9 ms·

Ubiquiti has really fallen far. The 5.x series of controller with the AP AC (S)HD was great, but everything since has been hot garbage. The 6.x series of contro

by kogir 6y ago

Ubiquiti has really fallen far. The 5.x series of controller with the AP AC (S)HD was great, but everything since has been hot garbage. The 6.x series of controllers is still basically a public beta and riddled with bugs. The newer MediaTek based APs have constant problems with client device compatibility, and can’t even reliably support DHCP on the newest official firmware and controller versions (or any of the last 10 releases). I strongly advise you to look anywhere else for your WiFi needs unless they really turn the ship around somehow.

justinjlynn 6y ago
It's really sad. I used to recommend UniFi and their other hardware without a second's hesitation to all of my friends and the software and hardware quality control has just gone so far down hill. Now they're putting ads and privacy violating code in the admin user interface? What a complete disregard for user security and privacy in one of the most important places for it. Ugh. Add that to their GPL violations ( https://web.archive.org/web/20170317174847/http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170317174847/http://libertybsd... ) and it's just too much for me going forward. I won't be installing or recommending Ubiquiti gear any more.
- vvanders 6y ago
  Yeah it's a pretty big bummer. I used to recommend their stuff a lot and I don't know if I'll be able to do that from now on. It's not like their hardware is cheap, I'd much rather pay a monthly subscription than be served ads.
  - justinjlynn 6y ago
    I'd like to receive security updates for at least the warranty life of the device, but I wouldn't mind paying for new features/major versions of the firmware. That said, owning what I've bought is non-negotiable. I paid for what I bought and I'm not going to allow myself, or my friends, to be turned into a product.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    > I'd much rather pay a monthly subscription than be served ads. Why not both?! /s but probably for real eventually.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - sneak 6y ago
      This is what Chase bank does in their app.
- user3939382 6y ago
  I’m in the same boat. I think it’s pretty weird that these days I’m more comfortable setting up a new router on the OpenBSD command line than I am with a Ubiquiti GUI. TP-Link has actually upped their game with routers and APs lately. The next time I’m doing an installation that doesn’t need big-boy stuff from Cisco I’m going with them.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Give Mikrotik a look, too. Their HW is solid and while the UIs are decidedly old-school, they also expose just about every configuration option you could want, and everything can be configured from the command line.
- lilyball 6y ago
  What privacy violating code?
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Google Analytics at least.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629518
    - kmlx 6y ago
      GA is used across the web...
      - Lev1a 6y ago
        GA being used doesn't even remotely mean it's anything good.
      - unionpivo 6y ago
        > GA is used across the web And that's it's biggest problem. If only few sites used it, it wouldn't be that big of a deal
worldmerge 6y ago
Do you have any brands you would recommended for home use for "prosumers"?
- karlshea 6y ago
  I keep researching the same thing and it’s not great, everything else is significantly more expensive.
- biftek 6y ago
  I recently upgraded my home network and went with mikrotik (an RB4011). RouterOS is incredibly deep
  - izacus 6y ago
    It's also incredibly userunfriendly and lacking features for home users. I have both UniFi APs and a Mikrotik router and configuring RouterOS reminds me of trying to setup PPPoE internet on a Linux machine in 1990s. A lot of manual settings with obvious features (NAT acceleration, NAT loopback, good VPN client, easy QoS, reasonable firewall) being extremely hard to configure well in comparison to competing SOHO equipment.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      Yes, Mikrotik allows tweaking everything, but if home user is not interested in that, there's Quick Set for configuring the common scenarios. Opposite way is much harder, as we can see with Ubiquiti: they hide and remove options, that are needed. With USG devices, I could have config.gateway.json configuration for some of those hidden options (like having site-to-site VPN using hostnames instead of IP addresses... well, Unifi UI cannot do that, but strongswan doing the IPSec on Unifi has no problem doint that). With UnifiOS devices, they are not addressing the issues, they are taking away the workarounds instead. So they can advertise as much as they want, until they make devices fit for the purpose, there's no point in purchasing them. I don't see the situation improving anytime soon, they don't listen on their own community forums.
    - 6y ago
comboy 6y ago
I second that. Despite investing in their infrastructure and recommending to friends (so basically being biased to like it) they just don't seem to care anymore. I'm waiting for some company to take their place. And I don't see how making router software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > I don't see how making router software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win. There are several business tactics that are foreclosed by making the router software open source, mostly around price discrimination. For example, you can't sell the same hardware for different prices with some hardware features turned off in the higher-volume cheaper SKU (which lets you apply greater efficiencies of scale to producing the hardware). Of course, most companies that use price discrimination are only trying to maximize their profits, but it is worth noting that since hardware vendors that keep their software closed are able to pursue this tactic, it can leave hardware vendors with open software at somewhat of a disadvantage.
  - officialjunk 6y ago
    isn't tesla selling cars of the same hardware at different prices with some hardware features turned off at lower prices?
    - sitkack 6y ago
      > software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win Tesla doesn't release the software to their cars.
croutonwagon 6y ago
Ive been using them since gen1 hardware on 2.6 controllers. And their advertised features like zero handoff were hot garbage. Their channel selection to this day still sucks and isn’t even self aware. I often have multiple aps on the same channel close enough they have their own co-channel interference. This even happens on 5Ghz where theres plenty of space, not even considering DFS and I live in the country. Standards like fast roaming are fraught with issues. And at one point they added call homes/telemetry. I think the 5.x code. That is to say they have always been buggy in one form or another. More so than other vendors like Aruba or Cisco, I’ve managed both at campus scale in a previous life. I wouldn’t put them in an enterprise but a smb or soho deployment sure. When they did the call homes/telemetry I created some firewall rules for the controller. The controller can only talk to the Ubuntu repos. Aps are on a private vlan with no internet. I only open the controller up for Ubnt upgrades and then shut down the rules and disable the ubnt repos in sources.list. If I were someone new in the market I would look at the ruckus unleashed platform for wifi. You can get aps with extensive features cheaper, especially grey market. I would and have avoided UBNT for all routing and switching.
- acidbaseextract 6y ago
  With the depth of your experience, what's your prosumer recommendation? MikroTik?
  - sathackr 6y ago
    Mikrotik has a great feature set and is mostly stable for the mainstream features. Where they really fall apart is wifi throughput. Most devices won't top 400mb/s. There is some hope on the horizon with v7 and the newest devices like Audience. Have seen reports of 1.3gb/s on these. But it's barely even beta right now. Ruckus is pretty solid and you can usually find them used for great prices. Many units have a stand alone firmware available that negates the need for a controller.
    - jcpham2 6y ago
      We used to operate a satellite office whose primary internet service was Mikrotik directional AP’s bridged at both ends and this was maybe a half mile line of sight uplink. My testing even on gigabit chipsets mirrors your 400 mbit per AP comment, at least in my situation.
xenadu02 6y ago
Haven't they fired most of their engineers and outsourced development?
donmcronald 6y ago
The craziest part is they were poised to dominated the SOHO / MSP markets. There’s NO competition or viable products in those markets. I’ve searched high and low. Instead of focusing on their strengths like great value with self hosted management infrastructure, they look like they’re setting up to force subscriptions on their users. All of the subscription BS for centralized management is so expensive that it’s literally cheaper to hire someone to manage everything by hand (the old fashioned way).
- bigiain 6y ago
  This.If I’m gonna have to waste time and effort to block my network gear sending its spy data back home, and blocking ads it tries to show, why wouldn’t I just do that on much cheaper throwaway Chinese hardware? I’m much more likely to buy stuff like TPLink gear that can be flashed with OpenWRT, or jump feet first into Mikrotik gear - than ever spend more money on Ubiquity’s modern shitware...
  - rubatuga 6y ago
    Try a used WRT1200AC, it has an extremely powerful ARM processor, and is super stable. I'm getting >500Mbit over 5GHz on a 2x2 antenna setup.
    - kmlx 6y ago
      WRT1200AC. the worst experience i have ever had with a router. the moment i plugged in my NAS the whole thing froze and had to be force rebooted. every 3-6 hours the wifi just died and had to be again force rebooted. will not touch linksys again. they're a consumer brand, and my requirements are clearly SMB. imo their best product was the WRT54GL.
      - stragies 6y ago
        Was that running the original Firmware, or OpenWRT? In my experience, all vendor firmwares are to be regarded just as "proof-of-electrical-functioning", to be replaced with a OpenWRT running a recent kernel. Similar to how to you reinstall/upgrade a new laptop on the second boot fresh out the box.
jcpham2 6y ago
Thanks for this
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 6y ago
Big tech swing that didn’t connect? Has the makings of an internal power struggle where the people who actually hold things together we’re not on board and bailed.
eloisant 6y ago
Until now I loved Ubiquiti. So what do you recommend for high quality mesh wifi?

by kogir 6y ago

justinjlynn 6y ago

It's really sad. I used to recommend UniFi and their other hardware without a second's hesitation to all of my friends and the software and hardware quality control has just gone so far down hill. Now they're putting ads and privacy violating code in the admin user interface? What a complete disregard for user security and privacy in one of the most important places for it. Ugh. Add that to their GPL violations ( https://web.archive.org/web/20170317174847/http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170317174847/http://libertybsd... ) and it's just too much for me going forward. I won't be installing or recommending Ubiquiti gear any more.

vvanders 6y ago
Yeah it's a pretty big bummer. I used to recommend their stuff a lot and I don't know if I'll be able to do that from now on. It's not like their hardware is cheap, I'd much rather pay a monthly subscription than be served ads.
- justinjlynn 6y ago
  I'd like to receive security updates for at least the warranty life of the device, but I wouldn't mind paying for new features/major versions of the firmware. That said, owning what I've bought is non-negotiable. I paid for what I bought and I'm not going to allow myself, or my friends, to be turned into a product.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > I'd much rather pay a monthly subscription than be served ads. Why not both?! /s but probably for real eventually.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sneak 6y ago
    This is what Chase bank does in their app.
user3939382 6y ago
I’m in the same boat. I think it’s pretty weird that these days I’m more comfortable setting up a new router on the OpenBSD command line than I am with a Ubiquiti GUI. TP-Link has actually upped their game with routers and APs lately. The next time I’m doing an installation that doesn’t need big-boy stuff from Cisco I’m going with them.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  Give Mikrotik a look, too. Their HW is solid and while the UIs are decidedly old-school, they also expose just about every configuration option you could want, and everything can be configured from the command line.
lilyball 6y ago
What privacy violating code?
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Google Analytics at least.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629518
  - kmlx 6y ago
    GA is used across the web...
    - Lev1a 6y ago
      GA being used doesn't even remotely mean it's anything good.
    - unionpivo 6y ago
      > GA is used across the web And that's it's biggest problem. If only few sites used it, it wouldn't be that big of a deal

worldmerge 6y ago

Do you have any brands you would recommended for home use for "prosumers"?

karlshea 6y ago
I keep researching the same thing and it’s not great, everything else is significantly more expensive.
biftek 6y ago
I recently upgraded my home network and went with mikrotik (an RB4011). RouterOS is incredibly deep
- izacus 6y ago
  It's also incredibly userunfriendly and lacking features for home users. I have both UniFi APs and a Mikrotik router and configuring RouterOS reminds me of trying to setup PPPoE internet on a Linux machine in 1990s. A lot of manual settings with obvious features (NAT acceleration, NAT loopback, good VPN client, easy QoS, reasonable firewall) being extremely hard to configure well in comparison to competing SOHO equipment.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    Yes, Mikrotik allows tweaking everything, but if home user is not interested in that, there's Quick Set for configuring the common scenarios. Opposite way is much harder, as we can see with Ubiquiti: they hide and remove options, that are needed. With USG devices, I could have config.gateway.json configuration for some of those hidden options (like having site-to-site VPN using hostnames instead of IP addresses... well, Unifi UI cannot do that, but strongswan doing the IPSec on Unifi has no problem doint that). With UnifiOS devices, they are not addressing the issues, they are taking away the workarounds instead. So they can advertise as much as they want, until they make devices fit for the purpose, there's no point in purchasing them. I don't see the situation improving anytime soon, they don't listen on their own community forums.
  - 6y ago

comboy 6y ago

I second that. Despite investing in their infrastructure and recommending to friends (so basically being biased to like it) they just don't seem to care anymore. I'm waiting for some company to take their place. And I don't see how making router software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win.

webmaven 6y ago
> I don't see how making router software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win. There are several business tactics that are foreclosed by making the router software open source, mostly around price discrimination. For example, you can't sell the same hardware for different prices with some hardware features turned off in the higher-volume cheaper SKU (which lets you apply greater efficiencies of scale to producing the hardware). Of course, most companies that use price discrimination are only trying to maximize their profits, but it is worth noting that since hardware vendors that keep their software closed are able to pursue this tactic, it can leave hardware vendors with open software at somewhat of a disadvantage.
- officialjunk 6y ago
  isn't tesla selling cars of the same hardware at different prices with some hardware features turned off at lower prices?
  - sitkack 6y ago
    > software open source for a company that is selling hardware is not a win Tesla doesn't release the software to their cars.

croutonwagon 6y ago

Ive been using them since gen1 hardware on 2.6 controllers. And their advertised features like zero handoff were hot garbage. Their channel selection to this day still sucks and isn’t even self aware. I often have multiple aps on the same channel close enough they have their own co-channel interference. This even happens on 5Ghz where theres plenty of space, not even considering DFS and I live in the country. Standards like fast roaming are fraught with issues. And at one point they added call homes/telemetry. I think the 5.x code. That is to say they have always been buggy in one form or another. More so than other vendors like Aruba or Cisco, I’ve managed both at campus scale in a previous life. I wouldn’t put them in an enterprise but a smb or soho deployment sure. When they did the call homes/telemetry I created some firewall rules for the controller. The controller can only talk to the Ubuntu repos. Aps are on a private vlan with no internet. I only open the controller up for Ubnt upgrades and then shut down the rules and disable the ubnt repos in sources.list. If I were someone new in the market I would look at the ruckus unleashed platform for wifi. You can get aps with extensive features cheaper, especially grey market. I would and have avoided UBNT for all routing and switching.

acidbaseextract 6y ago
With the depth of your experience, what's your prosumer recommendation? MikroTik?
- sathackr 6y ago
  Mikrotik has a great feature set and is mostly stable for the mainstream features. Where they really fall apart is wifi throughput. Most devices won't top 400mb/s. There is some hope on the horizon with v7 and the newest devices like Audience. Have seen reports of 1.3gb/s on these. But it's barely even beta right now. Ruckus is pretty solid and you can usually find them used for great prices. Many units have a stand alone firmware available that negates the need for a controller.
  - jcpham2 6y ago
    We used to operate a satellite office whose primary internet service was Mikrotik directional AP’s bridged at both ends and this was maybe a half mile line of sight uplink. My testing even on gigabit chipsets mirrors your 400 mbit per AP comment, at least in my situation.

xenadu02 6y ago

Haven't they fired most of their engineers and outsourced development?

donmcronald 6y ago

The craziest part is they were poised to dominated the SOHO / MSP markets. There’s NO competition or viable products in those markets. I’ve searched high and low. Instead of focusing on their strengths like great value with self hosted management infrastructure, they look like they’re setting up to force subscriptions on their users. All of the subscription BS for centralized management is so expensive that it’s literally cheaper to hire someone to manage everything by hand (the old fashioned way).

bigiain 6y ago
This.If I’m gonna have to waste time and effort to block my network gear sending its spy data back home, and blocking ads it tries to show, why wouldn’t I just do that on much cheaper throwaway Chinese hardware? I’m much more likely to buy stuff like TPLink gear that can be flashed with OpenWRT, or jump feet first into Mikrotik gear - than ever spend more money on Ubiquity’s modern shitware...
- rubatuga 6y ago
  Try a used WRT1200AC, it has an extremely powerful ARM processor, and is super stable. I'm getting >500Mbit over 5GHz on a 2x2 antenna setup.
  - kmlx 6y ago
    WRT1200AC. the worst experience i have ever had with a router. the moment i plugged in my NAS the whole thing froze and had to be force rebooted. every 3-6 hours the wifi just died and had to be again force rebooted. will not touch linksys again. they're a consumer brand, and my requirements are clearly SMB. imo their best product was the WRT54GL.
    - stragies 6y ago
      Was that running the original Firmware, or OpenWRT? In my experience, all vendor firmwares are to be regarded just as "proof-of-electrical-functioning", to be replaced with a OpenWRT running a recent kernel. Similar to how to you reinstall/upgrade a new laptop on the second boot fresh out the box.

jcpham2 6y ago

Thanks for this

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hinkley 6y ago

Big tech swing that didn’t connect? Has the makings of an internal power struggle where the people who actually hold things together we’re not on board and bailed.

eloisant 6y ago

Until now I loved Ubiquiti. So what do you recommend for high quality mesh wifi?