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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

ubiquiti hardware and software.

I prefer TP-Link Omada. Local hardware controller makes it non cloud based but with that kind of experience and hardware is rock solid.

You can't use that without signing in to their 'cloud' services at least once.

I recently got a UDM and don't recall having to sign in and I was able to set it up and everything functions including automatic updates. Where did you have to sign in and for what product?

Are you absolutely sure?

At some point they changed to doing everything via the 'cloud'. Obviously their customers didn't like that so they gradually backed down.

I want to upgrade my unifi AP so I ask on HN or other forums once in a while. Last answer I got was that you can disable the need for cloud but you still have to sign on somewhere once to be able to disable it.

So I repeat: are you absolutely sure you didn't need to give Ubiquity any info or go through their servers this time?

Because I'd love to get a new access point...

With the APs you can set them up in standalone mode without the need for a controller at all, but you get more out of them with a controller so if you have the means to run a controller you absolutely should. With the controller you're heavily incentivised to sign in, but you don't have to.

With their "Cloud Gateways" (e.g. UDM Pro, UDR, UX, UCG-Ultra) it used to be difficult if not impossible to get them into a usable state without signing into a UI account, but that is no longer the case since a few years ago.

There are some exceptions, if you wanna use their cameras you lose out on some features if you don't sign into the cloud to activate those, specifically facial recognition stuff.

All I want is a standalone AP. I don't care about advanced administration, I just want it to connect my wifi using devices to the rest of my network.

I switched from consumer to Unifi just because of the better signal.

Unfortunately, even in just this thread there are very mixed answers. One yes you can (and a downvote that probably means the same thing), your 'maybe' and one 'i couldn't'.

And my current AP seems to still be fine...

I did not give you a "maybe" answer, you can, I am certain of this, but I will also verify it for you when I get home and reply in this thread.

Thank you! Please also mention what AP model. I'm just ... paranoid these days.

I guess the 7 pro is the latest and most future proof?

OK so I just setup a blank controller (version 8.2.93, latest stable), no UI account (you just click "Advanced setup" and then skip when it tries to get you to supply an account), I then adopted a factory reset UniFi AP AC HD I had laying around, it accepted it without complaints, and automatically updated it to the latest firmware available (this is an option that's on by default in the controller software).

I then factory reset the AP AC HD again, and set it up as a standalone AP using the Android app on a freshly reset Pixel 6 running the latest version of Graphene OS.

Both methods worked fine to setup the AP without any UI accounts involved.

This is available on all APs able to run the current version of the AP firmware, which is literally all the APs released since and including the AP AC Lite (which is from 2014 or thereabouts, they support their devices for a very long period).

7 Pro Max is the current top-end model.

I highly recommend setting up a controller for managing the AP though, even if you don't keep it running 24/7 (you can simply start it on any PC whenever you want to make configuration changes), as when they're in standalone mode a lot of the cool features don't work, you only get one SSID (per radio) and no roaming support for example, whereas when managed by the controller you can have up to 8 SSIDs per radio on the latest APs, you can access telemetry, setup roaming, etc.

Thank you kind sir or ma'am or alien!

I missed the controller... had an old version on an old desktop then downloaded the latest on new machines and it insisted on an UI account back then.

Unifi devices are still pretty good since I haven't needed the controller in years. This new one says I have an AP AC v2.

In this case Unifi is going to make some more money off me next week since i want to try positioning the AP somewhere else (new wire, holes etc).

I do swear there were older versions of the controller (newer than my AP) where I couldn't figure out how to run it without the UI account.

I honestly can't recall that ever being true for the controller, but it absolutely was true for the UDM/UDM-Pro on release and for quite a while after, so I guess it might have been true for the controller as well for a while around then too, I don't setup controllers that often.

Maybe it was just hidden, like it is now, but it pissed me off enough to not research it.

> I don't setup controllers that often

I've only done it twice; once when I installed the AP the first time, and once when I retired the machine with the controller so I needed to install it on a new desktop. Second time is the one where I failed by refusing to make an UI account.

I bought one of their entry level wifi routers and was completely unable to configure it without first setting up an account on their cloud service and using that to activate the router. Maybe it's possible, but if it is they hid it very well. I know their hardware tends to get good reviews, but the whole experience left a really bad taste in my mouth

I bet this was between 2018 and 2022? Yeah, that used to be the case, not anymore though, there's literally a big fat "Setup Console Offline"-button on the latest firmwares (since at least a year back I want to say), if you somehow find one with older firmware you can simply boot it into recovery mode and update firmware before setting it up for use.

You absolutely can.

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