I'm in the process of replacing my home Ubiquiti infrastructure. Here's what I've decided on:
Replace the US-24-250W PoE switch with an Aruba Networks S2500-24P (gigabit and PoE, 4x 10gig ports, quiet).
Replace the Cloud Key Gen 2 with BlueIris for camera controller. I expect this will be able to connect to the existing Ubiquiti cameras.
Possibly add one or more Ruckus R610 APs running in "Unleashed" mode to augment my Google WiFi. I'm happy with the Google WiFi, and in particular it has good tools for managing kids access to WiFi. But the Ruckus APs are quite good and so I may move parent and IoT access over to Ruckus, separate out IoT devices to their own network.
This is the end of phase 1. Then I plan to go on to:
Add an OPN-Sense router. Currently not using Ubiquiti for routing, the Google WiFi is our main router. Would like to gain additional capabilities like insight into what the kids are doing.
Replace the Ubiquiti Dome G3 with one of the less expensive 4K cameras if they seem to provide similar or better functionality. Also trying out the Wyse Cam v3, which seems ok and the price sure is right, but is more of an augment camera than a main camera, I prefer wired and PoE.
I've been doing some research and those are the options that seem attractive. In particular, going with old enterprise gear looks to be a huge win. You do lose that handy "single pane of glass" management. But considering the problems I'm having with Ubiquiti, and the upgrades I've already done to try to get past them, with only some success, I can't bring myself to go further in on Ubiquiti.
The reason most people go with Ubiquiti for home use is the price -- that Aruba switch costs $3500 new. The ubiquiti switch costs about 1/10th that at $399.
Can you get free firmware updates from Aruba or do you need a support contract?
I guess I could have pointed it out more clearly: I'm going "used enterprise" as the route for replacement. As you say, yes, this switch was $2500 new (that's what I saw when I looked), but I bought one for under $100 on ebay.
Similarly for the Ruckus R610 AP I mentioned: Those APs were a grand new, but you can get them for a bit over $100 on ebay. Linus Tech Tips did a comparison of it with other consumer units, doing heavy multi-device streaming, and Ruckus was the clear winner.
Yes, Ubiquiti looks like a good value and they make some very interesting products. I've used some of them to great effect over the years. But my experience with the NVR and cameras and switch and Cloud Key has been relatively bumpy. Enough so that I'm ready to ditch the convenience for up-front loading and hopefully day-to-day more realible.
That is a good price for the hardware, but what about the firmware? Do Aruba and Ruckus give free firmware updates?
Have you looked at the power consumption of the switch? I've run some enterprise gear at home in the past (my favorite was the E-450 Sun server which an ex-employer gave me for free), but when I started paying for my own power, I found that even if the hardware is free, the power consumption makes it expensive.
Most recent version is a couple years old, but it was EOLed 3 years ago.
Ruckus firmware seems to be downloadable from their main product page for the R610, updated a month ago.
Re power consumption, it looks like the Aruba pulls around 50W idle, and the Ubiquiti pulls 29W idle. Of course, if I can get rid of the second switch I've been running because the Ubiquiti keeps blocking the Google WiFi ports, that brings it even closer. :-)
You do have to sign up with an account at HP to get the firmware, and it won't let you use a gmail account, but once I signed up I was able to download the latest firmware and update to the latest. Just FYI.
My current one I've nicknamed a "Pirate" R232 adapter because it has an unfortunate and hilarious effect of duplicate the lowercase 'r' character for some reason (so I see Arrrrrrrrchlinux).
I mostly administer via SSH so it's all good at the moment.
Thanks for the pointer. I was planning on running under a VM. A dedicated box would be nice from just a reboot standpoint. I was looking at getting one or two of those HP COMPAQ ELITE 8300 boxes off ebay for $200, but they probably only have one Network interface, so I might want to add another.
I have two, and yes, they are freaking amazing. I run CentOS on mine.
I don't usually run any services since I prefer to dedicate boxes to things, but I have in the past run a number of services, including minecraft and minetest on it and it flies. Really pleased with it.
Blue Iris is a great piece of software and Ken the developer has constantly improved it. I think there's a way to get the RTSP stream from your existing cameras.
One of the slick things you can do is add machine learning to it and have motion alerts based on what is detected in the video (person, car, bear, those are some of the built-in options). That looks pretty slick.
I'm trying to recall, but maybe someone else can answer: do the UniFi cameras stream RTSP directly still, or do you still have to run their controller and re-stream it?
I'm not aware of one, but would be interested if there was. I'd prefer to run it on Linux. Zoneminder seems to be the common recommendation, but most discussions I've seen of it have not been very positive.
There's Xeoma and Blue Cherry, neither of which I know very much about. Never heard anyone mention either of them. So I figured BlueIris was what I'd try. Seems to be what everyone on YouTube is using...
Replace the US-24-250W PoE switch with an Aruba Networks S2500-24P (gigabit and PoE, 4x 10gig ports, quiet).
Replace the Cloud Key Gen 2 with BlueIris for camera controller. I expect this will be able to connect to the existing Ubiquiti cameras.
Possibly add one or more Ruckus R610 APs running in "Unleashed" mode to augment my Google WiFi. I'm happy with the Google WiFi, and in particular it has good tools for managing kids access to WiFi. But the Ruckus APs are quite good and so I may move parent and IoT access over to Ruckus, separate out IoT devices to their own network.
This is the end of phase 1. Then I plan to go on to:
Add an OPN-Sense router. Currently not using Ubiquiti for routing, the Google WiFi is our main router. Would like to gain additional capabilities like insight into what the kids are doing.
Replace the Ubiquiti Dome G3 with one of the less expensive 4K cameras if they seem to provide similar or better functionality. Also trying out the Wyse Cam v3, which seems ok and the price sure is right, but is more of an augment camera than a main camera, I prefer wired and PoE.
I've been doing some research and those are the options that seem attractive. In particular, going with old enterprise gear looks to be a huge win. You do lose that handy "single pane of glass" management. But considering the problems I'm having with Ubiquiti, and the upgrades I've already done to try to get past them, with only some success, I can't bring myself to go further in on Ubiquiti.