Overview
What is Ubiquiti Networks UniFi?
Ubiquiti Networks in San Jose provides their UniFi wi-fi hotspot technology.
IT Staff Force Multiplier.
Awesome outdoor coverage, worth a try for outdoor users
UniFi your assets and ease your technology operations!
Unifi Networking: A great choice for small businesses and home owners
Reliable and cost effective Wireless solution
Good network suite for the price
Take the Guess Work Out Of Networking
Unifi is a cost effective solution
Ubiquiti Networks UniFi Makes Infrastructure Easy
Unifi offers great features at a better price point
UniFi ‘d Mess
Bad Product - Even Worst Support
Ubiquiti Products deliver great performance for the price.
Unreliable, faulty system
Powerful, affordable and great looking devices for home and office environments
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What is Ubiquiti Networks UniFi?
Ubiquiti Networks in San Jose provides their UniFi wi-fi hotspot technology.
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- No setup fee
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- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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What is Aiwifi?
AI based Wifi marketing analytics and loyalty system for businesses of all sizes.
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What is Ubiquiti Networks UniFi?
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Ubiquiti Networks UniFi Technical Details
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(157)Community Insights
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The product has found several key use cases across various industries and settings. For retail stores using Vonage Business VoIP phones, it serves as a reliable and easy-to-configure backend, providing centrally managed WiFi for offices and client sites. In warehouse locations, multiple access points are deployed to quickly build out WiFi networks for Honeywell thermostats, minimizing cable requirements. Personal clients rely on the product for their household networks, appreciating its simplicity in implementation, configuration, and support for multiple SSIDs catering to different connections.
With its affordability and reliability, the product has become the go-to choice for networking solutions. It offers a low total cost of ownership along with valuable features. Its versatility is evident across entire organizations where it is used for switches, access points, and camera systems, providing a single pane of glass for networking management and troubleshooting. Additionally, the product is highly recommended and installed by clients seeking remote management capabilities, making it their primary WiFi solution at multiple locations.
The product serves as a cost-effective solution for small to medium enterprise wireless networks by extending networks wirelessly and creating fully meshed campus-wide wireless connectivity. It also excels in managing infrastructure and providing guest internet access and CCTV monitoring with ease of deployment, use, mass management, and competitive pricing. Offering full network visibility and monitoring of both wired and wireless devices and traffic, the product enables easy configuration of VLANs for enhanced security measures.
Overall, the product's performance, configurability, and cost-effectiveness have been highly praised by users in various setups where it provides network connectivity to both wired and wireless clients.
Affordability: Many users have praised the affordability of the cloud-based offering, with some stating that the lack of ongoing license fees is the best part of the product.
Ease of Deployment: Reviewers have consistently mentioned that deployment is extremely easy, with some stating that an entire network can be deployed in just minutes.
Range and Reliability: Users appreciate the wide range of choices for WiFi offered by the product, highlighting the affordability and reliability of access points suitable for indoor or covered outdoor spaces. Some specifically mention that outdoor Mesh APs with external directional antennas provide better dual-band WiFi coverage than more expensive alternatives.
Setup Process: Less Smooth and Intuitive The setup process for VLANs was not user-friendly and lacked clarity, causing difficulties for users. Some users found the setup of VLANs to be less smooth and intuitive. Cloud Key Programming: Easy to Lose, No Battery Users expressed frustration with the Cloud Key's programming capabilities, as it was prone to losing its programming and did not have a built-in battery. The Cloud Key was criticized for losing its programming too easily and lacking a battery. Outdated User Interface of Portal Users felt that the user interface of the portal was outdated and in need of a more modern and intuitive design. The user interface of the portal was seen as outdated and in need of modernization by some users.
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(1-3 of 3)UniFi -- centrally managed network devices
- Central dashboard: From a single web page or phone app, admins can monitor and adjust network devices and settings even when off-site.
- Central controller: No need to log into individual network devices, all UniFi devices report back to a single controller.
- Fair to low-cost equipment: UniFi hardware is very reasonably priced. It is much lower in terms of cost than most peers.
- $0 license for controller: The central controller (management interface) has no cost. This is without comparison as competing platforms charge large sums for monthly licensing.
- Supports any size network: Anything from a SOHO up to an enterprise with hundreds of separate physical locations across regions can be managed with a single UniFi controller allowing a single dashboard for the entire group of networks.
- Well supported hardware: Controller and device firmware frequently updated to add features and address industry-wide security changes.
- Learning curve: It takes some time and practice to grasp the concepts and implementation behind the UniFi controller and device adopt/provision approach. Bench testing with multiple demo sites is advisable before a real deployment.
- Fewer features than some competitors: The UniFi platform does not have all of the features that some competitors provide. UniFi charges $0 in licensing for the controller, but competitors charge large amounts of money for their controllers.
- Relatively limited hardware options: As compared with competitors, the UniFi hardware product line does not have as many options as some competitors. Depending on a location's needs, this could be limiting.
UniFi allows businesses to grow smoothly, whether it involves adding network devices at a single location or adding separate physical locations. All of this can be managed from a single dashboard from anywhere in the world. This helps to expedite issue resolution, prevent issues, and save time for updates to existing networks.
There are other product lines like UniFi available, but they all charge much money for hosting the central control dashboard, and most charge many times as much for each hardware component. There may be a slightly larger learning curve for UniFi than competitors, but it's not much different in concept.
Ongoing support and updates help keep the product line secure and current!
- Positive: proactive visibility to offline devices. The IT team sees outages immediately before a support call.
- Positive: much lower cost firewalls and access points.
- Positive: visibility on each individual site allows simpler consistent network configuration.
- Positive: remote support and updates from controller avoid time and mileage for site visits.
- Negative: basic (non-PoE) switches cost more than an unmanaged (non-smart) switch, though UniFi's allow port level VLAN tagging and other advanced features.
- Negative: the central controller must be online constantly for most advanced features (guest portal, VPN, etc.).
Several times now I have encountered an issue and reached out to chat support, only to be linked up with an actual UniFi engineer. This has led to resolutions for any issue I've encountered. It's clear that Ubiquiti is interested in helping customers -- they recognize that fixing an issue encountered by a user not only helps that user, but also makes their UniFi product line more useful to all.
Most home or SOHO network equipment is standalone, meaning each device is configured individually. If you need to adjust settings off-site, you need to allow it through a firewall or pay for some remote access system. There is no comparison with this type of network equipment since managing standalone devices at multiple sites quickly becomes unmanageable. UniFi is geared towards centrally managing multiple sites.
As for other central management solutions, most others charge many times more for each piece of equipment and much more for the central controller. Since UniFi provides the central controller (and API) for free, it is an easy choice for many use cases. For very large businesses or customers with very specific advanced needs, UniFi might not support certain features out of the box. But for the cost and ease of use, it's definitely worth checking out and testing!
Big Features, Small Cost, Mediocre Support
Prior to this setup, we used a "hodgepodge" of networking equipment, ranging from Cisco, Dell, and Linksys technologies. However, we were looking for a solution that provided a single pane of glass into our environment in regards to networking and wanted to ensure our networking utilized a single manufacturer to avoid dealing with troubleshooting networking issues between different manufacturers. The other attractive point of Ubiquiti is its low total cost of ownership, but the high value in features for that low price point.
- Highly intuitive configuration interface via the Cloud Key solution
- Low price for high-quality equipment
- Many networking solutions for a variety of networking scopes and needs
- Fast setup and deployment of new equipment and replacement devices
- Support - though they have gotten better in their offerings, it is incredibly hard through normal channels to reach direct support for their products. It's argued that this is what allows their cost to be lower on devices. The preferred method is to work with a reseller that can not only provide the material but the training and support for the product.
- Disjointed company direction - while I can only provide an example of a single time this has occurred, Ubiquiti has been guilty of selling a solution for a length of time, only to completely abandon the solution with no future plans to revive/re-invent it (mFi monitoring equipment)
- Hard to find resources - can be difficult to locate release notes of updates or to get a 'pulse' on what the company is working on or addressing - unless you subscribe and regularly monitor the community forums. A monthly email or regularly updated blog page would dramatically help with this.
I would be hesitant in certain scenarios in placing UniFi switches in high-end mission-critical environments. I personally feel that while Ubiquiti makes strides in keeping things updated and continuing to add features, the firmware/software updates can be volatile and potentially disrupt the ability to manage devices. I see this more with their firewall offerings, and less with their core networking switches and access points. I'm hopeful this gets improved in future months as they continue to improve the products.
- Having a nominal price to have PoE enabled everyone within our company has been incredibly useful.
- The single pane of glass that the Cloud Key appliance offers has reduced the overhead in manually going to each device to update/configure it.
- While we would wish for a paid dedicated channel for our equipment, the cost savings have justified us taking a little bit of risk in utilizing the equipment - and thankfully at the time of this writing has not come back to haunt us.
Stop spending so much on your Wireless Network
The primary use case for our implementation of Ubiquiti was two-fold.
1. To extended our network to other buildings inexpensively, i.e. wirelessly.
2. To create a fully meshed, campus-wide wireless network that could be managed from a single console.
Ubiquiti's products really shined for these two use cases.
- High quality, well featured products for far cheaper than the competition.
- Ubiquiti produces excellent devices with the functionality that you would expect for 2 or 3 times the price.
- No licensing costs
- Ubiquiti does not charge extra for management software or additional devices. What you see is what you get. The management software to manage as many devices as you want for the same price.
- Ease of use
- I always recommend Ubiquiti products to others looking for an all-in-one wireless solution because they deliver a great product that just works with minimal configurations.
- The graphical interfaces on their wireless point to point products, as well as their UniFi products is superb.
- Flexibility
- Ubiquiti works really great for the specific use cases that they are designed for but you will not have good luck moving too far outside of those. For example, you won't find any next generation firewall capabilities with their security appliance.
- Support
- Since Ubiquiti is extremely inexpensive for what you get, their support is a bit lacking. If you have trouble, you are bound to Google searches and forums. There is a wealth of information online about different use cases for their products but if you are looking for dedicated support you may be left desiring more.
1. Extending network connectivity to geographically separate locations. If you want to extend your network to a building across campus, or even across the region, you can successfully do that with Ubiquiti Point to Point wireless products. Maybe you own a lakeside dock and want to put a wireless access point there without running cable. Ubiquiti can do that. Maybe you want to provide wireless internet for a whole RV park, Ubiquiti can do that. The use cases are many when it comes to extending your network wirelessly.
2. Creating a fully-meshed wireless network. You want to create a wireless network with one or many SSIDs and you want to manage it all from one console. You don't want to spend thousands on a Cisco or Aruba product as well as deal with all the licensing. Ubiquiti networks can do it, on the cheap, and it will work great. One of my installations we manage over 26 wireless access points spanning 10 different locations across the state all from one console.
It truly is a great product.
- Reduction in support costs.
- You are tired of having to power cycle wireless access points, have users turn on and off their WiFi, log in to multiple management interfaces, and just have poor signal quality.
- Ubiquiti's UniFi solution is literally a set and forget product. Add up the amount of tickets you put in for wireless network issues and figure out the labor cost of that. That is what you could save with Ubiquiti.
- One project of extending our network to a building across a parking lot would have cost us thousands of dollars in cutting concrete, pulling cable, and patching everything up.
- Ubiquiti accomplished this job by using 2 Air Max Nanostation Point to Point antennas. Total product cost was around $200
- The main return on Investment:
- Having a consistent, stable, reliable wireless network. Be that with a network of AirFiber point to points, Nanostations, or UniFi products.
You will not find a better value for your money, especially if you are a private business where IT costs are not priority.
To give some perspective
An entry-level Cisco Meraki MR33 access point is going for $438 on CDW right now not including licensing costs. The entry-level Ubiquiti access point, a AC-Lite is $89 for similar functionality.
You do the math.
Now are there use cases for the Cisco Meraki? You bet there are but for the majority of us, those that run medium sized businesses, non-profits, etc, Ubiquiti allows you to have the functionality, in essence the quality, of an enterprise grade fully-meshed system without paying the price for one.
- Creating multiple SSID networks with separate VLAN tagging. Extremely easy to do.
- Connecting one point to point antenna to another even if they are miles apart is relatively easy to do after you line them up. The antenna will be able to discover the other one and you simply pair them together.
- Setting bandwidth restrictions or restricting IP address spaces for wireless users
- Creating a customized guest portal requires quite a bit of HTML knowledge but isn't impossible.
- Pulling reports regarding wireless usage for specific devices is quite difficult to do.