[gonehome]

I think the brand isn’t toxic because of the state of the competition.

Even with this hack, their stuff is still the best available for home use. Netgear or Linksys consumer routers are awful. The mesh devices are okay, but serve of a different market.

The other stuff people recommend is often 2-3x the Unifi price and 2-3x more complicated to setup and configure.

Any ex-employees want to start a company making this stuff that doesn’t suck?

[Silhouette]

The other stuff people recommend is often 2-3x the Unifi price and 2-3x more complicated to setup and configure.

I don't know about 2-3x the price, at least not here in the UK. We looked into this when fitting out a new office with the networking essentials a couple of years ago, and Ubiquiti wasn't particularly attractive on headline prices compared to the other typical brands that get mentioned in that space (MikroTik, DrayTek, etc.).

However, the ability for non-networking experts to set something up quickly that does the job and doesn't have glaring security problems is definitely a competitive advantage in that prosumer to small business market. None of those other brands has a great UI that I've seen and they all tend to assume that anyone who wants to set up a couple of extra APs for a small office WiFi and a standard firewall for the Internet connection will be a pro-level network expert.

I think it would help a lot of people if better products/companies started to compete seriously on that front, and I have to think that with the SME market to fight for there is room to compete with the established names. After all, that is largely how Ubiquiti themselves broke into the market, or at least that's the perception I had at the time.

[zippergz]

The prices we are comparing against are Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus, etc. I would be shocked if Ubiquiti was similar in price to those even in the UK.

[Silhouette]

Who is "we"? You're talking about brands aimed at enterprise customers. I have no idea how much penetration Ubiquiti has managed to make into that market, but certainly around these parts its products are better known in the tier below that. The kind of organisation that is considering Ubiquiti IME probably wants significantly more functionality and scalability than home or entry-level small office gear but isn't working at enterprise scale and doesn't want to pay for it either. That organisation is unlikely to be considering the kinds of brands you mentioned as alternatives, and I rarely see any of those brands mentioned in discussions about alternatives to Ubiquiti.

[aasasd]

I kept thinking that all the laments about Ubiquiti and others are enterprise-level stuff and are sysadmins' headaches, so was thankful I don't need to worry about it. But more and more I wonder how I managed to choose an Asus 5 GHz router by reviews, bought it secondhand, and now have it chugging along for something like eight years with only some hiccups in summers from heat. With no ‘cloud’ shenanigans.

Also, there are DD-WRT, OpenWRT and such. How comes people don't use those instead of whatever broken software the manufacturer bestows on them?

[nuker]

Fast wifi, Wave2, MU-MIMO