New Home - Cameras, Routers, HA Hub, and Streaming Devices

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some AP LR's or Pro's

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He'd be fine with the Lites, but the LRs are trash compared to the pros and lites in a home

Edit: trash is probably not the right word to use, but they're essentially lites when placed in a home. They're meant for more open, unobstructed places like warehouses

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Routers: Mesh vs. APs

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I use UAP Pro in home because I like having a single cable carry PoE in and then have the secondary LAN run through to a switch.
Using this method, with a computer hardwired on the other end, I can consistently get 930mbps+ through using speedtest (but over the radios, I usually don't exceed about 450mbps, line of site, 4 meters away, single client, etc). Word of advice: if using WiFi smart devices, put them on their own SSID. They somehow or another cut my throughput fairly significantly. I never really saw a significant performance decline, but when playing with benchmarks, I was getting 40mbps, sometimes up to 80, but nothing like what I would expect with what the client, AP, and connection were capable of. Getting 2.4ghz-only, crummy "smart" devices off did a good job in boosting me up to much better results. With the little that I actually do, I'm not certain I could tell the difference between 40 and 400 down though. But I like it for when I need it.

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If Ubiquiti, would you recommend their wired router (EdgeRouter) or a normal wireless router coupled with supplemental APs?

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I use a desktop as a controller and enable cloud access. I found a mikrotik PoE HeX router (2nd gen) for like $50 on Amazon and went with that. Assuming you have a router, I don't think it would be worth upgrading to their router for any real reason.
A 4-port PoE unmanaged switch would be as good an investment if you wanted to go the route of finding APs without PoE adapters or trying to keep the number of wall plugs down. But lately, I have not seen any great deals on buying the AP without the injector. You don't need any special hardware with them if you want to just use the PoE adapter that they include for you.

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Streaming Devices: Before I used Amazon Fire TV boxes and FireSticks. Should I go for the Fire TV Cube and some 4k Firesticks? We generally stream Netflix, Prime, and PSVue. All the TVs in the house have an option for ethernet connection at them. We also have several Alexa devices, so that integration is nice (Echo, Dots, Ecobees)

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I like hardwired things for streaming unless you're basically in-room, line of site of your AP. Even still, something about the hard wire makes me feel better.

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HA Hub: I had a Wink 2 before (still have it), but should I use the opportunity to transition to something different? Most of the smart devices are ZWave, such as GE Switches. I also have MyQ garage door openers that will need something to tie into.

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Out of my element, but a relatively unusual thing that I have found works real well for AV control is actually a
1) Harmony Hub with or without a remote (~$60)
2) 2.5mm (headphone) --> 3.5mm (headphone) adapter (around $6) into a
3) BAFX IR distribution block ($27)
And if using multiple zones of TV and not doing some sort of HDMI distribution,
4) BAFX ir over Ethernet ($11)


I'm not sold on or paid by BAFX. For the distribution block, there are actually a handful of options. I think I used Monorpice as well with decent success (bought it as a gift and does its job). They're the only IR over Ethernet I have personally used, though. But it works. Their flashers are fine.
And this, excluding the cost of your cabling, turns any smartphone/tablet into a universal remote for around $100 that works essentially in your entire home with the option of about $30 for a physical-button remote all the way up to around $150-200 for their top-end Elite model.


Of special note, this is NOT IR over LAN. Your Ethernet cannot run through a switch. You have to have a dedicated Ethernet "extension" core. You could, if you were a little crazy, split your cable to 2x rj45 and have a 100bit LAN + IR to the same area. But if you're designing, a second Ethernet port is rarely a bad idea, and in this case is a fairly effective and user-friendly option for smartphone control of anything with IR, Bluetooth, or wifi in one stop, including several home automation things.