2003: https://www.theregister.com/2003/11/07/help_my_belkin_router/ https://www.theregister.com/2003/11/07/help_my_belkin_router... I have never bought a belkin product since.