Ubiquiti UniFi made me realize how terrible consumer Wi-Fi gear is | Hacker News Reader

Ubiquiti UniFi made me realize how terrible consumer Wi-Fi gear is

arstechnica.com

40 pointslxm24 comments

Have they fixed their GPL compliance issues?

http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/ http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/1740217/how-ubiquiti... https://community.ubnt.com/t5/Business-Talk/Slashdot-quot-Ho...

Looked at getting these a while ago and the Java configuration tool and server turned me off for a simple 2 unit deployment. Anyone else have thoughts/experience with this?

I have a unifi security gateway, a mfi power bar and a unifi ac uap pro and I was originally turned off by the fact that each tool installs and configures their own mongodb instance (that conflict which each other when installed on the same machine) but I found isolating them in their own docker containers works well

I disabled the upstream check (IIRC) in the AP, and I only have to turn the server on when reconfiguring. I was against Ubiquiti for this reason, but after using it I'm glad we chose it.

Unless you want to run the captive portal, you don't need to keep the java stuff running once the access points are configured. I have it installed as a service in an ubuntu VM, which I just enable when I need it.

The Unifi software is simply awesome. It is as if someone finally figured out how to write an application in Java properly. I've installed eight APs in our office and three at my brothers house and it is as easy as one two three.

1. Plug into the network w/power over ethernet 2. Fire up the UniFi controller 3. Press the 'Adopt' button on the newly listed AP

I used to use routers that could run Tomato and other variants of DDWRT, now it's just Ubiquiti equipment.

I've also used their 5GHz point to point equipment and outdoor AP equipment with great success.

If you have any questions at all, check out their forums. The participants will help you design your system and pick out the equipment that will do the job.

https://community.ubnt.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/Forums

Edit: The AP install at my brothers house has a high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).

> now most devices are a lot smarter about their roaming choices and can more readily shift between multiple access points on the same WLAN.

One would think a 2015 Chromebook Pixel would be "smarter" but I have had horrible problems moving between APs in my house. I've resorted to tethering to my phone when reading in bed.

I've tried both using the same SSID on both APs and using different ones but neither work. I've had no trouble with android phones "roaming".

Have you tried the "Zero-Handoff" mode? It supposedly broadcasts the same BSSID and the devices don't have to use roaming. https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205144590-UniFi-What...

Unfortunately I can't afford to replace my hardware. It would be nice if DD-WRT supported zero-handoff but I couldn't find any reference in the website.

I have some UniFi gear, and getting it was such an amazing event that I simply cannot help recommending it to everyone I know. This is the first time in my life that i have not had to power cycle anything in months to fix strange WiFi issues in my house.

In fact this is the first time I've felt comfortable installing wireless gear in very-hard-to-reach places because I now know I don't need to reach it.

My UniFi AC APs have not been power cycled in months and have had zero issues.

> Ubiquiti UniFi made me realize how terrible consumer Wi-Fi gear is

How terrible can consumer wifi be when his Apple AP beat the commercial units on all tests?

I think he's testing from a MacBook which of course it's Wlan driver was tested extensively against the Airport.

Wifi drivers are a nightmare because of the severe fragmentation. It's most consistent on OSX and Linux/BSD, but on Windows the exact same chip rebranded might never get all the bug fixes in their copy/pasted driver. The SOHO access points have similar problems.

That is exactly why I think Apple are investing into their WiFI Chipset.

mikrotik has capsman controller in all its gear, even without wifi. works quite nice, with roaming and such. cheap. boxes are ugly though.

And the software on 'em is buggy as hell and QA is apparently non-existent. Take a look at the release notes for any recent version of RouterOS for the kind of bugs they {introduce,fix}.

I read this when it was published and the bottom line is that consumer gear is a race for the bottom in cost and cuts a lot of corners.

Bought one of these awhile ago, the stock firmware and UI is easily some of the worst I've ever used.

The new firmware offers more in the way of wizards and things for standard SOHO environments

Still need to install java and get the software installed and working. Was a huge PITA in Linux so I ended up using a windows boot and even that was spotty.

Says MSRP is $149 but they are $229 on the ubiquiti store and amazon. Ugh

AC-LITE is what you want and it's $89 each

Since my comment, i realized that the Pro version is backordered or not available yet, and it is the older version I see available.

the ac-lite versions aren't as good as the pro's. the normal version basically have less cpu/memory.

The ac-lite are awesome. 800mbit/s 5ghz what's to complain about?

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/

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