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This product that has a huge caveat that limits it to many people's applications: > UniFi Express supports up to 5 connected UniFi Network devices, including o

This product that has a huge caveat that limits it to many people's applications: > UniFi Express supports up to 5 connected UniFi Network devices, including other UniFi Express units, switches, and WiFi access points. Even my home has one AP per floor (3x) and 3x Unifi switches. This is clearly an artificial limitation for market segmentation reasons. I'm not going to rip out Unifi switches to go unmanaged, just for the pleasure of using Express. Hopefully nobody buys it without reading the small print. I feel like the lack of Protect and the 5 UniFi device limit are going to really limit who will buy this even at this price.

artificialLimbs 3y ago
The 50 vlan limit on their top of line stuff is the only reason we don't deploy them exclusively across our biz.
- windexh8er 3y ago
  The former, EdgeSwitch / EdgeRouter (all black in color), didn't have this low of a limit. I still run a 48 port, 500W PoE switch in my main rack at home and it's got limit of 255 active VLAN.
- Temporary_31337 3y ago
  Genuinely curious What do you need 50+ vlans for? It feels like you could have physical lans to separate or simply different subnets? It’s hard for me to imagine why you would want to aggregate so many vlans over a single physical connection?
  - Someone1234 3y ago
    In certain scenarios, it may be necessary to assign multiple VLAN tags to the same network port. This is particularly common in environments where devices connected to that port need access to different network segments simultaneously. For example, a networked device in a conference room might require access to VLANs designated for both guest internet and internal company resources. In this case, the port would be configured as a 'trunk' port, allowing traffic from multiple VLANs (each identified by a unique tag) to pass through. This setup ensures that the device can communicate across different departmental or functional network segments, such as VLANs for e.g. IT, Marketing, or Sales, etc. Using VLANs over physical LANs or different subnets is fundamentally about enhancing network management efficiency and flexibility. The core advantage of VLANs is that they allow network administrators to segment and manage the network logically without the need for physical rearrangements. This means an engineer can configure and reconfigure network segments without the need to physically move cables or hardware (or even be on-site).
    - kemotep 3y ago
      This doesn’t answer the question about needing more than 50. Even if there are 20 departments, a development, testing/qa, and production server environment, phones, printers, 12 conference rooms, a dmz, an IoT, staff, and guest wifi, backups on their own vlan, a management vlan, and multiple vpns, you would still come under 50 with a few more to spare. If you have a network like this it might also behoove you to physically separate it out so guest infrastructure and production, and management interfaces are all on completely different devices and thus each network doesn’t need all vlans. Unifi doesn’t sell the highest quality of equipment that could necessarily support more complex environments in the first place but needing more than 50 vlans on one physical network sounds almost unsustainable.
      - lukeholder 3y ago
        It also doesn’t answer why a company that has 50 vlans wants to buy a tiny prosumer router.
        vetinari 3y ago
        The GP doesn't talk about a tiny prosumer router: > limit on their top of line stuff AFAIK, the limits are 64 VLANs for USG/UDM and 255 on US/USW. Not a tiny prosumer routers here.
pugworthy 3y ago
It's $149. I think you're expecting more from it than what your more advanced home setup needs. Mind you it talks a big talk for that price.
- izacus 3y ago
  Having a few APs to cover a house is far from"advanced" setup. We live in times where lawn movers need wifi.
  - cedilla 3y ago
    If you need 6 or more unifi devices, that's quite advanced. And quite a large area. If you have such a big house and also need WiFi for your fancy lawn mower, I can't shed a tear for the 149 USD budget unifi decice not being adequate for you.
    - philjohn 3y ago
      This. I have a pretty large house and I would be fine with this - I have three AP's and a 48 port PoE switch for the 36 drops in my house.
    - izacus 3y ago
      2 floor house + Outside is immediately 3 APs. You'll also need at least one PoE switch to power them. That's 4 devices already, without adding anything else like security cameras or similar.
      - lukeholder 3y ago
        Yeah so it’s not the device for you and you buy the another higher model in the line up?
        catchnear4321 3y ago
        or you buy a different product from a different vendor, due to dissatisfaction with artificial product tiering. isn’t that typically the implicit message being sent by disgruntled customers complaining about a company’s seeming lack of foresight or excess of greed, or both?
ehutch79 3y ago
Perhaps you are not the target market?
tecleandor 3y ago
I don't understand this. The first use case screenshot shows 8 devices connected. What does that small print mean? https://ui.com/microsite/static/media/use-case-2.fd99bcc2.jpg https://ui.com/microsite/static/media/use-case-2.fd99bcc2.jp...
- tjoff 3y ago
  Those are different sites, you wouldn't have 8 routers in one place. So I guess each one of those devices can manage 5 unifi devices, going only by the image it looks like in their setup there is one AP for each device (if that is how the ui works).
  - tecleandor 3y ago
    Ah, so the limit would be per site or something like that. Thanks.

artificialLimbs 3y ago

The 50 vlan limit on their top of line stuff is the only reason we don't deploy them exclusively across our biz.

windexh8er 3y ago
The former, EdgeSwitch / EdgeRouter (all black in color), didn't have this low of a limit. I still run a 48 port, 500W PoE switch in my main rack at home and it's got limit of 255 active VLAN.
Temporary_31337 3y ago
Genuinely curious What do you need 50+ vlans for? It feels like you could have physical lans to separate or simply different subnets? It’s hard for me to imagine why you would want to aggregate so many vlans over a single physical connection?
- Someone1234 3y ago
  In certain scenarios, it may be necessary to assign multiple VLAN tags to the same network port. This is particularly common in environments where devices connected to that port need access to different network segments simultaneously. For example, a networked device in a conference room might require access to VLANs designated for both guest internet and internal company resources. In this case, the port would be configured as a 'trunk' port, allowing traffic from multiple VLANs (each identified by a unique tag) to pass through. This setup ensures that the device can communicate across different departmental or functional network segments, such as VLANs for e.g. IT, Marketing, or Sales, etc. Using VLANs over physical LANs or different subnets is fundamentally about enhancing network management efficiency and flexibility. The core advantage of VLANs is that they allow network administrators to segment and manage the network logically without the need for physical rearrangements. This means an engineer can configure and reconfigure network segments without the need to physically move cables or hardware (or even be on-site).
  - kemotep 3y ago
    This doesn’t answer the question about needing more than 50. Even if there are 20 departments, a development, testing/qa, and production server environment, phones, printers, 12 conference rooms, a dmz, an IoT, staff, and guest wifi, backups on their own vlan, a management vlan, and multiple vpns, you would still come under 50 with a few more to spare. If you have a network like this it might also behoove you to physically separate it out so guest infrastructure and production, and management interfaces are all on completely different devices and thus each network doesn’t need all vlans. Unifi doesn’t sell the highest quality of equipment that could necessarily support more complex environments in the first place but needing more than 50 vlans on one physical network sounds almost unsustainable.
    - lukeholder 3y ago
      It also doesn’t answer why a company that has 50 vlans wants to buy a tiny prosumer router.
      - vetinari 3y ago
        The GP doesn't talk about a tiny prosumer router: > limit on their top of line stuff AFAIK, the limits are 64 VLANs for USG/UDM and 255 on US/USW. Not a tiny prosumer routers here.

pugworthy 3y ago

It's $149. I think you're expecting more from it than what your more advanced home setup needs. Mind you it talks a big talk for that price.

izacus 3y ago
Having a few APs to cover a house is far from"advanced" setup. We live in times where lawn movers need wifi.
- cedilla 3y ago
  If you need 6 or more unifi devices, that's quite advanced. And quite a large area. If you have such a big house and also need WiFi for your fancy lawn mower, I can't shed a tear for the 149 USD budget unifi decice not being adequate for you.
  - philjohn 3y ago
    This. I have a pretty large house and I would be fine with this - I have three AP's and a 48 port PoE switch for the 36 drops in my house.
  - izacus 3y ago
    2 floor house + Outside is immediately 3 APs. You'll also need at least one PoE switch to power them. That's 4 devices already, without adding anything else like security cameras or similar.
    - lukeholder 3y ago
      Yeah so it’s not the device for you and you buy the another higher model in the line up?
      - catchnear4321 3y ago
        or you buy a different product from a different vendor, due to dissatisfaction with artificial product tiering. isn’t that typically the implicit message being sent by disgruntled customers complaining about a company’s seeming lack of foresight or excess of greed, or both?

ehutch79 3y ago

Perhaps you are not the target market?

tecleandor 3y ago

I don't understand this. The first use case screenshot shows 8 devices connected. What does that small print mean? https://ui.com/microsite/static/media/use-case-2.fd99bcc2.jpg https://ui.com/microsite/static/media/use-case-2.fd99bcc2.jp...

tjoff 3y ago
Those are different sites, you wouldn't have 8 routers in one place. So I guess each one of those devices can manage 5 unifi devices, going only by the image it looks like in their setup there is one AP for each device (if that is how the ui works).
- tecleandor 3y ago
  Ah, so the limit would be per site or something like that. Thanks.