Seeking advice on unifi/ubiquity

[chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I am biased so take this with a grain of salt! You were warned.

Circa 2013 I deployed some of their solutions for some enterprise clients. Large warehouse. Everything goes swimmingly, I am surprised by the ease of installation, and setup. Everyone is happy. We go our merry way.

Meanwhile I got out of the business and lost track. Later (2021) I bought some stuff from them. I thoroughly dislike the software, so I nuked it and installed openwrt. Solid hardware though.

I'm weary of publicly traded companies and closed source software. Too many stories of beloved software or previously free features being moved behind subscriptions. Never again.

[eldavi@lemmy.ml]

they send it anyways; or atleast they used to circa 2020.

i did packet captures while evaluating their hardware back then for work and they always phone home no matter what you do.

[shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip]

Openwrt made a router and the wrt2 is supposed to be made later this year i think.

[stupid_asshole69@hexbear.net]

They’re reputable. Don’t give anyone any data you aren’t comfortable being leaked. Eventually it all comes out.

The only complaint people have is that the devices are expensive and phone home which they should. You’re buying a piece of internet facing technology, you should want it to check in and make sure it’s up to date etc.

Seriously, make sure you turn on automatic updates and change default passwords.

[reversalhatchery@beehaw.org]

a few years ago (actually, probably 5+, how the time flies) they made some kind of data collection mandatory, but at first totally hidden, afaik not even a changelog entry. then people found out and went angry, so unifi made an opt-out setting for it

I don't know what happened after that, but to me they have shown it clearly that they are driven by US mentality (not because of current politics, but generally)

[xanza@lemm.ee]

They're reputable, but focus in cloud based management solutions, so your data will 100% be taken/used if you choose to use those services.

[deadcatbounce@reddthat.com]

It's actually not that pricey for what you get from it. The problem is that they have a tendency to be closed mouthed about their plans.

I bought a 2.5 GBE router, to replace my elderly and difficult USG, and was about to buy a 2.5 GBE WAP - there was a problem with them having issues with only one chipset inside the first version, so I didn't pull the trigger immediately. Within a month there was a 10 GBE WAP being sold. A 10 GBE Router appear soon after. Damn.

The only viable alternative, IMHO, is pfsense (mostly US users) and opensense (not US users) and you need your own hardware.

I run my Gateway without a UI login, a local account. I lose some of the features, but that's ok with me.

[marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

You can never be private with any device that can connect to the internet out of its own volition. Ubiquity, Alta Labs and Mikrotik should never be trusted unless you're OK with your data potentially ending up on their servers.

With that said, you can manually upgrade Mikrotik hardware and selfhost the Ubiquity controller and Alta Labs controller for a fee (for the latter), which would then invalidate this argument. Even then, I do not trust non-FOSS software for such critical infrastructure so it's still too much for me, but depending on your risk tolerance this might be a good compromise. I would suggest you to look at Mikrotik seriously - their UI might suck but their hardware and software capabilities are FAR beyond what Ubiquity offers for the same price.

[portuguesefosstechie@lemmy.ml]

Openwrt is my main option. I am looking at it a lot.

But if I'm not at home there's noone else that can service the router. That's my main issue

[hitmyspot@aussie.zone]

Ubiquiti is reputable and has the infrastructure to manage sensitive data from many companies. The software phones home and is cloud based for logging in and back ups etc, however its network information and settings rather than personal information. This does include data about your devices, sites visited, apps used etc. However, as a b2b rather than a consumer facing company mainly, they are not really into data mining, yet. I’ve used them for my business. It’s a bit pricy for my home needs, but I’m due an upgrade soon and will be looking at their equipment. It works well together, is both powerful and mainly intuitive.

Any internet connecting hardware theoretically has access to all your data passing through it. So, I’d either go ubiquiti or open source. My understanding is that the open source options are playing catch up as most modern routers don’t release open drivers for their components. So, although the software is theoretically equal, practically it isn’t, but that may change with openwrt releasing a new router soon. If you need stuff now, I’d get ubiquiti.

[myliltoehurts@lemm.ee]

What kind of servicing do you expect it needs that can't wait until you're home, that wouldn't be fixed by the old "turn it off and on again"?