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I've been running a venerable WRT54GL with dd-wrt for the past decade or so, and a while back I purchased some Unifi hardware to replace it since it's staring to go flacky, plus I'd like 5GHz wifi since 2.4GHz is completely congested in my neighborhood at this point, and to that end a more advantageously located access point in a separate location from my router would help as well.

In hindsight rather impetuously, after a conversation with a networking acquaintance, I purchased the below hardware, which I only recently started working to implement:
- Unifi Secure Gateway Pro USG-Pro-4 (with Noctua fans replacement)
- Unifi AP AC Pro access point
- Unifi UC-CK Cloud Key

After banging my head against setting all this up, I'm basically ready to throw in the towel. Admittedly reactionary to the current internet environment, an additional factor is that I'm also rather privacy conscience nowadays (e.g. I use duckduckgo, noscript, et al.), and after making a lot of concessions in attempting to set this up, even if I got it working I'm concerned wouldn't feel particularly comfortable on that front. Maybe things would be better in both aspects if I had tried once of Ubiquiti's EdgeRouter options? But I didn't know about it at the time.


I still like the idea of a POE Unifi AP AC Pro access point giving me the flexibility of installing it in the most optimal location (networking cable already run), and to be honest its praise is what even got me looking at the Ubiquiti route to begin with. Another quite attractive aspect was the prospect of very long support i.e. security updates, because if I could get away with multi-decade network upgrade cycles, I would, so the longer security support the better.

Thoughts?

Perhaps there's an inexpensive, likelytobesupportedforalongtime, dd-wrt/tomato/whatever router that I can pair with the AP AC Pro, and that will do the trick? Help. I'm almost tempted to just spend the $$$ on whatever Linksys flagship flavor-of-the-year that supports dd-wrt/tomato/whatever, but that seems poor price/effectiveness, I'd be concerned about support length given the cost, and it would not have the attractive aspect of being able to mount the wifi access point in a separate location.

Not sure what to tell you about the gateway, since I'm using an EdgeRouter, but the datasheet's images of the configuration screen look pretty similar. On the EdgeRouter, you don't have to set up the majority of the stuff to get it working as a basic gateway device. It only gets "fun" if you start wanting to do whitelists, routing tables, stuff like that.

The UniFi APs require that the setup utility/app be installed on a computer or mobile device connected to the same network, but once you have that going it's pretty simple.

After that they Just Work unless you feel the need to tinker. I last checked on the EdgeRouter maybe 6-8 months ago. haven't logged into my AP in over a year.

Does your EdgeRouter have a baked in IP address i.e. when new/reset I can simply go to 192.168.1.1 or some such to configure?

(My primary issue has been the vain attempt for the setup utility / website chrome app for cloud key to detect the hardware. I was able to detect and configure the gateway with the computer utility, but everything else was in vain, even after trying different versions and chasing down different jdk versions when I noticed that mentioned by others with similar experiences. I haven't tried the mobile app though, so perhaps I should give that a go.)

DrCR wrote:

Does your EdgeRouter have a baked in IP address i.e. when new/reset I can simply go to 192.168.1.1 or some such to configure?

(My primary issue has been the vain attempt for the setup utility / website chrome app for cloud key to detect the hardware. I was able to detect and configure the gateway with the computer utility, but everything else was in vain, even after trying different versions and chasing down different jdk versions when I noticed that mentioned by others with similar experiences. I haven't tried the mobile app though, so perhaps I should give that a go.)

Yeah, I just log into the gateway IP address from the LAN side like any other consumer router. I haven't ever tried to work with the cloud key stuff. I remember it looked interesting at the time, but since I don't have any recurring use for it, it was too expensive to buy as just a toy.

Awesome. I may go that route then if a relatively recent dd-wrt-compatible router I'm lurking on ebay falls through.

FWIW mine is the EdgeRouterX. We only have a nominal 60/5 cable connection (peaking around 85/6 when the Comcast side is lightly loaded) and we're just doing typical home stuff on it, so the relative lack of horsepower in the ERX is plenty. Someone running a very high bandwidth connection, or hosting many users on the LAN side, might prefer the hardware capabilities of Ubiquiti's higher-end stuff.

ludi wrote:

FWIW mine is the EdgeRouterX. We only have a nominal 60/5 cable connection (peaking around 85/6 when the Comcast side is lightly loaded) and we're just doing typical home stuff on it, so the relative lack of horsepower in the ERX is plenty. Someone running a very high bandwidth connection, or hosting many users on the LAN side, might prefer the hardware capabilities of Ubiquiti's higher-end stuff.

The Edgerouter 4 is capable of 1GB throughput if you are lucky enough to have access to that fast a connection.

I have certainly been happy with mine. As others have said, you access is via a management IP from the LAN side and configure it just as you would any other consumer router. The interface takes a little getting used to, but isn't anything insurmountable. Got mine a year ago, configured it, and haven't touched it since. I think I've logged in once or twice to see what DHCP address was assigned to a machine (Raspberry PIs), once or twice.

--SS