Ubiquiti ER-X and AC Pro

[gus6464]

Just installed this combo at my brother-in-law's house. I myself use an Edgerouter Lite and an Aerohive AC1200 access point and the Edgerouter has been rock solid. I haven't had to touch it for the past 6 months. For less than $200 for the ER-X and AC Pro combo it destroys every consumer wifi router out there. Also if you need more switch ports just add an 8 port netgear gigabit switch for $20. I have the steel case version and it has been great plus dirt cheap.

 

[ccbadd]

I have an ERLite and two UniFi UAP-AC-LR's and could not be happier. I never have to do anything to them. I have only had the Unifi's installed for a couple of week so only time will tell but I think they will be just as boring as the ERLite and that's a good thing.

 

[wlee]

Have they fixed the "seamless roaming" on the AC units ? Last time I looked into their stuff I know that was broken.

 

[boomerang]

I want to weigh in a bit from the perspective of a networking amateur. I set up an EdgeRouter X and a UniFi AP AC Lite here. Setting up the router was a matter of understanding and following the directions because they are not configured out of the box like a consumer router. To give one example they are not set up to provide DHCP out of the box. The AP was easier. Don't misunderstand, neither is "hard" but this is not your typical consumer grade equipment. You're not going to plug these in, with cables attached (router especially) and have any form of connectivity to anything. This pertains mostly to the router.

As far as the router goes, after getting it up and running I started to realize that there is little in the way of security in place out of the box. One must get involved in the process to make it secure. For example, when I typed my WAN IP in my browser and got presented with a login screen, I knew that it wasn't set up the way I felt it should be.

There is a GUI associated with the router. It is not geared towards the average consumer. A Command Line Interface is available that is most certainly not geared towards the consumer.

Don't anyone misunderstand, I am not saying bad things about the equipment, in fact I have the AP providing my wireless right now but I took the router out of the equation and disabled the wireless on my existing router and put it back in place. I just want people at my skill level to understand the true nature of this hardware before they make a purchase.

 

[mv2devnull]

There is a philosophical question whether "consumer skill level" people should be allowed to plug anything anywhere. On one side is the "This is for your own good"-society and on the other the Men Who Know What They Are Doing (TM) -club that hates "unnecessary" restrictions.

I have an ERPoe-5 to install once ISP connects our building. (I.e. configuration before connection.)

 

[ccbadd]

Have they fixed the "seamless roaming" on the AC units ? Last time I looked into their stuff I know that was broken.

I don't know but using minrssi works better anyway.

 

[kevnich2]

The roaming feature works just fine for me in my house with two AP's on either side. I did have issues at first with my connection holding onto the weak signal but the latest unifi version allows modifying the minrssi values from the gui, so with this, the AP will kick off a client once signal gets below a certain value, causing it to re-negotiate automatically to the closer AP. It's worked great the past week.

 

[kevnich2]

Ubiquiti gear is great, but as others have posted, it's not designed strictly for the average consumer. It's designed more in the middle for the IT pro type that wants cisco class enterprise gear but at a more affordable price point. It's great if you want to experiment and get to know it better and it's absolutely rock solid. My ER Pro and Unifi AP's have literally been sitting there for over a year without me even thinking about them. Once they're setup and configured, you almost forget they're there. I do enough IT troubleshooting at work, I didn't want to have to do troubleshooting at home too so this gear works great for me. I also get notifications if my internet drops as my controller is hosted in my AWS environment.

But if you don't really know or want to know anything tech, this isn't the product for you. Your better off buying an off the shelf wireless router that's truly plug and play.

 

[boomhower]

I have the AC-LR and love it. The coverage is so good I didn't even have to centrally mount it, just stuck it in my entertainment center with the router. My 1500sq/ft home is completely covered in 5Ghz. I reused my Linksys WRT1900AC for routing duties. I haven't had any issues with it and has been solid. In the six months or so I've had the AP it has had to be reset twice, the none oddly enough. For my uses I don't see the need to go to the trouble to setting up a Ubiquiti router since what I have works just fine.

 

[kevnich2]

In the six months or so I've had the AP it has had to be reset twice, the none oddly enough.

What caused you to need to reset it? I've had both my AC units running and have NEVER had to do any resets with them. I also have other standard unifi AP's running for literally years down, again with not a single reboot among them. I do have my controller running in AWS so it's running 24/7 and I usually update it a week after a new release of the controller software is out but I don't know how your environment is.

 

[boomhower]

What caused you to need to reset it? I've had both my AC units running and have NEVER had to do any resets with them. I also have other standard unifi AP's running for literally years down, again with not a single reboot among them. I do have my controller running in AWS so it's running 24/7 and I usually update it a week after a new release of the controller software is out but I don't know how your environment is.

That just stopped working, had no wifi. However I do not have a controller running. Installed the controller to set them up but don't have it running all the time, just used a laptop to do it. I don't use a guest network so didn't see the need. Only used it those time to reset them. Not a big deal nor does it change my opinion on the APs. Love them. A ten minute fix. Reset, open software and reconnect. The performance is outstanding and the price for what you get is outstanding.

 

[gus6464]

There are templates you can download in the ubiquiti forums for the ER routers for basic functionality for WAN/LAN/Firewall. Makes setup pretty easy if you just want to mimic an off the shelf consumer router.