On the other hand, Ubiquiti has been violating the GPL since at least 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquiti_Networks#U-Boot_confi...

I agree. I've have much success with Ubiquiti - everything from bridges to really solid wifi in the home.

And FWIW, they have recently started shipping a UniFi Mesh product called... UniFi Mesh. I haven't used it so can't really speak for it, but its marketing site is here: https://unifi-mesh.ubnt.com/

I had the exact opposite experience.

Ubiquiti works well in a low RF noise environment.

We have 1k+ unique SSIDs visible throughout our office and I was having horrific latency spikes, lost connections, etc. with top of the line Ubiquiti equipment. Trying tuning them every which way from sunday. No Dice.

Spent the money and switched to ruckus and instantly: perfect wifi. Never looked back.

Wow! That mesh product line looks bananas. Thanks!

I deploy a lot of Unifi APs and run them off a controller hosted in AWS which I fire up when I need to monitor or deploy.

Be aware with Unifi gear there is no onboard configuration or UI beyond busybox shell via SSH and a basic command line tool. They are intended to be deployed using the Unifi controller which once setup can be shut down, but will be required again to change passwords, etc.

Unifi is definitely at the top of my list for multiple AP deployments, I still prefer MikroTik for edge devices though.

For other potential adopters:

> Be aware with Unifi gear there is no onboard configuration or UI beyond busybox shell via SSH and a basic command line tool. They are intended to be deployed using the Unifi controller which once setup can be shut down, but will be required again to change passwords, etc.

To clarify, this applies to the edge AP/repeaters. I know for sure every router I have purchased from Ubiquiti has had an onboard/hosted web management UI.

That said, you can install the UniFi management portal on a local machine and serve it on demand from a laptop. Or, as you (eltoozero) have done, host it remote.

And finally, you can also buy their "Cloud key" device which acts as a host for the web management portal.

> https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-cloud-key/

Last I looked the edgerouter had the UI built in but the Unifi security gateway did not.

Ah good to know! I would guess this is because the security gateway, cloud key, and APs are all part of the "UniFi" line so they are all meant to be managed by the cloud key/management portal. That said, I wonder if the UniFi switches similarly don't have on board management (it sounds like a no)...

Once nice thing is you can one run controller app in a docker image, useful if you have an unraid setup or similar. A lot cheaper than buying their little cloud key.

> Be aware with Unifi gear there is no onboard configuration or UI beyond busybox shell via SSH and a basic command line tool.

This used to be the case, they now have a app for Android and iOS which will setup and manage APs even without a controller.

I believe you loose some of the functionality, like captive portals on guest networks, but 99.9% of people don't need these things.

I run a handful of Unifi AP's, I've been running the control panel on a vm on my server for a while, but I really like your idea of running the controller on AWS.

I also love the MikroTik router with wifi I have back home though.

Running the controller is AWS is good for large installations, but as a Java app, it eats memory, which can be expensive on AWS. For smaller installs, it works fine to just run it as-necessary from a local machine.

They have a phone app that also can do this now, apparently.

Not quite, the phone app talks to a controller which configures the AP. You still need to run the controller (Java app) somewhere if you want to change settings or monitor the APs.

Also not quite, you can configure some basic settings with the phone app and without a controller. Not all features are available though with only the app. You need to reset the AP if you want to add it to a controller later on.

Another happy UniFi user here. I have an 18th century house which isn't large but has very thick internal walls, which makes it a tough environment for wifi. A couple of ceiling -mounted UAC-AC-Lites connected to an Edgerouter X gives me full speed everywhere.

Are your AC lites hard-lined into the router? And if not do you get speed degradation from the hops?

My house is 17th century bastide in France which was apparently built to repel canon or nuclear blasts -- my walls are a meter thick in some places and average over a half meter of pure stone. Wifi is a challenge and pulling cable is excruciating.

Yes. I was renovating so was able to run cat-6 to them, even if it took some quite circuitous routes.

I agree completely. I went all in and I have 7x UniFi ap AC in my house (2 per floor over 3 floors and one in the guest house). They are all powered by the switch (power over Ethernet) making it super clean.

The software is fine by the big advantage is that it has meraki reliability without the licensing.

What model number switch did you buy?

What models did you deploy? UniFi UAP-AC-PRO? Don't you also need to buy a power over ethernet switch to use UniFi?

I have the UAP-AC-PRO and an Edge Router Lite and couldn't be happier. I tried way more expensive consumer routers (Nighthawk), using a pair of TP-Link Archer C7s (with one in AP mode), extenders, freaking everything. They all had problems that were incredibly painful.

The AC-PRO covers my entire house (2 story, 2500+ sqft new construction) and garage with no latency issues or dead spots. There's no handoff issues like having multiple APs/extenders, there's a faster throughput than I was getting with the Nighthawk, and the PoE made it a breeze to install centrally in the house.

I'm only upset that I waited so long to just give up on the purely 'consumer grade' crap.

I just bought one UAP-AC-PRO. The one pack comes with a PoE injector. The five pack does not. I highly recommend it after a week of use.

Also, the linked article is wrong. The iphone app is more than adequate for simple home setups (no crazy java pc installation required while you're up on a ladder / in the attic installing it). It wouldn't surprise me if they have a comparable android app. Didn't check.

Also Ubiquiti are launching a new mesh networking product this month.

The unifi ac pro's work awesome, consumer routers are kind of mickey mouse after these are deployed. Mounted them in a ceiling like a smoke alarm connected via ethernet, on the other end is an included poe injector unit or just use can use a switched hub with poe ports like ubiquiti edgerouter. The only thing I don't like is the management tool requiring java for the browser but it's pretty simple to figure out. Overall it's cheaper than these other mesh products.

If you need a router functionality, get there edgerouter but I'll tell you this, it's super powerful but not something easy to figure unless you have a deeper understanding of network protocols. Great stuff.

> The only thing I don't like is the management tool requiring java for the browser but it's pretty simple to figure out.

You don't need Java to work in the browser. The management tool runs on a Tomcat webserver. That requires Java. I don't know if you need to install Java to get that working, or if Java is included in the tool itself. But you don't need the Java plugin in your browser for the tool to work. To test this, disable or remove the plugin and see if the management tool keeps working!

I use the UAP-AC-PROs in my house (and also an Edgerouter Lite at the border). Great stuff, especially for the price.

The single units come with a POE injector.

Used to work for a WISP. Got to know Ubiquity through their rock solid backhaul radios. Was hyped when they released the Unifi. Utterly and totally agree. Three UAC-AC-Pros over two stories deployed here, homeplug AV1200 for their uplinks and local PoE. Controller running on my VM server. Being at other people's homes has become amusing, link outage when you close too many doors and no coverage in front of the house? I remember that, but not fondly.

The Archer C7 the article recommends is solid, too. At least when flashed to OpenWRT, stock firmware is horrible.

The AirFiber backhaul radios are good, but the rest of their product line is not very reliable IME. Cambium is much better performing and more reliable.

Yup, was thinking mostly of those. The AF5x was giving us more trouble than it was worth, too.

I am curious as to what issues you had with the AF5x. I've personally deployed about 50 of them with nothing but overwhelming success. The entire AirFiber line is some of the best equipment I've ever worked with.

Mostly interference, even by our own equip. We operated in an area that has multiple other WISPs and the last network step to our customers was entirely 5ghz, so almost all bands all across our network had at least some interference. And with the competition we could not ask to please not use 50mhz channels everywhere even when unnecessary.

I guess I should have said that right away. If interference or false DFS positives aren't an issue, they're excellent radios and with the 34dbi antenna dish UBNT offer you can potentially bridge unbelievable distances.

For LOS Backhauls I'd always go for the AF24HD unless the steep price is an issue. Then again, the license for 18ghz radios alone costs more in Germany and tbh I haven't seen any interference ever with 24ghz, even if it is a free band.

I think the false DFS hits are an FCC issue -- I've used radios from multiple vendors, and any that have been recently certified (Such as Mimosa, Ubiquiti Airmax AC) all have false DFS issues. The older lines(such as Rocket M series) do not. I've deployed over 100 Rocket M series and never once have seen a false DFS hit on them. I believe the FCC updated the trigger requirements for a DFS shutdown which greatly increased the possibility of a false positive.

Airfibers are our choice any time there is interference. They handle it better than any other radio we've tested. Have you found another vendor that can handle it better? Obviously there would be no comparison against a licensed setup.

As for the AF24, they're not an option in Florida for distances over 1 mile due to rain fade. They are great radios, but 24ghz is not a viable frequency if you need it to work when it's humid, foggy, or raining.

Na, I think we were mostly facing band congestion. Think an area of a few dozen square miles with three independent wireless providers all doing customer connections with 5ghz plus another country's border with other users of these bands again right next.

Probably unfair to blame it on the AF5X.

As for the weather, I would assume Southern Germany has as much in common with Florida as Switzerland with Hawaii. Snow is an issue but in LoS links it was never a big one. Only on 60/80 Gigahertz links, but those you can kill with a well placed wrapper of tinfoil anyway :)

Our DFS false positives were, since FCC reqs don't matter here, most likely due to congestion or Swiss mobile providers playing with nanocell setups or what not.

All in all I prefered Ubiquity over Mikrotik, Ruckus and Cambium. Mimosa I liked, too, but when it came down to it Ubiquity had the nicest features, the best build quality, the most accessible configuration and the best resulting links.

Not in the WISP biz anymore but I do enjoy talking shop. Did you try the Amplifi the article mentions yet? I have my Unifi setup at home and really don't think I will change it to something else, but I would love to try their first consumer product :)

I don't get much into the consumer side of things, so I haven't dealt with most of the brands mentioned in the article, but I have deployed 500+ Ubiquiti access points, some in a network with 5,000+ users, with mostly great results (just watch those bad firmware builds!).

As a rule of thumb, any time I see "mesh" I run far far away as it usually refers to a bunch of single-radio half-duplex access points and some sort of super "self-healing" magic. One second you get great speed, the next you have horrible speed. But most of the routers mentioned in the article are dual radio with a dedicated "backhaul" thus probably work much better than the mesh networks of the past.

On 24ghz I do have an 18km link running at 250mb/s FDX on a standard set of AF24, but the slightest atmopheric disturbance takes it out. Even my 3km link will drop in a heavy storm. I haven't even bothered with 60/80. I doubt they would make it across the street!

OpenWRT on the Archer C7 does not support the 5Ghz radio, FYI.

According to the wiki that was only the v1 hardware rev, which wasn't out for long and was replaced several years ago. https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500

Yup. Writing this on a mobile client on an OpenWRT Archer C7 v2...

Though the binary firmware blob can still go to hell, it's certainly troublesome or was when I installed about a year ago.

1000% this. I've given them my praise before on HN, but can't say it enough. These are best best things you can do for your network without spending tons of cash.

One thing to be aware of with their current setup are major issues with Apple devices: https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/Intermittent-co...

The thread's been going for a while but the problems persist.

I have the latest Unifi system and a similar about of devices/hardware: the problems have been resolved, and a known fix is to disabled forced band steering. It all works great.

Oh, that's very sad. Was recently looking at these because my wife and I have been having connectivity issues with our old netgear router. Figured I'd just use it as an excuse to get permission to upgrade. Guess I'll hold off.

Not sure if you have read the long article but cool to see that they did include a discussion on Ubiquiti even they aren't wifi mesh.

Have you tried managing your Amplifi through ssh? I wonder how much flexibility there is under the hood or if I should get a USG/Edgerouter instead.

One thing to note: usually there is no OpenWRT support on UniFi hardware. I tend to go with TP-Link and flash.

are you talking about Unifi Mesh - https://unifi-mesh.ubnt.com/ or the Unifi AC Pro Products(require Ethernet)