I’m confused about ubiquiti

[joth]

12 hours ago, Adsibob said:

So are you @joth saying something different to what @Nickfromwales and @Dreadnaught were saying?

 

I was responding to your thought to buy a unifi managed switch to have everything controlled under one app/console.

IMO the router is far more useful and important to have control of, and useful to be integrated into the same control surface, than the switch.

 

If you're happy to keep the virgin media hub as the firewall router then I suggest just using unifi for WiFi and nothing else, in which case just get the cheapest unmanaged PoE switch that it's compatible with the APs and be done. 

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

Had a deeper dive on all this - for a bit of fun and as a refresh - last time I did any serious networking was back in 2014. It looks like the main products in the space are the Ubiquiti Unifi and TP-Link products in the prosumer market. There are others and you can build your system from scratch of course. I found a great video that purports to look at the TP-link system but then compares it to Ubiquiti. TP-link is much cheaper but has weaker security (No two factor as yet) and the Access points from Ubiquiti look smarter than those from TP-link. 

 

 

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, joth said:

 

I was responding to your thought to buy a unifi managed switch to have everything controlled under one app/console.

IMO the router is far more useful and important to have control of, and useful to be integrated into the same control surface, than the switch.

 

If you're happy to keep the virgin media hub as the firewall router then I suggest just using unifi for WiFi and nothing else, in which case just get the cheapest unmanaged PoE switch that it's compatible with the APs and be done. 

 

 

Thanks @joth. If I keep the virgin media hub as the firewall router, but switch its wifi function off and then install one of these two managed switches, how much management would I actually need to just keep the three APs running nicely and monitor usage? I see that the smaller (and cheaper) of the two describes itself as "auto-sensing". Does that mean it does some of the management for you? 

 

1. https://eu.store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-routing-switching/products/unifi-switch-lite-8-poe
2. https://revolvingav.co.uk/product/ubiquiti-unifi-flex-5-port-1gbe-switch/

 

[joth]

25 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

If I keep the virgin media hub as the firewall router, but switch its wifi function off and then install one of these two managed switches, how much management would I actually need to just keep the three APs running nicely and monitor usage?

I doubt you'd need to do any, to be honest.

For home users most interesting monitoring is in layer 3 and you do that in the router, not the switch.

(Crap analogy: think of the router as your local post office and the switch as a letter box. If you want to snoop on who is communicating with who it's much more useful if you can monitor the  post office rather than a letter box).

 

Managed switches come into their own when setting up VLANs and segregated subnetworks, but IMO that's only interesting to do if you have a vlan aware router, which  the VM superhub most definitely is not.

 

You get the unifi WiFi radio monitoring regardless of which switch you use. You can even setup rudimentary guest SSID too. The following article confirms my stance that it's only useful getting a managed switch if you have a managed (unifi) gateway router too.

https://community.ui.com/questions/Guest-Network-on-a-unmanaged-switch/f6a6f682-b0b6-435e-8ecd-a17abcf6cf27

 

IMO The only reason to buy a managed unifi switch now (without their router) is "future proofing", in case you think you might get hooked and want to upgrade to their router in future.

 

[Nickfromwales]

16 hours ago, hendriQ said:

This looks too good to be true. Does it spread the wifi magic in all directions (including behind the wall you install it in) or will it only travel away from the wall?

Yup. Most building materials are relatively transparent, but reinforced concrete and metal structures do affect things.
If you buy an AP and a flying lead you can do a ‘survey’ of where it could / would / should go just by powering it with the POE injector. No need for data, just look at the signal strength   Cheap 15/20m cat5 lead off Amazon is plenty good enough.

 

I’ve just bought an ubiquity pro6 to replace the AP lite on the landing, which will give WiFi to pretty much all of the habitable rooms in my 3-storey house. 👌. Better to have a couple of powerful units than loads of medium power ones afaic, as it’s the devices which seem to take forever to ‘see’ the stronger signal off the AP that you then roam to / from. 
I’ve put a TP link external unit under my gazebo and that floods all the outdoor areas with ample signal, including reaching into my metal roofed office / shed / man-cave.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Nickfromwales

[MikeSharp01]

12 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Most building materials are relatively transparent

Relative is the word as some in wall insulations can make internal walls quite difficult. There are APPS you can get for your phone that will allow you to look at the relative signal strengths around the place I use WiFiAnalyzer.

 

[Nickfromwales]

12 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Relative is the word as some in wall insulations can make internal walls quite difficult. There are APPS you can get for your phone that will allow you to look at the relative signal strengths around the place I use WiFiAnalyzer.

 

Yup. 
I use my method for general survey and locations choices on POE only, ( as most of my clients haven’t got BB at 1st fix stages ), but I am now set to purchase a 4/5G data only router with LAN point so I can then also do speed checks off my laptop to be 100% sure. Those things are cheap enough, and it’ll be good to have WiFi on site during the M&E works as a lot of my PH clients builds get next to zilch in terms of GSM signal when inside, especially ( as you say ) when Insulaton has been fitted. 
 

Same as everything else, measure twice cut once. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Nickfromwales

[Pocster]

11 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Same as everything else, measure twice cut once.

Circumcised? 😂🙄👍

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, pocster said:

Circumcised

How very Bristolian to circumcise the world with a 40 foot cutter.

[Adsibob]

So my confusion is almost over. I'm ready to buy, but most Ubiquiti stuff is out of stock with lead times of several several weeks!

Anyone know where I can get a USW-Lite-8-PoE-EU without having to wait so long for it?

[Adsibob]

Just by way of update: I bought a ubiquiti dream router and two ubiquiti in wall access points, all wifi 6 (overkill, but what the heck). I decided to go all in and get a ubiquiti managed switch after all. Only trouble is that the switches are all sold out*, so I will have to make do with the 4 ports on the dream router for now, using the two PoE ones for the WIreless APs. 
there is also a fifth Ethernet port called a “GbE RJ45 WAN port”. Haven’t worked out what that is yet. 
Anyone know what cable is required to connect my Virgin media Super-Hub to the dream router? The super hub really is a fest of marketing. I really thought it was sorry until I owned one.
* There are some available, like this, but it’s much more than I need and want to spend.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Adsibob

[markharro]

On 26/06/2022 at 17:58, willbish said:

I have similar requirements to @Adsibob and will likely follow @JonJump advice and fit an unmanaged switch in front of my router with 2 decent ceiling mounted wireless access points.

 

Currently looking at switch options and it seems that most 19" rack mounted POE options are all managed. Is that the case?

I'm looking for 24 port total but only really need a handful POE.

 

Currently have all 16x cat6 terminated and patched ready for the next step..

 

 

Hi @willbish this looks like a good compact rack solution. Can I ask what products these are and where you purchased? Is that a switch that you have connected the purple CAT cables into by punching the wires in? Do you then connect one wire into the front panel from the router to get internet through to all the purple cables? Is the switch providing power over ethernet?

[markharro]

On 30/07/2022 at 21:17, Adsibob said:

Anyone know what cable is required to connect my Virgin media Super-Hub to the dream router?

Don't you just use a standard ethernet cable? 

 

I too am thinking of one of these Dream Routers (UDR). I have Plusnet broadband and am shortly upgrading to their full fibre to the house product. They have to instal an "ONT" box in your house for this. My question is - can I connect the UDR direct to the ONT or is it ONT > Plusnet router (Hub2) > UDR? If the latter do I have to make any changes to the plusnet router eg turn off its wifi? Anything else? Is this all easy to do?

 

thanks

 

PS do standard ethernet CAT6 and 6A cables work with PoE or do you need a special cable for that? 

[Pocster]

Just now, markharro said:

PS do standard ethernet CAT6 and 6A cables work with PoE or do you need a special cable for that? 

Any cat 5 + cable will be fine for poe 

[joth]

3 hours ago, pocster said:

Any cat 5 + cable will be fine for poe 

Any correctly wired cat5+ cable will be

as normal (non gigabit) ethernet only uses 2 pairs (4 wires unused) it's not uncommon to find patch cords etc that have faults with the unused cores, or simply (non compliantly) omitted them, and then PoE confusingly doesn't work....

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by joth

[Pocster]

2 minutes ago, joth said:

Any correctly wired cat5+ cable will be

as normal (non gigabit) ethernet only uses 2 pairs (4 wires unused) it's not uncommon to find patch cords etc that have faults with the unused cores, or simply (non compliantly) omitted them, and then PoE confusingly doesn't work....

 

Lol yes ! Any correctly wired indeed …

[Adsibob]

8 hours ago, markharro said:

My question is - can I connect the UDR direct to the ONT or is it ONT > Plusnet router (Hub2) > UDR? If the latter do I have to make any changes to the plusnet router eg turn off its wifi? Anything else? Is this all easy to do?

You will likely still need to use your Hub2 from plusnet as a DHCP server (ie the thing that automatically provides and assigns IP addresses, default gateways and other network parameters to client devices). If you log into your Hub2 from a laptop directly wired into it, this should be quite easy to do. In that same screen, switch off wifi, as you don’t want your Hub2 signal causing interference for your ubiquiti stuff. Then you plug your UDR to the Hub2 using a CAT 6 cable.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Adsibob

[markharro]

14 hours ago, joth said:

Any correctly wired cat5+ cable will be

as normal (non gigabit) ethernet only uses 2 pairs (4 wires unused) it's not uncommon to find patch cords etc that have faults with the unused cores, or simply (non compliantly) omitted them, and then PoE confusingly doesn't work....

Understood.....so in the context of me wiring the cabling and terminating the plugs etc I can use anything from CAT5 up and assuming I wire the connections properly the cable will be good for plain vanilla ethernet and also PoE?

 

One other thing I don't understand fully - I will need a big central switch to accommodate all the feeds to rooms etc. I have a stock of CAT5/6/6A cable. I was intending to use it for different feeds so CAT5 for things that just need a slow connection up to CAT6A where I have longer cable runs. Can I plug a mixture of CAT5/6/6A cables into a switch without issues? The issue I am wondering about is whether somehow the whole network then gets throttled back to the CAT5 speed etc? Or does it not work that way?

 

thanks

[markharro]

9 hours ago, Adsibob said:

likely still need to use your Hub2 from plusnet as a DHCP server

This is what I would rather avoid if its technically possible to allow me to take this HUB2 box and its power needs out of the picture. When I asked the same question on the Plusnet forum I was told that I could get rid of the Hub2 as long as I configured the UDR with my Plusnet "PPPoe username" and password?

[Pocster]

35 minutes ago, markharro said:

Understood.....so in the context of me wiring the cabling and terminating the plugs etc I can use anything from CAT5 up and assuming I wire the connections properly the cable will be good for plain vanilla ethernet and also PoE?

 

One other thing I don't understand fully - I will need a big central switch to accommodate all the feeds to rooms etc. I have a stock of CAT5/6/6A cable. I was intending to use it for different feeds so CAT5 for things that just need a slow connection up to CAT6A where I have longer cable runs. Can I plug a mixture of CAT5/6/6A cables into a switch without issues? The issue I am wondering about is whether somehow the whole network then gets throttled back to the CAT5 speed etc? Or does it not work that way?

 

thanks

I really wouldn’t worry about this unless you are constantly transferring huge amounts of data around your network . Get an unmanaged poe switch ( netgear for example ) . Plug it all in - sorted 👍

[Adsibob]

9 minutes ago, pocster said:

I really wouldn’t worry about this unless you are constantly transferring huge amounts of data around your network . Get an unmanaged poe switch ( netgear for example ) . Plug it all in - sorted 👍

Plus 1

[Adsibob]

42 minutes ago, markharro said:

This is what I would rather avoid if its technically possible to allow me to take this HUB2 box and its power needs out of the picture. When I asked the same question on the Plusnet forum I was told that I could get rid of the Hub2 as long as I configured the UDR with my Plusnet "PPPoe username" and password?

I can’t help with this I’m afraid, way above my geek rating.

 You might have better luck asking @Thorfun, @Dan F, @Wil, @joth or @Dreadnaught. 

[Dan F]

36 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

I can’t help with this I’m afraid, way above my geek rating.

 You might have better luck asking @Thorfun, @Dan F, @Wil, @joth or @Dreadnaught. 

 

Do you hqve a modem which is seperate to the Hub2 box?  Do you have your PPoE username and password?

 

If the answer to both of these questions is "yes", then correct, no need to use HUB2, just conifgure unifi kit to talk to the modem.

[markharro]

Thanks @Dan F No at the moment I have a copper BT landline so its the BT Master socket > Hub2 with the Hub2 providing wifi and I assume modem duties but then I have to admit to not really fully understanding what a modem or or router for that matter.

Next week I am getting the FFTP installed so I understand that will bypass the BT Master socket for an ONT box. Is that not the modem? 

 

I read this blog which suggests you can do what I hope to do at least with another Unifi product the dream machine pro https://www.techielass.com/directly-connect-your-ubiquiti-dream-machine-pro-to-bt-fibre/

 

I think the UDR basically is a lower powered DM Pro with wifi added.

 

[Dan F]

11 minutes ago, markharro said:

bypass the BT Master socket for an ONT box. Is that not the modem? 

yes.

 

You'll likely want mutiple wifi access points around the house as in general the this is the best approach to achieve good coverage with slightly lower power, rather than a single "wifi router" someone central which tries to reach the whole house.  In this sense the wifi built into UDR may or may not be valuable, depending on where this will be located relative to ceiling/wall mount AP's.  But if you won't have a rack, don't need an internal HDD for video storage, and the price point on UDR is lower, then may still makes sense.