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I keep seeing the requests for central management interface, which leave me somewhat puzzled. Why do you need in a home environment? I run a small network with

• posguy 6y ago
  I have a good deal of experience with Mikrotik's offerings, and I am not looking to power networks I support with a patchwork of different systems that each have their own interface. Most of the value proposition of the Unifi lineup is I can look at a single website that I host and see the WiFi clients connected to an access point, what switch feeds that access point internet (and whether its linked at gigabit or 100Mbps), uptime on all devices involved in the stack, whether the client has poor WiFi quality, trouble DHCPing, etc. The single pane of glass to view everything when I am many miles from the networks I support is essential. Compared to when these sites were on PFSense before migrating, these networks have improved uptime, rapid remediation of issues, and changing VLANs, SSIDs and labeling each client on the network is a snap. Edit: Borrowed /u/bpye's single pane of glass term
  • torwayburger 6y ago
    > Most of the value proposition of the Unifi lineup is I can look at a single website ... > The single pane of glass to view everything when I am many miles from the networks I support is essential It's also why we're talking about this.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • apple4ever 6y ago
      Only because they made it cloud based. If they never forced people to create a cloud account - and instead allowed people to choose - this would be wildly different.
      • mnemnc 6y ago
        Did I miss something here? I run a Unifi network with a local account and don‘t recall being forced to create a cloud account.
        • JamesSwift 6y ago
          The UDM, UDM Pro, and I think _all_ newer controller software require cloud login at some point in the process.
          • Godel_unicode 6y ago
            It's definitely not all the new controllers, although with the UDM line you might be right. I think there's a huge intersection between people who would buy those specific devices and people who are perfectly happy to have remote access to their control plane in the cloud.
            • posguy 6y ago
              The UDM and UDM-Pro force you to set up a UI.com account, and cannot be used with external Unifi controllers like one you might run on a server, PC or cloud key (Ubiquiti's management software on a Power over Ethernet powered dongle, does not require a UI.com account).
              • jaywalk 6y ago
                The UDM and UDM Pro are the controller, and you can disable all of the cloud nonsense after initial setup.
  • kweinber 6y ago
    It seems the hackers currently in your network must value those same features. Very convenient.
    • posguy 6y ago
      I don't use a UI.com account to connect to the Unifi controller I host (as I don't need their inconsistently working NAT traversal to get to my controller), hopefully the networks I support are safe due to not being entangled with Ubiquiti's cloud infrastructure. Anyone who is forced to get a UI.com account (eg: UniFi Dream Machine and UDM-Pro owners) should change their credentials and do a factory reset on their routers and Access Points ASAP.
      • lostlogin 6y ago
        > do a factory reset on their routers and Access Points ASAP This is a miserable user experience. If you do a reset and don’t know the SSH password on APs or cameras you get to spend a hellish few hours crawling though ceiling insulation, climbing ladders and physically resetting devices. It’s so shit. I’ve just done it, but not due to security concerns, but instead because of a UDM-P crapping out randomly.
        • posguy 6y ago
          This is why I like having the controller in a virtual machine offsite. Factory resetting the router and pairing it to the same site in the separate controller gets me back to the same exact place I expect to be. With the UDM series, the integrated controller ensures you lose everything if you have to factory reset, site to site VPNs have to be manually configured, and numerous other minor annoyances crop up (like UI.com not always being able to connect to the controller).
        • EricE 6y ago
          >If you do a reset and don’t know the SSH password on APs or cameras Who's fault is that if you don't have it? First thing I do when I set a new site up is record all the vital information like that for when I will inevitably need to recover stuff. It should be standard backup/disaster recovery practices - for ANY system. Making sure you have critical information BEFORE you really need it is preparedness 101.
  • beezischillin 6y ago
    Mikrotik itself had security problems before. Tom Lawrence covered a lot of this on YouTube. I can recommend his channel on the topic.
• lostlogin 6y ago
  > I keep seeing the requests for central management interface, which leave me somewhat puzzled. Why do you need in a home environment? Crap wifi was a huge thing I dealt with. Unifi fixed that completely. The ability to run a relatively complex network (by home network standards) with multi access points is nice, but the ability to administer them without CLI interface is great. I loved my edge router but touched it with trepidation. It was rock solid except when I was sucking with it. Unifi suits/suited the enthusiastic amateur. > I run a small network with one big router and several access points, and at least with Mikrotik's gear, it's pretty much fire and forget. Unifi used to be too, with an interface that was a bit difficult to navigate (settings spread among about 20 tabs, but it was possible to get the job done without sshing to components). Now it’s flakey. I just rebuilt my last week which was working fine but I couldn’t log in and the UDM-P screen said it required resetting. Dark times.
• joshspankit 6y ago
  > Why do you need in a home environment? To answer this for me personally (and I suspect this is a pretty common answer): To use the best, and to explore technologies that I might suggest to business clients. Business clients love central management interfaces. As well, I’m honestly kind of done with managing fiddly “snowflake” devices, and central management interfaces usually come with the ability to standardize the config across devices.
• Causality1 6y ago
  Frankly I wonder at how big some of these peoples' houses are. My single seven year old Nighthawk router covers an entire 2300 square foot home and penetrates the brick walls to reach halfway up the street.
  • sylens 6y ago
    I feel the same way - my Nighthawk is going strong with custom firmware, but my friends with Ubiquiti gear try to get me to replace it with a bunch of Unifi stuff every time I talk to them.
    • sigg3 6y ago
      What firmware? I need new APs soon.
      • sylens 6y ago
        https://www.myopenrouter.com/blog/asuswrt-merlin-xwrtcross-wrt-netgear-r7000 https://www.myopenrouter.com/blog/asuswrt-merlin-xwrtcross-w...
        • sigg3 6y ago
          Thank you!
  • Spooky23 6y ago
    Depends a lot on the house. My house is <2000 sqft, but signal, especially 5Ghz propagates poorly though old school plaster walls. It wasn’t a problem until covid when multiple meeting or other streams just performed poorly on a marginal network. The Ubiquiti gear made it easier to run antennas for optimal signal. The hot thing to do is to shit on them, but I’ll be sticking with it. They’ll emerge better from this crisis and if you think that any competitor in this price point is better, you’re delusional.
    • ethbr0 6y ago
• bonestamp2 6y ago
  > Why do you need in a home environment? I definitely don't "need" it. But it's veeeeeeeery convenient. Especially when it comes to security, being able to see which devices have updates and perform them all from one screen, is extremely convenient. I'm highly interested in paying for convenience at home. Thankfully I don't use their cloud based management interface -- as far as I know this breach does not affect my local UniFi Controller. Hopefully this is a rude awakening and Ubiquiti goes back to their old consumer focused approach.
• qsi 6y ago
  Similar to the other responses, it's the fact that I can manage my network remotely from a simple app or UI. This helps me answer phone calls from my family asking why Netflix doesn't work on TV #2, when I'm not at home. Won't solve all problems, but at least I can narrow it down and troubleshoot. And I like the fact that I can an overview of the state of my network; one of my wired links to an AP would degrade to 100 Mbps at times, and being able to see the link speeds easily was very helpful (it was a bad ethernet cable in the end). Before I moved to Ubiquiti I had a spate of problems with my fiber broadband, which would stop working for a few minutes at random, resetting my RDP connections. I had a vendor-supplied Linksys (I think?) router, and trying to troubleshoot it was painful. If I ever have such problems again I'll have much better diagnostics. That said, I won't buy any Ubiquiti gear that requires the cloud, and my faith in the company is eroding. But, like others, I would be at a loss what to replace my gear with at the moment. I just hope it'll function well enough until either Ubiquiti gets it act together (again?) or a viable competitor arises.
  • thinkloop 6y ago
    > it was a bad ethernet cable in the end Checking the cable is like checking if the power is on, it is NEVER the cable - except in networking for some reason. Half the time it's the cable.
    • oarsinsync 6y ago
      Network cables (copper and fibre) have a limited bend radius. Most people don't think about this and will bend a cable beyond tolerance, which will eventually result in the cable not working correctly, and/or manifest as intermittent issues. I suspect that's the most common cause of network cables 'going bad' in the home.
      • magicalhippo 6y ago
        I learned this back in school, when the previous years students had laid new Ethernet cables from the classroom to the server room, but the machines would only get 10M and not 100M link as they should. Didn't take us long to notice they had laid the cable like electricians, neatly following the contours of a few door frames with tight 90 degree bends. Glad I learned that lesson early.
• mavhc 6y ago
  Mikrotik have not been able to keep up with the latest, or previous to latest wifi standards, seems like it's become too complex
  • KozmoNau7 6y ago
    Skipping wifi 6 seems like a smart move, with 6E on the horizon. It includes all the things that should have been part of the standard in the first place, so why get your hardware certified for 6, if you have to get it recertified for 6E anyway shortly after? 6 doesn't add very much over 5 in real world setups, very few devices even support 802.11ax yet, and the bleeding edge has never been Mikrotik's target segment. 6E gear is not really available anywhere yet, so it's really only an issue for people who just have to have the latest gear at all times. For the majority of people, 802.11ac/wifi 5 is what their hardware supports, so that's what they need.
    • mavhc 6y ago
      According to people in their forums they don't support all the ac features either. Something to research if you're thinking of switching anyway.
      • KozmoNau7 6y ago
        As far as I know, that concerns 802.11k/v/r, MU-MIMO and beam forming, which many other 802.11ac devices also don't support, so it doesn't bother me. Then again, I'm not running an enterprise setup and I've never been one to meticulously make sure I get every single feature in the world on a spec sheet. The hAP AC² serves my home networking needs quite well, with an additional AP to better cover the whole apartment.
• thereddaikon 6y ago
  People want a power-user Meraki for the home that isn't tied to a cloud service. It's really as simple as that. Ubiquiti gave them that until they didn't. And now the inevitable breach has occurred and users are looking for a replacement. Its pretty simple, having each device individually managed is archaic, a pain in the ass and there is no technical reason why it has to be that way.