Ubiquiti for whole home wifi?

[MNnetworkguy]

I am trying to find something other than eero or luma to provide a whole home wifi for a decent price. I have come across ubiquiti and it seems pretty nice. I am assuming I need to get some access points, however, I am trying to figure out a few things:

1. Do i ditch my Asus ac66u? Or can i leverage it to help with this and just turn off wifi? Or should i buy the ubiquiti router?
2. I see that it comes with power over ethernet, however, i don't have a bunch of live ethernet ports all over the house. Does it need ethernet to work or does just one of them need to be connected to a router and the others connect via wifi?

Am I missing anything? Let me know if there is a different route I should take

 

[husky55]

Your Asus AC66U is a combination of router, switch and wifi AP. In other words, it's a do it all gadget. With Ubiquiti, you buy a router-switch and one or more wifi AP. The strength of Ubiquiti is in their WIFI AP. In fact there are many models for outside and inside a house. Lots of commercial buildings are equipped with them. So back to your situation, you can leverage your Asus to function as a router-switch only and disable your Asus wifi and buy an Ubiquiti wifi AP. You can increase your range by adding more Ubiquiti AP. POE is an option not a requirement to power your Ubiquiti. I am considering Ubiquiti for my next project.

 

[MNnetworkguy]

Your Asus AC66U is a combination of router, switch and wifi AP. In other words, it's a do it all gadget. With Ubiquiti, you buy a router-switch and one or more wifi AP. The strength of Ubiquiti is in their WIFI AP. In fact there are many models for outside and inside a house. Lots of commercial buildings are equipped with them. So back to your situation, you can leverage your Asus to function as a router-switch only and disable your Asus wifi and buy an Ubiquiti wifi AP. You can increase your range by adding more Ubiquiti AP. POE is an option not a requirement to power your Ubiquiti. I am considering Ubiquiti for my next project.

So for PoE on Ubiquity if I don't do that, how do I power them? Is there an outlet option?

Here is what I am thinking of doing.

1. Using my ac66u as just a router with wifi turned off
2. I have a central network area in a closet in the basement and going to put a switch in there with a cable back to the router. This will make all my ethernet ports live in the house
3. Plug in a few Ubiquit APs in some of the ethernet ports and us ubiquit for the only wifi in my house

I will say ubiquiti scares me a little because i have never used it and it seems like its more advanced than the home router. My only concern is being able to adequately configure the two webcams appropriately. Right now i use no-ip to and have each cam dedicated to a port on my current router. I hope it is easy to figure out how to do this on ubiquiti so i can view my webcams when not on my network. Maybe i don't need to worry about this since the ac66u is still in the equation for port forwarding?

 

[System Error Message]

In terms of user friendliness or skill required ubiquiti APs dont need much compared to consumer wifi. What you need is a smart switch with POE out (any brand will do that supports what ubiquiti uses). A POE switch can be pricey but having enough ports will let you deploy IP cams that have POE too. If you have a lot of wired devices but only some requiring POE you can save money by having 2 switches, one of them having POE out so you dont need a POE switch with lots of ports which is expensive.

Another important bit is use vpn to connect to your network and not port forwarding. shodan will show you why. If you enter your ip address on shodan (assuming you've had the same IP for a bit) it will show you vulnerabilities and a lot of IP cams and camera servers are vulnerable.

I've had the same IP for more than a year and yet my IP address doesnt appear on shodan because i use a configurable and proper router with an automated blacklist and tarpit instead of the consumer routers around. The vulnerability of IP cams and such is because you can hack into them through a bit of code or web tricks without authentication.

Ubiquiti may give you POE injectors so getting a POE switch may not be necessary if you dont mind having power strips or plugging them around.

 

[MikeF]

Note that many (most?) of Ubiquitis WAPs are 24 volt that are NOT compatible with standard 48 volt router POE ports. Some packages come with 24 volt injectors, some do not.
Not clear from your post, but if your webcams are standard POE they should be put on a separate port from the Ubiquiti devices.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

MNetworkguy...Ubiquiti ships their APs with POE injectors in the box. So you don't need a POE switch.

You can still use your current router, you'd want to disable its onboard WiFi (you don't HAVE TO..but it does make sense to have a "same brand/same management" wireless system...so just use the Unifi APs or Picos for your APs.

If you go with Unifi...you need to download and install their FREE wireless manager to run setup and configure them.You don't need to leave it running all the time. If your use the Picos...they have a web admin page you log onto to configure them...no wireless manager needed.

As an option, you can ditch your current router and use one of theirs. They have some with POE...and some have firmware that can manage them, and be the controller for the wireless.

The will do "mesh"...wireless to wireless...you don't NEED an ethernet to each AP. But don't forget, when you do wireless to wireless hops...each client loses 50% of speed. That's the nature of wireless uplinks.

 

[Brett Melberg]

MNNetworkGuy, I am also from Minnesota and have a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter with 3 access points. I live just west of the Twin Cities. PM if you would like to talk or check it out.