denverpilot
Tied Down
That’s a nice list. Like.
Be prepared as they get older to have monitoring and regular screenshot software on their machines... lol... or so friends with teenagers tell me.
Modern home WiFi
- Thread starter flyingcheesehead
- Start date
That’s a nice list. Like.
Be prepared as they get older to have monitoring and regular screenshot software on their machines... lol... or so friends with teenagers tell me.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Not really... Their stuff has always seemed overpriced to me, and the way they entirely dropped support for some of their older products recently is not cool.
Thanks for the link tho. That's interesting... But I really need something that can drive more speakers. I do have a little breakout box right now but ideally I'd like to drive at least 3 pairs of speakers.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Monoprice has a whole house amp that people like. Lots of channels and has either a serial or Ethernet api for control from other home automation stuff.
I forget the model. But if you google home automation and monoprice whole house amp, it’ll probably come up.
Reasonable price for the wattage rating as I recall too.
I forget the model. But if you google home automation and monoprice whole house amp, it’ll probably come up.
Reasonable price for the wattage rating as I recall too.
Larry in TN
En-Route
The problem is that the hardware limitations of the oldest devices, introduced over a decade ago, will soon limit what they can do with the newer players. That happens with all tech. Sonos isn't completely turning its back on its legacy hardware, though. Major updates are ending for it, but Sonos will continue to push out security patches and other minor updates that allow the speakers to keep on working as they are today. If you want to hold onto your old hardware, while still taking advantage of upcoming features, Sonos is working on a way to split your system up so that you can use a mix of old and new speakers while still getting updates on the ones that are eligible for them.
I'm not sure what you mean by driving more speakers. Each set of speakers gets a Connect:Amp or Amp and becomes a Sonos zone that can be operated independently or in groups; switching back and forth at any time. You can also group them full-time with a Sub, and/or one of their sound bars, to drive the rear speakers in a 5.1 surround system. It is very flexible. Still planning on another Connect:Amp to make a zone in the garage.
It's not cheap, but I don't think it's overpriced. It's cheaper than the other whole-house systems I looked at while offering better sound, easier source selection and control, and more flexibility. My living room surround system (Playbar, Sub, and two One's for the rear speakers) was about $1800 and allowed me to ditch the complexity of my home theater A/V receiver and large speakers. Master bath was $199. Bonus room $199. Office $199. (All three are Sonos One's) For my deck, I used the speaker wiring that I put in when I built the house with a Connect:Amp purchased used for ~$350 and paired with two outdoor speakers from Crutchfield (~$130?). So, whole house, deck, and 5.1 surround for under $3,000 with excellent sound quality.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
This is what I got when I googled that: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10761
Not really what I'm looking for - Twice as many zones as I need, and includes in-room controllers for them all (I already have volume controls next to the light switches for each room). In fact, I don't really need "zones" at all. Playing the same stuff in all the rooms is fine... Especially since there aren't any walls between them.
Oh... I see. Cool, but way more than I really need. Definitely more than I want to spend. I want to drive three pairs of speakers, and they'll always have the same audio coming out of them - My house is open concept so there aren't any walls between the indoor speakers.
kshaw
Pre-takeoff checklist
If you are looking for an inexpensive NAS with a lot of expansion capabilities, take a look at FreeNAS. The software is free and you can make a decent server out of an old computer. You will need lots of RAM for best performance and fast ethernet ports. Mine is setup for 12 terabytes now.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Coming back to this after a year, and I still haven't made the leap... But it seems like I can do more for the money now. I'd still get a UDMP ($379), the 8-port PoE switch (which has 4 PoE ports) for $109, they've got some new WAPs on the way that are $149 each so probably two of those, and then I'd get a handful of their new $29 "G3 Instant" cameras and the $199 doorbell cam so I could ditch my Ring and SkyView cameras.
I'll probably actually do it next year. I haven't done a whole lot of working from home in the past 12 months... Just those first couple months of the pandemic.
Missed this thread entirely, but at my hill country house, I went with a pair of these: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-EAP225-V3-Wireless-Supports/dp/B0781YXFBT
PoE (which I required), and managed through a pretty intuitive app on the PC (or, I think, on the iPad). Same SSID, and handoff is seamless. Very pleased thus far.
PoE (which I required), and managed through a pretty intuitive app on the PC (or, I think, on the iPad). Same SSID, and handoff is seamless. Very pleased thus far.
Larry in TN
En-Route
I just upgraded replacing my US-8-60W PoE switch with a USW-16-PoE to increase the number of PoE ports. I put in a Seagate Skyhawk 4TB 3.5" drive in the UDM Pro and added the G4 Doorbell, two G4 Pro cameras, and a Viewport. I need one more camera for the garage but haven't decided if I'm going to go with the G3 Instant (currently out of stock) or the G4 Dome (also out of stock). I'd rather have the Dome, I think, so that it would be wired instead of WiFi.
Here's the new rack. I haven't redone the cable management yet.
The G4 Pro cameras are 4K and have excellent pictures. I think they're worth the extra money for the outdoor views.
Larry in TN
En-Route
Looking back in the thread, I see that I never posted an update when I put in the UniFi equipment last year.
I went with the UniFi UDM Pro with a US-8-60W PoE switch at my central location. The office, living room, and bonus room each have a US-8 switch which is powered via PoE from the US-8-60W. I put the UDM Pro below my panel with a 2U vertical wall rack along with a CyberPower 1U rack-mount 500VA UPS. I use inline RJ45 couplers to extend the Ethernet cables down to the rack.
With the new switch and 3U rack it looks like this.
The WAP is the UAP-AC-LITE.
The switch from consumer-grade equipment to UniFi has dramatically improved my network stability. My Xfinity service has periodic hiccups which were requiring a full reboot of the network as the previous router wouldn't recover. The UDM Pro doesn't have any problem recovering on it's own.
I've also just added the USP-Plug (visible in the picture above) which is a smart plug through which my Cable Modem is powered. The UDM Pro has control over that outlet and will power-cycle the Cable Modem if it detects a loss of internet service. The USP-Plug is only $19 so that was an easy decision.
I went with the UniFi UDM Pro with a US-8-60W PoE switch at my central location. The office, living room, and bonus room each have a US-8 switch which is powered via PoE from the US-8-60W. I put the UDM Pro below my panel with a 2U vertical wall rack along with a CyberPower 1U rack-mount 500VA UPS. I use inline RJ45 couplers to extend the Ethernet cables down to the rack.
With the new switch and 3U rack it looks like this.
The WAP is the UAP-AC-LITE.
The switch from consumer-grade equipment to UniFi has dramatically improved my network stability. My Xfinity service has periodic hiccups which were requiring a full reboot of the network as the previous router wouldn't recover. The UDM Pro doesn't have any problem recovering on it's own.
I've also just added the USP-Plug (visible in the picture above) which is a smart plug through which my Cable Modem is powered. The UDM Pro has control over that outlet and will power-cycle the Cable Modem if it detects a loss of internet service. The USP-Plug is only $19 so that was an easy decision.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
They're very nice for sure, and that's what we have at work. Our new facility will be split about half and half between G4 Pros and G4 Bullets. But when you can get an HD camera for $29, suddenly the $449 for 4K seems like an awful lot. You could probably just position four of the HD cameras to cover the same spots at the same resolution and have $333 left over for avgas.
Larry in TN
En-Route
It is a lot more and most consumers aren't going to use the G4 Pro for their home. I also considered the G3 and G4 Bullet cameras but the one-time upcharge was worth it to me for the better quality picture.
I don't think the $29 Instant is a viable replacement for outdoor cameras as it's not weather-resistant rated. The $79 G3 Flex, $149 G3 Bullet, $179 G4 Dome, or $199 G4 Bullet would be better choices. They're all also hardwired instead of wifi which is another benefit. The instant is a much better choice for indoor applications.
DaleB
Final Approach
I missed this thread entirely the first time around, too. And I'm glad I found it; I need to do something different for wifi in my house than the cable company provided router/WAP. It works OK, range is so-so, but for some inexplicable reason there are a couple of devices that simply refuse to connect no matter what's done to them. At the same time I'd like to increase coverage so I can have coverage everywhere in the yard.
denverpilot
Tied Down
I find it hard to justify the Ubiquiti stuff when there's piles of high speed 10G managed switches and cards on EBay from the continued migration into cloud.
We buy carrier grade 10G or 1G PoE Aruba gear for work at pennies on the dollar these days. And it's still staying at HP old school "this will run for ten years without touching it except patches and those will always work" QC levels.
But you do have to study up and learn Aruba. We do it all command line but the new stuff does have web interfaces.
Then a pfSense in a box with a couple $35 network cards and Bob's your Auntie.
But that's too DIY for many.
But Ubi has found a niche in Prosumer home gear. The new stuff can be REALLY flakey during updates though. The old stuff was way safer to upgrade especially remotely. Their firmware engineers have become far less careful since they made a name for themselves back when we started using them commercially.
I can't remotely bump the APs at the office anymore. Too many outages that required switching off PoE remotely to their devices to hope they came back. Not as big a problem for a home gamer but just an observation having used them long before they were popular for 100 users or so.
Victim of their own popularity. It happens. The good engineering that got them on the map has started to unravel a bit.
We buy carrier grade 10G or 1G PoE Aruba gear for work at pennies on the dollar these days. And it's still staying at HP old school "this will run for ten years without touching it except patches and those will always work" QC levels.
But you do have to study up and learn Aruba. We do it all command line but the new stuff does have web interfaces.
Then a pfSense in a box with a couple $35 network cards and Bob's your Auntie.
But that's too DIY for many.
But Ubi has found a niche in Prosumer home gear. The new stuff can be REALLY flakey during updates though. The old stuff was way safer to upgrade especially remotely. Their firmware engineers have become far less careful since they made a name for themselves back when we started using them commercially.
I can't remotely bump the APs at the office anymore. Too many outages that required switching off PoE remotely to their devices to hope they came back. Not as big a problem for a home gamer but just an observation having used them long before they were popular for 100 users or so.
Victim of their own popularity. It happens. The good engineering that got them on the map has started to unravel a bit.
denverpilot
Tied Down
P.S. Everyone I know who does serious camera installs hates the Ubi camera platform. All of it.
Standards based cameras and Blue Iris still reign supreme multiple levels above everyone else.
Standards based cameras and Blue Iris still reign supreme multiple levels above everyone else.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Hard-wired is only a benefit if you have the wires. My house has coax all over the dang place, but the only twisted pair right now is the (unused) phone lines.
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Bob Noel
or have a building that is wifi-hostile (try getting wifi through concrete and/or brick)
Larry in TN
En-Route
How true!Hard-wired is only a benefit if you have the wires. My house has coax all over the dang place, but the only twisted pair right now is the (unused) phone lines.
I had this house built in 2002 by a mostly cookie-cutter developer. I did push on a few customizations including nearly $5,000 in home-run coax and Cat5 wiring. It's paid off many times over the years. For these two new outdoor cameras, though, I had RG6 coax going to the camera locations instead of twisted-pair. Video was all analog back then.
I just paid $1k to pull three drops through my attic to those eve corners for these two and one potential future camera. Two guys put in about 14 man-hours on the job so I guess I can't complain about the cost. They did a lot of crawling through a tight blown-insulation attic and high ladder work, none of which I was willing to do.
My favorite unexpected use of all my pre-wiring was when I stopped paying Comcast's extra outlet fee for the master bedroom TV. I got HDMI-over-Ethernet adapters to repeat the output of my living room TiVo to the bedroom TV. Didn't have an Ethernet run between the two locations but do have four drops to the living room and two drops to the master bedroom so I just found those two cables in thee network panel and connected them with an inline coupler!
I have a lot of (so-far) unused wiring in my walls and I like it that way!
The Ubiquity product mentioned further up has a series of PoE outdoor WAPs. You mount one of those under the eaves the yard is covered (unless you expect the Russians to set up shop in your yard and brute-forcr your encryption, there is no reason not to).
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chartbundle
At the end of the day, don't install wire. Install conduit. And if you're like me, install LARGE conduit. Every run back to the closet is 1 1/2" There's a couple point to point 1" links between various plates, mostly for the speaker wiring to where the receiver is.
the only things not on conduit are the 2 ceiling access points in the main part of the house where I just threw the cable to each of them from the attic junction box.
I think the only things in the house on wireless are the actual portable devices(phone, tablet) and the stupid WiFi outlets.
the only things not on conduit are the 2 ceiling access points in the main part of the house where I just threw the cable to each of them from the attic junction box.
I think the only things in the house on wireless are the actual portable devices(phone, tablet) and the stupid WiFi outlets.
DaleB
Final Approach
Not Russkies, but maybe someone. One never knows.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
I just pulled multi mode fiber if the duct chase and through the attic. 10 Gb/s here I come. I have no idea why I need that level of speed, but I must or they wouldn't make the equipment. Especially since my internet service is 100 Mb/s.Hard-wired is only a benefit if you have the wires. My house has coax all over the dang place, but the only twisted pair right now is the (unused) phone lines.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Get Intel NICs and spend days hunting for the driver that works right, if you want the true 10G data center "experience". Lol.
Or buy Mellanox. They know what they're doing.
Seriously though ... Once you hook up the 10G run iperf everywhere in all directions and make sure it's truly doing it. It usually ... Isn't.
Been burnt enough times screwing with 10G cards, I simply mention it if it's your first 10G rodeo. Often it'll be running faster enough than 1G you may not notice it's actually FUBAR for a while.
Or cheat and Google someone who has your exact hardware down to the motherboard and went through it already. Ha. They'll be mad enough they'll post every detail online somewhere. Heh.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Oh, it won't run at 10. I don't need it. 1 is plenty. But heck, why not overbuild. I got nothing that will benefit from anything over 1. Heck, most stuff over about 500 M is wasted.
But if I'm pulling cable and price is close to the same for 10 vs 1, why not pull stuff that could run at 10 so it doesn't have to be done again?
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My Desktop(which never gets used as a desktop) and both file servers are on 10G(2 fiber, 1 copper). My laptop where I do most of my actual work is on a 2.5G port. I push files around the house all day so it's well worth it for me.
denverpilot
Tied Down
It's common amongst the video crowd. Anything in home that does video is the driver of fast home networking.
Other stuff tends to be fine at 1G.
I chuckle at all the YouTubers who do tech videos constantly showing upgrades to what's essentially 5 year old commercial class data storage and that's a big percentage of their channel content ...
Because it's really only us nerds with massive video like their raw footage who need it.
The majority don't even think about it. They buy their gadgets and the latest do everything router, wifi AP, switch combo and get along fine.
But server room cast offs are great for the home nerdbase. Can buy way better stuff than Ubiquiti for less money, but you gotta hit the books on initial setup.
I also chuckle at the massive popularity of UnRAID. What a total hack that crap is. But it works well enough that folks get sucked in. For the same money they could have a fire breathing cast off server with real hardware redundancy. But they don't know...
And repurposing a desktop class machine and jamming a bunch of drives in it with a special USB boot stick feels easier to the masses. So it grows. Huge community. Pretty well known it's a massive GPL violation too, but nobody is going after the dude selling his little USB sticks. Oh well. Ha.
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I don't run datacenter servers or switches. Sure it's rack mounted but it's all been gutted and rebuilt with quiet fans and other quiet hardware. Same with my switches. One is a Ubiquiti with a fan swap the others are Netgear. I can't even imagine trying to make a datacenter 10G switch quiet enough. It's in a closet off the kitchen which is open to the living room which means having a nice screaming switch would be terribly annoying. With the door closed and a couple temp controlled 140mm fans it's barely noticeable as it is and stays within about 10F of ambient. It was funny when the sales rep for Delta fans called me after I ordered a few from the electronics shop to swap the last of the loud ones out.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Honest answer to that is there's days center gear that knows when to spin the dirt induction devices and when not to. Ha. Don't buy the stuff that thinks the fans need to be in afterburner all the time. Heh.
The good stuff is cheap only one generation back. It even knows how to lower power consumption since that became a big deal in data centers around then.
But it does take shopping the right specs. Not even all data center stuff is built the same quality level. And some that's built well is tied into needing service contracts to get software and firmware so avoid those. (cough Cisco, cough)!
All I was saying was I laugh when someone who needs server class stuff buys a bunch of new components and assembles a machine. They usually don't realize a machine capable of kicking that one in the butt is sitting in a warehouse and an EBay listing away for $100 if they look.
They don't realize how far ahead of the home gamer the data center is and they're already throwing the stuff away in pallet loads.
It is even more rare they notice it happens with network gear also. Pallets of stuff. Monster switches, GBICs, whatever ya want it's out there.
It's just not marketed so folks grab the Prosumer brand new stuff. There's no shiny ads for piles on pallets in warehouses. But there's a lot of great gear in those piles.
I had to replace my ASUS wireless router three times and they each only lasted about two months. After the third one failed (rebooted every ten minutes), I went back to Netgear and replaced all the extenders and mesh gear with a single 6G router that covers the whole house.
The router is expensive, but I guess the higher power manages to restore 100% coverage in my house.
The 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bonding stuff is nice and it still works with my older wireless gear. I am not a big fan of WiFi and even the commercial grade stuff has let me down too many times.
Plenty of due diligence is needed to find equipment that is not junk. Some people just get lucky. I have learned the hard way...
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Ubiquiti is adding PoE to the UDMP... The way it should have been from the start. Well, it's only PoE, not PoE+ and that's not enough to power their larger WiFi 6 gear. Grump... But fine.
I'll probably re-do my house sometime over the winter with the UDMP SE, some cameras, and some of the WiFi 6 "Lite" APs, and just run Ethernet to everywhere with a TV or streaming device to keep the WiFi working well or something like that.
I'll probably re-do my house sometime over the winter with the UDMP SE, some cameras, and some of the WiFi 6 "Lite" APs, and just run Ethernet to everywhere with a TV or streaming device to keep the WiFi working well or something like that.
Larry in TN
En-Route
Is the internal SSD for Protect or something else?
It would be nice to have those extra PoE ports. I'm already using 7 of my 8 PoE ports on my USW-16-PoE.
It would be nice to have those extra PoE ports. I'm already using 7 of my 8 PoE ports on my USW-16-PoE.
flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like it'd be worthwhile for Protect as it's only 128GB IIRC. I'm gonna throw at least a 10TB Seagate Skyhawk in there. I suppose if you only have one or two cameras and only need to store footage for a short period of time it'd be OK.
It's to cache your confidential data before it gets uploaded to china. ;-)