re: General Ubiquiti discussion

I have a pair firing 1000+ feet through trees for 8 years now. Not a single problem (knockonwood) They've been knocked off the mount a few times and still picked up a workable signal.

My speeds are great on the pair of nano locos…i was quite impressed and it was a $100 solution with minimal labor time on my part…compared to trenching in direct burial

I've switched over to TP-Link AP from an ac-lite. I'm not using OMADA, but everything I've seen it's essentially a clone of the ubiquiti software.

The nice thing for TP-Link over Ubiquiti is the devices have their own webpages to configure them from as well as the SDN.

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Does anyone have firsthand experience with the TP Link Omada

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Father in law’s house came with this stuff. I don’t know how it was previously configured, but I bought their equivalent of the Unifi cloud Key (controller) and tried to adopt the (reset) devices- a pair of AC1200 AP indoor, an outdoor “mesh” device with external antenna, a non-Omada wireless bridge outside across a pool.

Performance was adequate until the back of their (very long) yard. He wanted cameras. Wound up going with Protect (I installed it at my house. He liked it and decided to have what I had). I explained we didn’t really need to change the internet devices, but he did want the “eared” mesh point off the side of the house. Replaced it with a camera, moved some wires around. For aesthetics, he asked me to switch to Unifi, so we put an AC6-LR in a better location, and he now has consistent wifi at the end of his yard. I did not A/B them for him or directly compare. I moved the AP to a much more ideal location. He thinks the AP are better. I don’t think it’s a fair assessment based on that alone.
That said, I do get better indoor reception now than before. His setup/AP location was not great there, either, and i don’t think it’s fair to compare two poorly-located devices, though the Unifi does do better, even when poorly located.


All the Omada stuff was setup on-device rather than with a controller. Never was able to adopt it despite several attempts. I don’t think this changed the performance at all. I don’t think it’s so difficult to do. It worked when I configured it on-device, so remote-access to wifi just wasn’t a priority for me. Perhaps I am some combination of lazy and stupid.


I would have no complaints with Omada stuff. I probably would use more of it, but the last time I looked, their outdoor APs lagged behind Unifi offerings. They also didn’t have an equivalent of the Flex switch (802.3bt in—->802.3at x4 out with an outdoor-safe enclosure for $150). If these weren’t necessary or he wasn’t trying to get wifi over the metal roof of a cabana 150y away, I would have left the Omada intact and never told him his camera company made “internet” too.

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other brand APs provided better coverage than ubiquiti

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There are lots of ubiquiti criticisms ( I feel like we outlined most of them above. They’re sort of the “Apple of IT” of a decade ago), but AP range/coverage is not a complaint I have ever seen or experienced.



Again, I don’t mean to suggest their AP are superior to Omada. I basically was working with putting an upfiring AP on top of a cabinet that’s 8ft high with 10ft ceilings in a U- shaped house where the AP is at the bottom of the “U” and measuring the results at the two tips…I don’t think it’s fair to give ubiquiti the edge. In this case- yes, it works well. But there’s really no reason that either AP should be in that situation (and I pretty much just replaced what was there to show them why I was going to move it but wound up not needing to). I’m also comparing 802.11ac to 802.11ax coverage. I meant to intend that neither situation is ideal, and I’m not trying to fanboi at all. But I was able to overcome a bad setup. And in this house, so long as it isn’t nonfunctional, aesthetics beat almost any other aspect (thanks, mother in law).

I went from the ac-lite to the TP-Link ac1350. Basically same coverage but I do get a few feet further in the back yard. I had signal with the ubi but the TP-Link is a bit more stable. I'd chalk it up to newer device over brand.

When you get over the ubiquiti hype, you'll learn that ubiquiti gear is great for wirelsss bridges and that's about it. For most bang for buck, go Aruba, extreme networks, ruckus networks for access points. Fortigate or netgate for firewall. If you must go cheap on APs, go engenius.

I still like them, although all I have only used up to this point is the USG at my side gig and the usg pro and 24 Poe switch with a few APs at home and have no issues. I got my first batch of new gear to play with at my side gig office that will be in a bigger place one day. So I’m trying out the phone and will grab camera once back in stock.

Are the usg and usg pro still supported? Worth trying to sell them?

Set up the UDMPro yesterday in about 5 min. Turn on, plug in internet, self configures, working. I’ll hook up the switch and wifi 6 AP today maybe. I’ll dive into the UDM settings but that will be a longer process.

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Care to lay out a couple of side by side product comparisons and the reasons for choosing what you would choose?

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I agree with pretty much everything he said besides the APs. Ubiquiti APs are pretty great for their price.

As far as switches and UDMP, those are absolutely asinine prices for what you get. I paid $75 for my 48 port gig (with 4 10g SFP ports) poe Cisco switch and $150 for my Opnsense server. Both of those far more robust and configurable, and you're not locked in to a specific ecosystem

I don’t mind vendor lock in so much if they have everything that I would want and have a good single UI. That’s why I like unifi as of now.

Got everything all hooked up easy and I’m not a IT type, I know a little about a lot. I haven’t setup the phone, only plugged it into the network.