Ubiquiti Second Thoughts

Second thoughts not in the way that one normally thinks about that term, but just thinking about the process of having installed a small Ubiquiti configuration in my house and how it's worked out.  As I look through the blog posting history, I don't see any indication that I wrote about the Ubiquiti system in the first place.  So, I guess I should.

What drove my deployment of Ubiquiti was upgrading my FiOS connection to GB at the behest of my boys, who were living with me at the time.  The Verizon-provided router that I was currently using was not going to be capable of 1 GB.  This was after Verizon had lowered GB Internet to reasonable prices (< $100/month) and about March of 2017, right about two years ago.

Our first attempt was to use a new Verizon-provided router for the service.  It could not have been worse.  It kept needing to be reset and otherwise was not terribly reliable.  I researched my available options and ultimately decided that despite the expense, a Ubiquiti-based system would provide a lot of flexibility and provide outstanding coverage across my (not terribly large, but somewhat spread out) house and back yard.  The goal of the system was to have a reliable, but easy-to-manage system that would just work.

I purchased the following:

• Unifi Security Gateway (USG) to be the router
• 2 x Unifi AC AP LR
• Unifi AP Outdoor
• Unifi CloudKey
• 2 x 5 Port EdgeRouter PoE
• Unifi Video Camera G3

After I had made a separate decision to build a simple Linux server which could host the Ubiquiti configuration software, I decided that I could return the CloudKey.  I was also annoyed that the CloudKey was not powerable via PoE provided by the EdgeRouter.  The other thought was that I could use the server to run Ubiquiti's software to run security cameras.  I did get the software working and tested my one camera, but I never ended up deploying the six or so security cameras that I had been planning on doing.

The Unifi AC AP LR (as in 802.11 ac, access point, long range) had to be wired and could be mounted to the ceiling.  I did install one near the router cabinet in the living room as below:

All blue!  Providing super-fast wifi close to most of the usage (in the living room and kitchen)

USG not mounted yet, but you can see the cloud key on the floor.  Server to come soon to replace the box on the left.

Previous outdoor setup relied on a large antenna and some Amplifi gear, but it never lived up to its promise

Here is the new Unifi AP Outdoor all hooked up - but no cable management has been completed

I loved a few things about the network:

• Web-accessible dashboard (both internal and external to our network)
• Single SSID; a seemless transition between access points as you moved across the house
• Overall, quite speedy

Our GB FiOS connection never lived up to the hype, but we do get upwards of 870 Mbps, which is something.  All of the backbone network in the house is also now going through GB ethernet switches, so there is just good speed to be had all around.

I have done very little in terms of network maintenance or fiddling over the last couple of years.  Mostly just updating the firmware on the devices and rebooting them.  I do that probably not more than once per six months.  One of the times that I decided to do that, I found that the outdoor access point and one of the indoor ones were not listed as active.  What was up?

I did not go on a tear to find out.  I was reasonably lazy and took my time.  I still seemed to have wifi where and when I needed it, so there wasn't too much of a need to do something quickly.  Ultimately, I have figured two things out:

• The outdoor AP not working was a result of some animal deciding to chew through the ethernet cable that goes out of the house at the study and back to the device.  Annoying, but also somewhat relieving that it was not anything to do with the device.  I haven't fixed the cable and I'm not sure that I will before I sell the house (which will hopefully happen in the next couple of months).
• The indoor AP was a bit of a surprise.  I thought that it was the AP located in the study that had stopped working and that was likely driven somewhere in the cable routing upstream (of which there was quite a bit).  It turned out not to be true - the AP in the study was the only one that was working.  The AP pictured above in the living room, despite having it's blue ring on, was not working.  I'm still not quite sure why.  I pulled it off the ceiling and connected it into the EdgeRouter with a shorter ethernet cord (into a PoE'd port) and it has been functioning fine since.  I should note that the cable that runs from the EdgeRouter to the ceiling-mounted AP is one that I put the ends on.  So I might not have done a great job.  This is something that I may have to deal with in the future, but also don't want to do much before I sell the house.  Whatever setup I have, will be good enough.

So despite these two quirks, I'm still really happy with the network and am hopeful that I get another three or four years out of the gear.  If I do, I will declare myself satisfied with the purchase and will look into buying another round of Ubiquiti gear.