14 ms·

UniFi 5G

373 points by janandonly 11mo ago

cromka 11mo ago
The fact that the outdoor version is directional kind of limits its adoption in mobile usage, doesn't it? Most similar products have omnidirectional antenna. Can't imagine you would rotate it by hand on a boat towards the land while on passage
- botto 11mo ago
  This product targets businesses where they will mount it in a fixed position and target a specific tower so they get the best throughput.
  - cromka 11mo ago
    Did you read through the press release?
    - nkrisc 11mo ago
      Not GP but I’m trying to figure out what you’re insinuating. > For tougher environments or deployments with poor indoor cellular coverage, the outdoor model maintains the same high performance cellular connectivity with improved antenna performance in a durable IP67 rated enclosure. It is built for rooftop installs, off site locations, and mobile deployments where reliability is critical. Just like its indoor counterpart, you can also connect it via any PoE port, anywhere on your network, greatly simplifying cabling requirements. And the first image they show of the outdoor model is it installed in a fixed location on a rooftop.
      - k33l0r 11mo ago
        The video shows it on a moving vehicle
        deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
      - SigmundA 11mo ago
        Your quote lists mobile deployments, their bullet point also says: >Built for rooftops, remote sites, and vehicle based setups They are insinuating if you actually read their press release then you would not state it was targeted only at stationary deployments. Based on the spec sheet 2 out of its 6 antennas are directional, this is probably a 4x4 modem so it must have some way to switch 2 antenna from directional to omni.
        simulator5g 11mo ago
        There are range gains to be had from using a directional antenna. If you wanted to install this on a vehicle you could put it on a mount that rotates towards sources of a set frequency.
  - victorbjorklund 11mo ago
    In their promotional video they call out mobile applications and they showing a car driving with it on top of it.
- gvkhna 11mo ago
  I think it’s going to be targeting mostly stationary HA redundant uplinks. Backup for primary uplink or low usage primary link. In those scenarios pointing at your nearest antenna fixed is much better than an omnidirectional antenna.
  - cromka 11mo ago
    They clearly mention mobile use and show it on the animation as well. Which is why I am surprised.
- SigmundA 11mo ago
  The spec sheet mentions 6 antennas and implies only 2 are directional: (6) Embedded cellular antennas, including (2) high-gain for downlink: peak 9 dBi, 85°x85° Typically these modems are 4x4 mimo so it must have some method for switching the 2 directional with 2 of the omnis in it based on which ones is needed. https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/integrations/u5g-max-outdoor?s=us https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/integrations/u5g-max-outdoor?...
  - cromka 11mo ago
    Interesting, thanks!
dagmx 11mo ago
The fallback support for UniFi setups will be awesome. I’m honestly tempted to get it for my house. My ISP downtime is pretty low but it does happen every once in a while, at the most inopportune times, which impedes working from home. Having a wireless backup would hopefully cover those downtimes
- botto 11mo ago
  Yeah, the fact you can use any of the ports on a dream machine as a WAN (its not optimal, but is an option) makes it really easy to have a couple of fallbacks if you really need high redundancy.
- qwerpy 11mo ago
  We had a 5 day power outage (Bellevue WA, not exactly in the middle of nowhere) and after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I had backup power but no internet. On the way back from Best Buy with my new starlink, everything came back online of course. But now I’m ready for the next multi day outage. I have a network cable from my secondary WAN port on my dream machine running to my first story roof where there’s a wall mount ready for starlink to be plopped in.
  - thatwasunusual 11mo ago
    > after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I discovered the same thing the hard way myself recently (in Norway); turns out that cell towers only has enough battery for ~24-36 hours (if you're lucky). However, someone messing with the fibre to my house is a bigger possibility than power outage, so I'll probably end up with this 5G product. :)
  - lostlogin 11mo ago
    I’ve made the second WAN a 10gb uplink. I wish there were cheaper 10gb switch from Ubiquiti. The link Agg is good, but still pricey.
- killingtime74 11mo ago
jwr 11mo ago
The 5G max outdoor looks very good and seems to be a direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series. I wonder about the antenna gain, though, the Mikrotik certainly looks more impressive. (I've been using Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit devices for years now)
- Doohickey-d 11mo ago
  Antenna gain isn't everything: I've set up the LTE6 for people, and in some cases I was able to get more speed in the same location with the latest iPhone. In locations where you're at the edge of coverage, and your phone is not getting anything at all, it's great. I sometimes suspected that the modem in these LTE / 5G routers is less well tuned and tested with various network than what you have e.g. in an iPhone.
  - nicolaslem 11mo ago
    This is my experience as well. Unless you actually need a directional antenna, an iPhone will be faster and more reliable than dedicated hardware.
  - tecleandor 11mo ago
    Of course it's faster! The Mikrotik LTE6 device is a Cat.6 LTE device, so up to 300/50Mbits, and since some time ago, all iPhones are Cat.20 and 5G and all that stuff. But that's not the only important thing. The frequency band support for the modem is very important. Not all networks nor even cell phone antennas work on the same frequencies, so even when connecting to antennas of the same company, depending on the antenna you connect, it'll have different bands enabled depending on the hardware or the connectivity they have there. You have to check the specs for you modem [0][1] and see what bands are supported, what bands are supported in the antenna your connecting to [2]... Depending on the category of your device [3], and the channels that are allowed to be used at the same time, the congestion, the interference, and... it can happen than a consumer phone downloads faster than a dedicated industrial modem, if the available frequencies aren't the most favorable. -- 0: https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte6_kit#product_specification 1: https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/ 2: https://www.cellmapper.net 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#User_Equipment_(UE)_categories
flanked-evergl 11mo ago
Just bought a Gl.iNet Puli. It's only 4G but seems like a better option if you want to supply internet to some devices that you move around. Planning to use it for setup and management of a headless presentation PC as it can directly be connected to the LAN port.
- walterbell 11mo ago
  Does it support eSIM? For backup internet, eSIM is good for avoiding monthly subscription, by paying per GB when needed.
  - flanked-evergl 11mo ago
    I have read that people managed to get an eSIM installed on it, but I think there are also physical eSIM options. See https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/ https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/ Edit: The SIMPoYo eSIM Physical Card (see https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ ) seems really cool, may even be nice for a phone.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - szszrk 11mo ago
    I have a mobile 4g router from them and it supports physical esim. I even managed to get their suggested card for cheap. They have some support in their firmware to set it up, so you can do that fully on the router.
kkapelon 11mo ago
I am already doing what is shown in the video with Teltonika OTD500, fully unlocked and with esim support as well.
- tow21 11mo ago
  How does the Teltonika work out for you - I nearly bought it earlier this year but it doesn't have support for external antennae. I'm just on the edge of 5G coverage and I'm not sure I want to splash out on something which I can't tune for decent reception. Seems an odd omission for a ruggedised outside modem - the Unifi also seems to not support external antennae. (I'd also prefer a unifi version just so it fits in the with rest of the networking infra I have in the mökki.)
  - kkapelon 11mo ago
    OTD500 is antenna + router in a single box. There is nothing else needed. I just put it outdoors with a POE cable. Originally, I used it as a backup, but now I have an unlimited SIM, so I use it as a second internet connection. If you mean the standard routers (like the Rutx50), Teltonika itself sells external enclosures with antennas. https://www.teltonika-networks.com/products/accessories/antenna-options/outdoor-lte-5gwi-figps-antenna-for-rutx50-and-rutm50-routers https://www.teltonika-networks.com/products/accessories/ante...
    - tow21 11mo ago
      Yeah, I know - but an antenna embedded within a small box is going to be much less effective than a big old directional Yagi antenna like https://www.satshop.fi/en/4g/4g-5g/4g-antennas.html https://www.satshop.fi/en/4g/4g-5g/4g-antennas.html Seems weird to cripple the product by not allowing me to (optionally) disable the internal antenna and instead use and tune an external antenna. And I suspect that is likely to make a difference when you are on the edge of coverage, but you know exactly where the relevant cell tower is, a few km away.
- hardolaf 11mo ago
  Yeah they're not really putting out new exciting technologies. But this is cheaper than every other equivalent solution on the market for sale today in the USA.
phoronixrly 11mo ago
Can't wait for this to get OpenWrt support so I can buy it and the first thing I do to be to nuke the UBNT firmware.
- johncolanduoni 11mo ago
  Is OpenWRT on Unifi APs any good? I hadn’t heard of it before, and I couldn’t find any performance comparisons on a quick search. Ubiquiti has gone downhill on a lot of things the last 5 years or so, but their radio firmware has always been a step up (within their price range) for me. I wouldn’t mind ditching the Unifi controller software though.
  - yuvadam 11mo ago
    I don't recall their latest hardware is supported, but why would you want that anyway if you're not looking to go all in on their controller stack?
    - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
      The controller is annoying and changes completely every 6 months, and for home I use basically none of its features beyond configuring the AP. Virtualy all the issues I’ve had with Unifi APs were controller bugs, telling the AP firmware to do stupid things when it could have done literally nothing. That said, I have some concerns that the OpenWRT AP firmware is not as optimized as the Unifi firmware is for that specific hardware. Mostly for wireless performance, but I also don’t want to hit some weird CPU bottleneck.
      - 9x39 11mo ago
        If you dislike their UI, not going to try to convince you, but it is part of the value of the system. Have you looked at Mikrotik? They offer a more traditional autonomous OS w/o controllers and both a nice CLI and a powerful GUI tool.
  - cathepsin 11mo ago
ur-whale 11mo ago
We're doing ads on HN now?
- skrebbel 11mo ago
  I see you've never opened HN during an Apple product launch event
- grim_io 11mo ago
  Sir, this might not be a Wendy's, but this is a VC owned site that regularly shills its questionable investments.
  - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
    And for most of the people here, buying any 5G mmWave modem is a questionable investment.
    - victorbjorklund 11mo ago
      I would speculate that most tech purchases by HN crowd are questionable investments. But life is not a spreadsheet.
- haunter 11mo ago
  The majority of posts are ads on HN Did you know there is an entire post category for ads and self-promotion? https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show
tucnak 11mo ago
> Up to 2 Gbps downlink > 2.5 Gbit/s PoE to upstream switch Can anybody explain to me why these supposedly premier networking devices are lacking so much in bandwidth? I get it that mmWave is really only ever realistically going to hit 2.5G over the air, but is there any reason why they're not willing to provide at least 10G copper, or an actual SFP port? Hell, even Macs support 10G these days. I never understood this. Do they mean 2 Gbps downlink per client, or per device in total? If it's the former, 2.5G wired seems like a major bottleneck to any serious consumption. If a single client at 2 Gbps is all the promise of 5G amounted to, well, it would be disappointing to say the least.
- fulafel 11mo ago
  The whole 2.5 G spec is a weird step for ethernet speeds too. It's unfortunate it took off.
  - tucnak 11mo ago
    They said the same thing about 40G but hey, I've loved it for bridging the gap between my two (10G and 100G, respectively) Mikrotik switches. You can have a dozen Gigabit ports, as well as up to four true 10G devices on your aggregation switch, and neither would be bottlenecked by traffic to and from the backside. This has been a massive boon. However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?
    - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
      > However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what? Portability and heat. You can get a small USB 2.5G adapter that produces negligible heat, but a Thunderbolt 10G adapter is large and produces a substantial amount of heat. I use 10G at home, but the adapter I throw into my laptop bag is a tiny 2.5G adapter.
      - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
amelius 11mo ago
These things are nice when they work but when they don't you're completely in the dark. Even figuring out how much GB is left on your simcard is a nightmare.
- kkapelon 11mo ago
  Simplest solution is to get an unlimited card. Problem solved.
  - amelius 11mo ago
    Why do limited cards even exist? Turns out there are various reasons (no need to go into them here).
sschueller 11mo ago
I am confused, this is just a 5G router right? Like the 5 year old Huawei CPE Pro 2 but with wifi7, poe and eSim? [1] https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/ https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/
- sz4kerto 11mo ago
  It's a modem, not a router.
  - b-karl 11mo ago
    There are both, the router is further down the page
- kkapelon 11mo ago
  Unifi is the Apple of networking gear. When something new is released the HN crowd is excited even when the same functionality existed already with another company.
  - amelius 11mo ago
    Apple of networking? I suppose no OpenWrt then.
    - wrobelda 11mo ago
      You actually can install Openwrt on bunch of their hardware
      - idatum 11mo ago
        Or OpenBSD, in my case a USG-3P. I would have otherwise tossed it but now it's a nice OpenBSD switch. OpenBSD 7.7 (GENERIC) #339: Sun Apr 13 17:52:27 MDT 2025 deraadt@octeon.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/octeon/compile/GENERIC real mem = 536870912 (512MB) avail mem = 521142272 (497MB) Only complaint I have with Unifi is so-so IPv6 support. I'd love to see a NAT64/DNS64 option configurable in their UI.
yapyap 11mo ago
I gotta say, I hate it when companies use “xxx bits per second”, whether its Mega or Giga nobody uses bits per second and for the average consumer it’s very unclear that this differs from bytes. Having to explain to relatives and such that “yeah you actually have to divide that by 8” is a hassle and I get tricked by it subconsciously at times as well. 2 gbps meaning 250 megabytes per second is a SCAM. A marketing sham at it’s finest. “I have 100 mbps download” meaning “I get 12.5 megabytes download per second” is ridiculous!!
- AceJohnny2 11mo ago
  and how do you feel about HDD vendors (and Apple) using giga-/tera- for their strictly SI power-of-ten and not power-of-two meaning?
  - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
    This ship sailed out of view a long time ago, the only GB you’ll see that is still base-2 is RAM. And that’s only because you literally can’t address physical RAM in non power-of-2 blocks in most architectures.
- kortilla 11mo ago
  That’s not marketing related at all. It’s how network speeds have been measured long before ISPs were a business. A byte per second is no more intuitive than a nibble per second or a bit per second. You might be used to byte as a power user because of storage, but I assure you that to regular people “256 gigabytes” is a meaningless number as well.
- johncolanduoni 11mo ago
  If you really want to piss people off, use Gibibits - 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bits. The ratio between those and Gigabytes is ~7.451.
  - poly2it 11mo ago
    I honestly feel mibi and gibibytes per second are the easiest units to rationalise about. The data I am transferring is already known to me in its binary prefix unit. Seconds for that data to transfer is a trivial translation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
jonplackett 11mo ago
I wish website designers would remember that not everyone can see great. This text is so fine and light and they’ve also disabled screen reader
- dlillard0 11mo ago
  [dead]
- nake89 11mo ago
  Firefox reader view gives me better contrast. Also the text to speech mode works in reader view.
- quantummagic 11mo ago
  Have you tried Firefox Reader View? It allows you to set whatever text size and font is best for you.
- szszrk 11mo ago
  oh, I didn't noticed that at first, but you are right. What I did noticed is so many fast videos right next to text. I didn't even bother to read it (without firefox read mode) because it makes me a bit dizzy.
- Orygin 11mo ago
  Even if my vision is okay, it still feels like a slap to the face. Can't take some time to make sure the most important part of the page is readable by all.
  - jonplackett 11mo ago
    I specifically have issues with strong back lighting (genetic cataracts suck - I’m only in my 40s) so bright white page and light writing is super frustrating. Dark mode is my best friend.
Semaphor 11mo ago
OT: Does anyone know of a setting or extension for Firefox to stop those autoplaying videos? I have gifs disabled, prefers-reduced-motion on, and those videos in that article both autoplay, and start again after pausing them manually. I have no idea what the article is about (except what the title says) because I kept getting distracted by the annoying videos.
- uallo 11mo ago
  Settings => Search for "Autoplay" => Click "Settings..." => For "Default for all websites" select "Block Audio and Video".
  - Semaphor 11mo ago
    Thank you, I could have sworn I had that active, but for some reason it was "audio only".
    - styanax 11mo ago
      The about:config settings which you can look up: media.autoplay.blocking_policy media.autoplay.default I have mine set to 2 and 5 respectively.
      - Semaphor 11mo ago
        FWIW, blocking policy on 2 blocks (at least some, Qobuz for me) streaming sites and bandcamp (bandcamp being the more problematic one as every band is on their own subdomain and you can’t (I think) just allow all of them).
        styanax 11mo ago
        I seem to have no problems streaming from either Bandcamp or Qobuz, the latter which I'd never heard of before. (or as far as I'm aware any other site) I intentionally want to click-to-play on every site out there, so perhaps you mean "blocks autoplay" or somesuch?
Asmod4n 11mo ago
I’ve got their unifi mobile router 4g and am quite happy with it in conjunction with one of their routers which got two lan ports you can either run in primary/primary mode where it does load balancing or primary/secondary one where the latter only gets used when the main one has issues. I just kinda wish multipath TCP or something similar would be more in use so you wouldn’t notice a swap in connection mid air.
jnsaff2 11mo ago
So Ubiquity is trustworthy again? After the 2.4GHz wifi issues with UDM I swore I will never buy them again.
- KerrAvon 11mo ago
  I've been running a base UDM for a long time without any 2.4GHz issues -- is there something specific that was broken?
  - jnsaff2 11mo ago
    A few years ago I was running my UDM. Wifi on 2,4GHz and 5GHz was working fine. Then after an upgrade some of my devices start losing connectivity after a while, happened multiple times a week or day. Only restart helped. I was going mad until I discovered that only the 2,4GHz ones are losing connectivity. Then I started researching and found out that it was not just me, it was just bad code in firmware that was not fixed in any of the versions that came out before I had enough, sold the device and swore off this garbage.
daft_pink 11mo ago
Do you know if we can use the T-Mobile home Internet? I think they require their own modem, but I’m not sure.
- syntaxing 11mo ago
  You can if it supports IMEI spoofing (which I doubt). You definitely can use GL inet 5G routers if you want an alternative
  - daft_pink 11mo ago
    In their video, it looks like it Supports T-Mobile
    - syntaxing 11mo ago
      Doesn’t matter for home ISP. The SIM card is locked to the IMEI number.
dismalpedigree 11mo ago
The problem I have seen is when I need it most, due to a rare fiber internet outage, so does everyone else nearby and cellular data becomes saturated and unusable.
- turnsout 11mo ago
  In locations where fiber is not available (like my place), cable is the next best option, and cable has a lot more unexpected downtime. I could see this being a good backup, especially for small businesses like retail shops that couldn't afford to have their POS go down for half a day.
  - hedora 11mo ago
    Around here, it’s Starlink >> Fiber >> Cable because our lines are above ground and outages are frequent. Fiber is less expensive than and more than 10x faster than starlink, in fairness. Our 5g towers seem to run off the fiber lines, so it’s not really a backup (and gets overwhelmed anyway). I’m considering getting fiber in addition to starlink, but I wish they’d just buried the lines. I see telephone trucks repairing downed lines we’d rely on many dozens of times a year. Digging a trench would probably pay for itself in a year or two.
    - hylaride 11mo ago
      > Digging a trench would probably pay for itself in a year or two. I know some people running independent community fiber ISPs. Digging trenches can be a nightmare depending on the neighbourhood. You can have property ownership issues, other utilities being present, permit nightmares, different ground/soil types, etc. That ignores the fact that when somebody else digs they can hit your lines and repairing that is a pain. Digging is better, though. But it’s not necessarily as easy as one may think.
      - thewebguyd 11mo ago
        Definitely a nightmare. Where I work just acquired new property and are deploying a new site. It took 9 months, from date of first contact, before the ISP could come out, bore under the road, and run fiber to our building from two poles away. And that's just a short ~500 feet underground run. I couldn't imagine the amount of permitting and logistics involved in trying to bury an entire run across town.
syntaxing 11mo ago
Would be useful for 5G home internet if they had IMEI spoofing but I would doubt it. It sucks how the gateway from these services do not have external antenna support.
- hedora 11mo ago
  Yeah; California’s network neutrality laws include a provision banning discrimination based on device type. I’ve never heard of it being enforced, and blatant violations of it are the norm.
zekyl314 11mo ago
I was hoping this was a mini 5G cell tower that connected to the network, so you could have good 5G service inside.
- powvans 11mo ago
  I need a portable mini 5G cell tower in a backpack form factor so that I can have 5G service indoors no matter where I am.
  - Scene_Cast2 11mo ago
    With what backhaul? WiFi?
- macNchz 11mo ago
  Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters. Once upon a time, I believe, some American cell providers would give you one for free if you had bad signal at home, which mattered a lot more before phones all had wifi calling.
  - joecool1029 11mo ago
    > Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters. No, those are different. They are describing a femtocell. I still have one site with a T-Mobile one. It basically VPN’s to T-Mobile’s network core through the cable ISP, uses GPS to check its location for licensed spectrum, and then broadcasts its own LTE signal. It does not boost/repeat the signal of a nearby tower, it runs its own.
  - andix 11mo ago
    Do they work for 5G? I think just amplifying the signal (like 2g signal boosters did) would mess with a lot with all the fancy RF tricks that make 5G fast, stable, low-latency and quite low on package loss (5G has impressively low package loss on the IP layer). For most use cases WiFi should be the better solution. VoWiFi works well for calls. Should be enough for home and office use.
  - 11mo ago
mrbluecoat 11mo ago
US Verizon SIM support?
- stego-tech 11mo ago
  I think Verizon is an eSIM option on the modem; dunno about the Router version, but I’d want to assume it’s the same? Either way, having modems that are fully unlocked for Stateside usage for once is a nice touch. Their LTE line was essentially AT&T-locked, or unlocked but only supporting AT&T in the US, so this is a nice improvement.
wkat4242 11mo ago
I'm glad it has a physical SIM still. I always use regular prepaid phone plans for my 4/5G backup but the providers don't like these being used with modems. So they have more options to block them with eSIM.
xiconfjs 11mo ago
FAQ: "Can the UniFi 5G Max Outdoor work as a standalone device?" -> No. The UniFi 5G Max Outdoor must be adopted by a UniFi Cloud Gateway or UniFi Gateway and cannot function independently as a router or modem. :(
- grayhatter 11mo ago
  Yeah, exactly how I feel! This is disappointing. I remember, and miss the days when UniFi wasn't as user hostile as they have become.
- happyopossum 11mo ago
  They literally list the standalone version further down the page: * Dream Router 5G Max: The Fully Integrated UniFi Experience *
  - kllrnohj 11mo ago
    but that one isn't outdoor rated.
    - Analemma_ 11mo ago
      Why do you need the entire integrated setup to be outdoor-rated? That just adds tons of cost. If the antennas and modem need to be outside for signal strength reasons, so be it, but as much of your networking gear as possible should be indoors.
      - Retric 11mo ago
        Construction projects, festivals, etc. Bad cellular reception is more likely to be an issue far from other infrastructure.
        amluto 11mo ago
        There are plenty of outdoor plastic enclosures, mostly RF-transparent, that are intended to hold network equipment.
gsibble 11mo ago
This device came out just after I already got Fios 2GB and Comcast 2GB for load balancing / failover. If both of them go down, I doubt 5G will matter much. Not like I have a big UPS in the house anyways.
roflchoppa 11mo ago
2Gbps?! I was testing out tmobile 5G service with their router and it’s only ~330Mbps down ~180Mbps up… Can it really be that much faster?
- harrall 11mo ago
  I get 650 Mbps with T-mobile in my city.
- jmb99 11mo ago
  I’ve seen 900Mbps with Bell in low-congestion areas at off-peak times, with an iPhone 13 Pro 5 years ago.
- cap11235 11mo ago
  I have tmobile and a local provider for fiber. 5G Tmobile caps out around 912, similar to my fiber.
andix 11mo ago
I thought it would create a private 5G network to extend the unify WiFis. But it's just a fancy 5G modem, right?
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
varispeed 11mo ago
I live near 5G relay and I was surprised that I could get symmetrical 1gbps connection, without any cables. Still remembering 56k modem, it feels like magic.
aynyc 11mo ago
My good friend is a network engineer and provider in NYC for decades now, pretty good one at that. Has anyone deployed UniFi in a computer centric professional environment? Just to be more specific a bit, computer centric professional environment means networks and computers are the primary way of getting job done. He hasn't seen any UniFi but his home is all UniFi.
- ugh123 11mo ago
  I've seen Cisco meraki AP's on the ceilings at more than a handful of tech companies, if that helps.
  - aynyc 11mo ago
    Thanks!
- 9x39 11mo ago
  Small businesses? Sure. I've seen Unifi networks with a few hundred MACs often enough. Enterprises? Thousands, tens of thousands of employees? Generally cost isn't prohibitive at the scale so bigger ecosystems with more support make way more sense. Even their enterprise switches aren't really equivalent to Cisco, Arista, Juniper, etc enterprise offerings. They're inching forward, though.
  - aynyc 11mo ago
    What kinda of small businesses? My friend does consulting and most of his business is on small (100-250 employees) size and sometimes small start up, typically in the office construction phase where he comes in and set up network infrastructure. He never seems anyone asking for UniFi, but again, might just because the cost? He feels UniFi is price competitive at that scale but no one wants it for some reason. When he was with a larger company, cisco and juniper were the only options.
    - 9x39 11mo ago
      Upmarket electrical trade, engineering offices, MSPs commonly, smallish healthcare, an equine event center, a bank. I see tons of small businesses (mom & pop, restaurants) with a UI AP or two, of course, but that's not what you meant, I don't think. The places that COULD use UI often just don't care, and want the cheap toilet paper (netgear, ebay whatever) since cost discipline can be critical. I think there's a niche of biz with enough margin that networking/cameras get sold together and they don't insist on lowest price. My guess would also be the MSP that is quoting the job also heavily influences whether UI is used, plenty of dinosaurs out there. Bigger places want routing, network virtualization, etc from the big players you mentioned. UI doesn't want to mess with BGP, spine-leaf, sd access/wan, etc. There's also like the 24/7 support options they want, and access to the partner/VAR/contractor networks so you have tons of options. The sales deals and dinners unfortunately factor into this too...
cmpxchg8b 11mo ago
How does this differ from Invisagig?
QuiEgo 11mo ago
I really want to want Unifi, but my experience with one of their products (UDM + mesh) was that it was a ton of effort to get something working that ended up being slower and more fiddly than a consumer focused router. When I get home, I don’t want to be an unpaid sysadmin
- kidfiji 11mo ago
  Check out Firewalla if your interest roots in tinkering :)
- giobox 11mo ago
  While Unifi supports wireless backhaul/mesh, the entire system is heavily designed to encourage wired backhaul - all their wireless APs are PoE for a reason. If you are going to invest in the Unifi ecosystem, it makes sense to invest in decent networking - wireless "mesh" is always a compromise for running multiple wireless APs. If you are in a situation you need multiple wireless APs but can't run ethernet to them (like renting etc), I'd probably pass on a Unifi system personally.
  - QuiEgo 11mo ago
    Yeah this lines up with my experience. Had issues with mesh (I bought an AP with mesh in the product name that covered a wall outlet, no Ethernet in)(edit: it was the “beacon”), essentially was told “you’re holding it wrong.”, and moved on. They seem like lovely products for their intended use case, but my personal experience was not great. Edit 2: I have eero now. The nodes seem to have some proprietary protocol that sends clients to the best node as you walk around the house. I can’t setup Vlans or do power user stuff, but my WiFi actually “just works” now. I don’t think I’ve touched it once after initial setup.
Etheryte 11mo ago
What I really want to know is how much they paid to acquire ui.com and whether that investment is paying off in any measurable kind of way.
NelsonMinar 11mo ago
I wonder if this works any better than their Unifi LTE Backup. That was so bad I gave up on it after about a month. The biggest problem was the weird way the router handled routes meant that with the LTE on the network, even when it wasn't being used a bunch of router features were impaired. Like static routes. Ubiquiti makes some good hardware but their software is full of terrible bugs.
drnick1 11mo ago
Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive "prosumer" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps through Wireguard. For access points in a home setting, TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value and far more "free" (i.e., unclouded) than any UniFi stuff constantly phoning home for "updates."
- npunt 11mo ago
  Perhaps you missed the product positioning: “Simple setup and clean design” Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends
  - drnick1 11mo ago
    > Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends I thought this was Hacker News.
    - asib 11mo ago
      UniFi customers =/= Hacker News.
      - tristor 11mo ago
        Very much not true. I'm a seasoned network engineer, and very comfortable deep in the Linux network stack. I still have no interest in doing that for 7-10 hours during work and then having to do it for another 1-3 hours after work to get things working properly. I use UniFi products because they're dead simple and work well. I would challenge you to try supporting your family using your home network doing esoteric things, the juice is not worth the squeeze. I can give my wife the UniFi login and she can figure things out well enough on her own, and it lets us easily integrated networked devices that don't serve network connectivity (e.g. IP cameras) into our day-to-day as well. Do I think UniFi is bar none the best gear? Absolutely not. Do I think it's a "good deal"? Maybe. Do I think it's better than the alternative uses of my time, that I'd rather spend doing other stuff? Abso-fucking-lutely, which is why I have been buying it for years.
Andrex 11mo ago
The incredulity I feel at HN types hyping up UniFi is pretty high. A for-profit company centralizing commodity tech into a single point of failure, what could go wrong? We've been down this road before, the hype and "magic" is never worth it... Come on, guys.
aetherspawn 11mo ago
How’s this go in direct sunlight, like 50 degree C ambient? Any experiences?

373 points by janandonly 11mo ago

cromka 11mo ago

The fact that the outdoor version is directional kind of limits its adoption in mobile usage, doesn't it? Most similar products have omnidirectional antenna. Can't imagine you would rotate it by hand on a boat towards the land while on passage

botto 11mo ago
This product targets businesses where they will mount it in a fixed position and target a specific tower so they get the best throughput.
- cromka 11mo ago
  Did you read through the press release?
  - nkrisc 11mo ago
    Not GP but I’m trying to figure out what you’re insinuating. > For tougher environments or deployments with poor indoor cellular coverage, the outdoor model maintains the same high performance cellular connectivity with improved antenna performance in a durable IP67 rated enclosure. It is built for rooftop installs, off site locations, and mobile deployments where reliability is critical. Just like its indoor counterpart, you can also connect it via any PoE port, anywhere on your network, greatly simplifying cabling requirements. And the first image they show of the outdoor model is it installed in a fixed location on a rooftop.
    - k33l0r 11mo ago
      The video shows it on a moving vehicle
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
    - SigmundA 11mo ago
      Your quote lists mobile deployments, their bullet point also says: >Built for rooftops, remote sites, and vehicle based setups They are insinuating if you actually read their press release then you would not state it was targeted only at stationary deployments. Based on the spec sheet 2 out of its 6 antennas are directional, this is probably a 4x4 modem so it must have some way to switch 2 antenna from directional to omni.
      - simulator5g 11mo ago
        There are range gains to be had from using a directional antenna. If you wanted to install this on a vehicle you could put it on a mount that rotates towards sources of a set frequency.
- victorbjorklund 11mo ago
  In their promotional video they call out mobile applications and they showing a car driving with it on top of it.
gvkhna 11mo ago
I think it’s going to be targeting mostly stationary HA redundant uplinks. Backup for primary uplink or low usage primary link. In those scenarios pointing at your nearest antenna fixed is much better than an omnidirectional antenna.
- cromka 11mo ago
  They clearly mention mobile use and show it on the animation as well. Which is why I am surprised.
SigmundA 11mo ago
The spec sheet mentions 6 antennas and implies only 2 are directional: (6) Embedded cellular antennas, including (2) high-gain for downlink: peak 9 dBi, 85°x85° Typically these modems are 4x4 mimo so it must have some method for switching the 2 directional with 2 of the omnis in it based on which ones is needed. https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/integrations/u5g-max-outdoor?s=us https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/integrations/u5g-max-outdoor?...
- cromka 11mo ago
  Interesting, thanks!

dagmx 11mo ago

The fallback support for UniFi setups will be awesome. I’m honestly tempted to get it for my house. My ISP downtime is pretty low but it does happen every once in a while, at the most inopportune times, which impedes working from home. Having a wireless backup would hopefully cover those downtimes

botto 11mo ago
Yeah, the fact you can use any of the ports on a dream machine as a WAN (its not optimal, but is an option) makes it really easy to have a couple of fallbacks if you really need high redundancy.
qwerpy 11mo ago
We had a 5 day power outage (Bellevue WA, not exactly in the middle of nowhere) and after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I had backup power but no internet. On the way back from Best Buy with my new starlink, everything came back online of course. But now I’m ready for the next multi day outage. I have a network cable from my secondary WAN port on my dream machine running to my first story roof where there’s a wall mount ready for starlink to be plopped in.
- thatwasunusual 11mo ago
  > after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I discovered the same thing the hard way myself recently (in Norway); turns out that cell towers only has enough battery for ~24-36 hours (if you're lucky). However, someone messing with the fibre to my house is a bigger possibility than power outage, so I'll probably end up with this 5G product. :)
- lostlogin 11mo ago
  I’ve made the second WAN a 10gb uplink. I wish there were cheaper 10gb switch from Ubiquiti. The link Agg is good, but still pricey.
killingtime74 11mo ago

jwr 11mo ago

The 5G max outdoor looks very good and seems to be a direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series. I wonder about the antenna gain, though, the Mikrotik certainly looks more impressive. (I've been using Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit devices for years now)

Doohickey-d 11mo ago
Antenna gain isn't everything: I've set up the LTE6 for people, and in some cases I was able to get more speed in the same location with the latest iPhone. In locations where you're at the edge of coverage, and your phone is not getting anything at all, it's great. I sometimes suspected that the modem in these LTE / 5G routers is less well tuned and tested with various network than what you have e.g. in an iPhone.
- nicolaslem 11mo ago
  This is my experience as well. Unless you actually need a directional antenna, an iPhone will be faster and more reliable than dedicated hardware.
- tecleandor 11mo ago
  Of course it's faster! The Mikrotik LTE6 device is a Cat.6 LTE device, so up to 300/50Mbits, and since some time ago, all iPhones are Cat.20 and 5G and all that stuff. But that's not the only important thing. The frequency band support for the modem is very important. Not all networks nor even cell phone antennas work on the same frequencies, so even when connecting to antennas of the same company, depending on the antenna you connect, it'll have different bands enabled depending on the hardware or the connectivity they have there. You have to check the specs for you modem [0][1] and see what bands are supported, what bands are supported in the antenna your connecting to [2]... Depending on the category of your device [3], and the channels that are allowed to be used at the same time, the congestion, the interference, and... it can happen than a consumer phone downloads faster than a dedicated industrial modem, if the available frequencies aren't the most favorable. -- 0: https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte6_kit#product_specification 1: https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/ 2: https://www.cellmapper.net 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#User_Equipment_(UE)_categories

flanked-evergl 11mo ago

Just bought a Gl.iNet Puli. It's only 4G but seems like a better option if you want to supply internet to some devices that you move around. Planning to use it for setup and management of a headless presentation PC as it can directly be connected to the LAN port.

walterbell 11mo ago
Does it support eSIM? For backup internet, eSIM is good for avoiding monthly subscription, by paying per GB when needed.
- flanked-evergl 11mo ago
  I have read that people managed to get an eSIM installed on it, but I think there are also physical eSIM options. See https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/ https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/ Edit: The SIMPoYo eSIM Physical Card (see https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ ) seems really cool, may even be nice for a phone.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- szszrk 11mo ago
  I have a mobile 4g router from them and it supports physical esim. I even managed to get their suggested card for cheap. They have some support in their firmware to set it up, so you can do that fully on the router.

kkapelon 11mo ago

I am already doing what is shown in the video with Teltonika OTD500, fully unlocked and with esim support as well.

tow21 11mo ago
How does the Teltonika work out for you - I nearly bought it earlier this year but it doesn't have support for external antennae. I'm just on the edge of 5G coverage and I'm not sure I want to splash out on something which I can't tune for decent reception. Seems an odd omission for a ruggedised outside modem - the Unifi also seems to not support external antennae. (I'd also prefer a unifi version just so it fits in the with rest of the networking infra I have in the mökki.)
- kkapelon 11mo ago
  OTD500 is antenna + router in a single box. There is nothing else needed. I just put it outdoors with a POE cable. Originally, I used it as a backup, but now I have an unlimited SIM, so I use it as a second internet connection. If you mean the standard routers (like the Rutx50), Teltonika itself sells external enclosures with antennas. https://www.teltonika-networks.com/products/accessories/antenna-options/outdoor-lte-5gwi-figps-antenna-for-rutx50-and-rutm50-routers https://www.teltonika-networks.com/products/accessories/ante...
  - tow21 11mo ago
    Yeah, I know - but an antenna embedded within a small box is going to be much less effective than a big old directional Yagi antenna like https://www.satshop.fi/en/4g/4g-5g/4g-antennas.html https://www.satshop.fi/en/4g/4g-5g/4g-antennas.html Seems weird to cripple the product by not allowing me to (optionally) disable the internal antenna and instead use and tune an external antenna. And I suspect that is likely to make a difference when you are on the edge of coverage, but you know exactly where the relevant cell tower is, a few km away.
hardolaf 11mo ago
Yeah they're not really putting out new exciting technologies. But this is cheaper than every other equivalent solution on the market for sale today in the USA.

phoronixrly 11mo ago

Can't wait for this to get OpenWrt support so I can buy it and the first thing I do to be to nuke the UBNT firmware.

johncolanduoni 11mo ago
Is OpenWRT on Unifi APs any good? I hadn’t heard of it before, and I couldn’t find any performance comparisons on a quick search. Ubiquiti has gone downhill on a lot of things the last 5 years or so, but their radio firmware has always been a step up (within their price range) for me. I wouldn’t mind ditching the Unifi controller software though.
- yuvadam 11mo ago
  I don't recall their latest hardware is supported, but why would you want that anyway if you're not looking to go all in on their controller stack?
  - johncolanduoni 11mo ago
    The controller is annoying and changes completely every 6 months, and for home I use basically none of its features beyond configuring the AP. Virtualy all the issues I’ve had with Unifi APs were controller bugs, telling the AP firmware to do stupid things when it could have done literally nothing. That said, I have some concerns that the OpenWRT AP firmware is not as optimized as the Unifi firmware is for that specific hardware. Mostly for wireless performance, but I also don’t want to hit some weird CPU bottleneck.
    - 9x39 11mo ago
      If you dislike their UI, not going to try to convince you, but it is part of the value of the system. Have you looked at Mikrotik? They offer a more traditional autonomous OS w/o controllers and both a nice CLI and a powerful GUI tool.
- cathepsin 11mo ago

ur-whale 11mo ago

We're doing ads on HN now?

skrebbel 11mo ago
I see you've never opened HN during an Apple product launch event
grim_io 11mo ago
Sir, this might not be a Wendy's, but this is a VC owned site that regularly shills its questionable investments.
- johncolanduoni 11mo ago
  And for most of the people here, buying any 5G mmWave modem is a questionable investment.
  - victorbjorklund 11mo ago
    I would speculate that most tech purchases by HN crowd are questionable investments. But life is not a spreadsheet.
haunter 11mo ago
The majority of posts are ads on HN Did you know there is an entire post category for ads and self-promotion? https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show

tucnak 11mo ago

> Up to 2 Gbps downlink > 2.5 Gbit/s PoE to upstream switch Can anybody explain to me why these supposedly premier networking devices are lacking so much in bandwidth? I get it that mmWave is really only ever realistically going to hit 2.5G over the air, but is there any reason why they're not willing to provide at least 10G copper, or an actual SFP port? Hell, even Macs support 10G these days. I never understood this. Do they mean 2 Gbps downlink per client, or per device in total? If it's the former, 2.5G wired seems like a major bottleneck to any serious consumption. If a single client at 2 Gbps is all the promise of 5G amounted to, well, it would be disappointing to say the least.

fulafel 11mo ago
The whole 2.5 G spec is a weird step for ethernet speeds too. It's unfortunate it took off.
- tucnak 11mo ago
  They said the same thing about 40G but hey, I've loved it for bridging the gap between my two (10G and 100G, respectively) Mikrotik switches. You can have a dozen Gigabit ports, as well as up to four true 10G devices on your aggregation switch, and neither would be bottlenecked by traffic to and from the backside. This has been a massive boon. However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?
  - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
    > However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what? Portability and heat. You can get a small USB 2.5G adapter that produces negligible heat, but a Thunderbolt 10G adapter is large and produces a substantial amount of heat. I use 10G at home, but the adapter I throw into my laptop bag is a tiny 2.5G adapter.
    - johncolanduoni 11mo ago

amelius 11mo ago

These things are nice when they work but when they don't you're completely in the dark. Even figuring out how much GB is left on your simcard is a nightmare.

kkapelon 11mo ago
Simplest solution is to get an unlimited card. Problem solved.
- amelius 11mo ago
  Why do limited cards even exist? Turns out there are various reasons (no need to go into them here).

sschueller 11mo ago

I am confused, this is just a 5G router right? Like the 5 year old Huawei CPE Pro 2 but with wifi7, poe and eSim? [1] https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/ https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/

sz4kerto 11mo ago
It's a modem, not a router.
- b-karl 11mo ago
  There are both, the router is further down the page
kkapelon 11mo ago
Unifi is the Apple of networking gear. When something new is released the HN crowd is excited even when the same functionality existed already with another company.
- amelius 11mo ago
  Apple of networking? I suppose no OpenWrt then.
  - wrobelda 11mo ago
    You actually can install Openwrt on bunch of their hardware
    - idatum 11mo ago
      Or OpenBSD, in my case a USG-3P. I would have otherwise tossed it but now it's a nice OpenBSD switch. OpenBSD 7.7 (GENERIC) #339: Sun Apr 13 17:52:27 MDT 2025 deraadt@octeon.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/octeon/compile/GENERIC real mem = 536870912 (512MB) avail mem = 521142272 (497MB) Only complaint I have with Unifi is so-so IPv6 support. I'd love to see a NAT64/DNS64 option configurable in their UI.

yapyap 11mo ago

I gotta say, I hate it when companies use “xxx bits per second”, whether its Mega or Giga nobody uses bits per second and for the average consumer it’s very unclear that this differs from bytes. Having to explain to relatives and such that “yeah you actually have to divide that by 8” is a hassle and I get tricked by it subconsciously at times as well. 2 gbps meaning 250 megabytes per second is a SCAM. A marketing sham at it’s finest. “I have 100 mbps download” meaning “I get 12.5 megabytes download per second” is ridiculous!!

AceJohnny2 11mo ago
and how do you feel about HDD vendors (and Apple) using giga-/tera- for their strictly SI power-of-ten and not power-of-two meaning?
- johncolanduoni 11mo ago
  This ship sailed out of view a long time ago, the only GB you’ll see that is still base-2 is RAM. And that’s only because you literally can’t address physical RAM in non power-of-2 blocks in most architectures.
kortilla 11mo ago
That’s not marketing related at all. It’s how network speeds have been measured long before ISPs were a business. A byte per second is no more intuitive than a nibble per second or a bit per second. You might be used to byte as a power user because of storage, but I assure you that to regular people “256 gigabytes” is a meaningless number as well.
johncolanduoni 11mo ago
If you really want to piss people off, use Gibibits - 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bits. The ratio between those and Gigabytes is ~7.451.
- poly2it 11mo ago
  I honestly feel mibi and gibibytes per second are the easiest units to rationalise about. The data I am transferring is already known to me in its binary prefix unit. Seconds for that data to transfer is a trivial translation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

jonplackett 11mo ago

I wish website designers would remember that not everyone can see great. This text is so fine and light and they’ve also disabled screen reader

dlillard0 11mo ago
[dead]
nake89 11mo ago
Firefox reader view gives me better contrast. Also the text to speech mode works in reader view.
quantummagic 11mo ago
Have you tried Firefox Reader View? It allows you to set whatever text size and font is best for you.
szszrk 11mo ago
oh, I didn't noticed that at first, but you are right. What I did noticed is so many fast videos right next to text. I didn't even bother to read it (without firefox read mode) because it makes me a bit dizzy.
Orygin 11mo ago
Even if my vision is okay, it still feels like a slap to the face. Can't take some time to make sure the most important part of the page is readable by all.
- jonplackett 11mo ago
  I specifically have issues with strong back lighting (genetic cataracts suck - I’m only in my 40s) so bright white page and light writing is super frustrating. Dark mode is my best friend.

Semaphor 11mo ago

OT: Does anyone know of a setting or extension for Firefox to stop those autoplaying videos? I have gifs disabled, prefers-reduced-motion on, and those videos in that article both autoplay, and start again after pausing them manually. I have no idea what the article is about (except what the title says) because I kept getting distracted by the annoying videos.

uallo 11mo ago
Settings => Search for "Autoplay" => Click "Settings..." => For "Default for all websites" select "Block Audio and Video".
- Semaphor 11mo ago
  Thank you, I could have sworn I had that active, but for some reason it was "audio only".
  - styanax 11mo ago
    The about:config settings which you can look up: media.autoplay.blocking_policy media.autoplay.default I have mine set to 2 and 5 respectively.
    - Semaphor 11mo ago
      FWIW, blocking policy on 2 blocks (at least some, Qobuz for me) streaming sites and bandcamp (bandcamp being the more problematic one as every band is on their own subdomain and you can’t (I think) just allow all of them).
      - styanax 11mo ago
        I seem to have no problems streaming from either Bandcamp or Qobuz, the latter which I'd never heard of before. (or as far as I'm aware any other site) I intentionally want to click-to-play on every site out there, so perhaps you mean "blocks autoplay" or somesuch?

Asmod4n 11mo ago

I’ve got their unifi mobile router 4g and am quite happy with it in conjunction with one of their routers which got two lan ports you can either run in primary/primary mode where it does load balancing or primary/secondary one where the latter only gets used when the main one has issues. I just kinda wish multipath TCP or something similar would be more in use so you wouldn’t notice a swap in connection mid air.

jnsaff2 11mo ago

So Ubiquity is trustworthy again? After the 2.4GHz wifi issues with UDM I swore I will never buy them again.

KerrAvon 11mo ago
I've been running a base UDM for a long time without any 2.4GHz issues -- is there something specific that was broken?
- jnsaff2 11mo ago
  A few years ago I was running my UDM. Wifi on 2,4GHz and 5GHz was working fine. Then after an upgrade some of my devices start losing connectivity after a while, happened multiple times a week or day. Only restart helped. I was going mad until I discovered that only the 2,4GHz ones are losing connectivity. Then I started researching and found out that it was not just me, it was just bad code in firmware that was not fixed in any of the versions that came out before I had enough, sold the device and swore off this garbage.

daft_pink 11mo ago

Do you know if we can use the T-Mobile home Internet? I think they require their own modem, but I’m not sure.

syntaxing 11mo ago
You can if it supports IMEI spoofing (which I doubt). You definitely can use GL inet 5G routers if you want an alternative
- daft_pink 11mo ago
  In their video, it looks like it Supports T-Mobile
  - syntaxing 11mo ago
    Doesn’t matter for home ISP. The SIM card is locked to the IMEI number.

dismalpedigree 11mo ago

The problem I have seen is when I need it most, due to a rare fiber internet outage, so does everyone else nearby and cellular data becomes saturated and unusable.

turnsout 11mo ago
In locations where fiber is not available (like my place), cable is the next best option, and cable has a lot more unexpected downtime. I could see this being a good backup, especially for small businesses like retail shops that couldn't afford to have their POS go down for half a day.
- hedora 11mo ago
  Around here, it’s Starlink >> Fiber >> Cable because our lines are above ground and outages are frequent. Fiber is less expensive than and more than 10x faster than starlink, in fairness. Our 5g towers seem to run off the fiber lines, so it’s not really a backup (and gets overwhelmed anyway). I’m considering getting fiber in addition to starlink, but I wish they’d just buried the lines. I see telephone trucks repairing downed lines we’d rely on many dozens of times a year. Digging a trench would probably pay for itself in a year or two.
  - hylaride 11mo ago
    > Digging a trench would probably pay for itself in a year or two. I know some people running independent community fiber ISPs. Digging trenches can be a nightmare depending on the neighbourhood. You can have property ownership issues, other utilities being present, permit nightmares, different ground/soil types, etc. That ignores the fact that when somebody else digs they can hit your lines and repairing that is a pain. Digging is better, though. But it’s not necessarily as easy as one may think.
    - thewebguyd 11mo ago
      Definitely a nightmare. Where I work just acquired new property and are deploying a new site. It took 9 months, from date of first contact, before the ISP could come out, bore under the road, and run fiber to our building from two poles away. And that's just a short ~500 feet underground run. I couldn't imagine the amount of permitting and logistics involved in trying to bury an entire run across town.

syntaxing 11mo ago

Would be useful for 5G home internet if they had IMEI spoofing but I would doubt it. It sucks how the gateway from these services do not have external antenna support.

hedora 11mo ago
Yeah; California’s network neutrality laws include a provision banning discrimination based on device type. I’ve never heard of it being enforced, and blatant violations of it are the norm.

zekyl314 11mo ago

I was hoping this was a mini 5G cell tower that connected to the network, so you could have good 5G service inside.

powvans 11mo ago
I need a portable mini 5G cell tower in a backpack form factor so that I can have 5G service indoors no matter where I am.
- Scene_Cast2 11mo ago
  With what backhaul? WiFi?
macNchz 11mo ago
Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters. Once upon a time, I believe, some American cell providers would give you one for free if you had bad signal at home, which mattered a lot more before phones all had wifi calling.
- joecool1029 11mo ago
  > Those do exist, they’re called cell signal boosters. No, those are different. They are describing a femtocell. I still have one site with a T-Mobile one. It basically VPN’s to T-Mobile’s network core through the cable ISP, uses GPS to check its location for licensed spectrum, and then broadcasts its own LTE signal. It does not boost/repeat the signal of a nearby tower, it runs its own.
- andix 11mo ago
  Do they work for 5G? I think just amplifying the signal (like 2g signal boosters did) would mess with a lot with all the fancy RF tricks that make 5G fast, stable, low-latency and quite low on package loss (5G has impressively low package loss on the IP layer). For most use cases WiFi should be the better solution. VoWiFi works well for calls. Should be enough for home and office use.
- 11mo ago

mrbluecoat 11mo ago

US Verizon SIM support?

stego-tech 11mo ago
I think Verizon is an eSIM option on the modem; dunno about the Router version, but I’d want to assume it’s the same? Either way, having modems that are fully unlocked for Stateside usage for once is a nice touch. Their LTE line was essentially AT&T-locked, or unlocked but only supporting AT&T in the US, so this is a nice improvement.

wkat4242 11mo ago

I'm glad it has a physical SIM still. I always use regular prepaid phone plans for my 4/5G backup but the providers don't like these being used with modems. So they have more options to block them with eSIM.

xiconfjs 11mo ago

FAQ: "Can the UniFi 5G Max Outdoor work as a standalone device?" -> No. The UniFi 5G Max Outdoor must be adopted by a UniFi Cloud Gateway or UniFi Gateway and cannot function independently as a router or modem. :(

grayhatter 11mo ago
Yeah, exactly how I feel! This is disappointing. I remember, and miss the days when UniFi wasn't as user hostile as they have become.
happyopossum 11mo ago
They literally list the standalone version further down the page: * Dream Router 5G Max: The Fully Integrated UniFi Experience *
- kllrnohj 11mo ago
  but that one isn't outdoor rated.
  - Analemma_ 11mo ago
    Why do you need the entire integrated setup to be outdoor-rated? That just adds tons of cost. If the antennas and modem need to be outside for signal strength reasons, so be it, but as much of your networking gear as possible should be indoors.
    - Retric 11mo ago
      Construction projects, festivals, etc. Bad cellular reception is more likely to be an issue far from other infrastructure.
      - amluto 11mo ago
        There are plenty of outdoor plastic enclosures, mostly RF-transparent, that are intended to hold network equipment.

gsibble 11mo ago

This device came out just after I already got Fios 2GB and Comcast 2GB for load balancing / failover. If both of them go down, I doubt 5G will matter much. Not like I have a big UPS in the house anyways.

roflchoppa 11mo ago

2Gbps?! I was testing out tmobile 5G service with their router and it’s only ~330Mbps down ~180Mbps up… Can it really be that much faster?

harrall 11mo ago
I get 650 Mbps with T-mobile in my city.
jmb99 11mo ago
I’ve seen 900Mbps with Bell in low-congestion areas at off-peak times, with an iPhone 13 Pro 5 years ago.
cap11235 11mo ago
I have tmobile and a local provider for fiber. 5G Tmobile caps out around 912, similar to my fiber.

andix 11mo ago

I thought it would create a private 5G network to extend the unify WiFis. But it's just a fancy 5G modem, right?

deleted 11mo ago

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varispeed 11mo ago

I live near 5G relay and I was surprised that I could get symmetrical 1gbps connection, without any cables. Still remembering 56k modem, it feels like magic.

aynyc 11mo ago

My good friend is a network engineer and provider in NYC for decades now, pretty good one at that. Has anyone deployed UniFi in a computer centric professional environment? Just to be more specific a bit, computer centric professional environment means networks and computers are the primary way of getting job done. He hasn't seen any UniFi but his home is all UniFi.

ugh123 11mo ago
I've seen Cisco meraki AP's on the ceilings at more than a handful of tech companies, if that helps.
- aynyc 11mo ago
  Thanks!
9x39 11mo ago
Small businesses? Sure. I've seen Unifi networks with a few hundred MACs often enough. Enterprises? Thousands, tens of thousands of employees? Generally cost isn't prohibitive at the scale so bigger ecosystems with more support make way more sense. Even their enterprise switches aren't really equivalent to Cisco, Arista, Juniper, etc enterprise offerings. They're inching forward, though.
- aynyc 11mo ago
  What kinda of small businesses? My friend does consulting and most of his business is on small (100-250 employees) size and sometimes small start up, typically in the office construction phase where he comes in and set up network infrastructure. He never seems anyone asking for UniFi, but again, might just because the cost? He feels UniFi is price competitive at that scale but no one wants it for some reason. When he was with a larger company, cisco and juniper were the only options.
  - 9x39 11mo ago
    Upmarket electrical trade, engineering offices, MSPs commonly, smallish healthcare, an equine event center, a bank. I see tons of small businesses (mom & pop, restaurants) with a UI AP or two, of course, but that's not what you meant, I don't think. The places that COULD use UI often just don't care, and want the cheap toilet paper (netgear, ebay whatever) since cost discipline can be critical. I think there's a niche of biz with enough margin that networking/cameras get sold together and they don't insist on lowest price. My guess would also be the MSP that is quoting the job also heavily influences whether UI is used, plenty of dinosaurs out there. Bigger places want routing, network virtualization, etc from the big players you mentioned. UI doesn't want to mess with BGP, spine-leaf, sd access/wan, etc. There's also like the 24/7 support options they want, and access to the partner/VAR/contractor networks so you have tons of options. The sales deals and dinners unfortunately factor into this too...

cmpxchg8b 11mo ago

How does this differ from Invisagig?

QuiEgo 11mo ago

I really want to want Unifi, but my experience with one of their products (UDM + mesh) was that it was a ton of effort to get something working that ended up being slower and more fiddly than a consumer focused router. When I get home, I don’t want to be an unpaid sysadmin

kidfiji 11mo ago
Check out Firewalla if your interest roots in tinkering :)
giobox 11mo ago
While Unifi supports wireless backhaul/mesh, the entire system is heavily designed to encourage wired backhaul - all their wireless APs are PoE for a reason. If you are going to invest in the Unifi ecosystem, it makes sense to invest in decent networking - wireless "mesh" is always a compromise for running multiple wireless APs. If you are in a situation you need multiple wireless APs but can't run ethernet to them (like renting etc), I'd probably pass on a Unifi system personally.
- QuiEgo 11mo ago
  Yeah this lines up with my experience. Had issues with mesh (I bought an AP with mesh in the product name that covered a wall outlet, no Ethernet in)(edit: it was the “beacon”), essentially was told “you’re holding it wrong.”, and moved on. They seem like lovely products for their intended use case, but my personal experience was not great. Edit 2: I have eero now. The nodes seem to have some proprietary protocol that sends clients to the best node as you walk around the house. I can’t setup Vlans or do power user stuff, but my WiFi actually “just works” now. I don’t think I’ve touched it once after initial setup.

Etheryte 11mo ago

What I really want to know is how much they paid to acquire ui.com and whether that investment is paying off in any measurable kind of way.

NelsonMinar 11mo ago

I wonder if this works any better than their Unifi LTE Backup. That was so bad I gave up on it after about a month. The biggest problem was the weird way the router handled routes meant that with the LTE on the network, even when it wasn't being used a bunch of router features were impaired. Like static routes. Ubiquiti makes some good hardware but their software is full of terrible bugs.

drnick1 11mo ago

Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive "prosumer" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps through Wireguard. For access points in a home setting, TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value and far more "free" (i.e., unclouded) than any UniFi stuff constantly phoning home for "updates."

npunt 11mo ago
Perhaps you missed the product positioning: “Simple setup and clean design” Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends
- drnick1 11mo ago
  > Not everyone wants to fix old hardware and configure linux on their weekends I thought this was Hacker News.
  - asib 11mo ago
    UniFi customers =/= Hacker News.
    - tristor 11mo ago
      Very much not true. I'm a seasoned network engineer, and very comfortable deep in the Linux network stack. I still have no interest in doing that for 7-10 hours during work and then having to do it for another 1-3 hours after work to get things working properly. I use UniFi products because they're dead simple and work well. I would challenge you to try supporting your family using your home network doing esoteric things, the juice is not worth the squeeze. I can give my wife the UniFi login and she can figure things out well enough on her own, and it lets us easily integrated networked devices that don't serve network connectivity (e.g. IP cameras) into our day-to-day as well. Do I think UniFi is bar none the best gear? Absolutely not. Do I think it's a "good deal"? Maybe. Do I think it's better than the alternative uses of my time, that I'd rather spend doing other stuff? Abso-fucking-lutely, which is why I have been buying it for years.

Andrex 11mo ago

The incredulity I feel at HN types hyping up UniFi is pretty high. A for-profit company centralizing commodity tech into a single point of failure, what could go wrong? We've been down this road before, the hype and "magic" is never worth it... Come on, guys.

aetherspawn 11mo ago

How’s this go in direct sunlight, like 50 degree C ambient? Any experiences?