Wendell: I've been a little forlorn with Ubiquiti stuff lately (especially for high-end home/soho stuff) so I thought I'd get EnGenius a try. They're Senao hardware with EnGenius special sauce and branding. I am very impressed with the hardware, so far, but the software has a bit to go. Full review of the ECW120, ECW240 and PoE+ switch ECS1112FP and PoE++ switch ECS2512FP coming soon. Hello everyone! This is part 2 of the POE video we did recently. It goes through installation, known bugs, and tips. Let me know your thoughts :) ~Editor Amber
I use Fritz!Box 7590, 2 FritzWLAN 1750 repaters, and one 3000 Repeater in Mesh, and i have no issues covering my house (basement, ground floor, and first floor. Each floor, including the basement is approx 95 square meter. I bundle the 2.4Ghz, and 5 Ghz in one SSID, and the devices figure out whether to use either one, often going to 2.4 Ghz when you move out of reach of 5 Ghz. I have approx. a little over 900-950 square meter property where my house stands. I have no issues getting WiFi coverage in my garden. On average my Wifi has 500-600 Mbit/s which is 5x times my internet connection (100Mbit/s Fiber). Handover between the devices is as far as I can tell pretty seamless.
cloud based????? why not look at say netgear insight as well? they have competitevley price switches and APs. hell netgears has switches HALF the cost of ubiq when looking at PoE+ AND 10G uplinks! hell TP link has STRAIGHT clone Unifi with decent prices! grant it i buy all my unifi used for decent prices if i i hunt. D link, netgear and tp link units have been running fine for me. no heavy use on their management though.
Same here. Really not happy with the direction of this stuff. UniFi is borderline, but at least you can have a controller on-prem (for now, at least). But, stuff like EnGenius, Meraki, Verkada (cameras, but, same thing)... All MUST phone home and get nerfed or lose all functionality if they lose connection with the mother ship. Gross.
They do seem to have an on-prem managed version, EnSky Pro, with a VM or hardware device to manage them. It'd be interesting to know how stand-alone it is.
No your def. not the only one - I don't either. I'm a firm believer that certain things don't belong on a remote cloud (esp. networking configuration information) - it's asking for too much trouble.
The very reason I do like Ubiquiti is because I can run the controller in my own network and it can enroll new APs without any internet. I wouldn't want my APs internet controlled!
got lots of trouble on new products of ubiquiti. Quality is not as good as it was in early years. EnGenius cloud solution just blows my mind after 6 months of adoption
I understand Wendell's points but EnGenious has some deal breakers for me: 1 - Cloud register per AP - This is nothing eco friendly, only generates e-wate, destroys the second hand market and resell value. I like to keep an ap for 2-3 years and upgrade it. 2 - WTF you cant stop the device to keep trying to update? In unifi, if a update doesn't work, you can always 'dont try again', and if the current firmware is unstable, just roll back! 3 - Beta channel by default is not acceptable for a production env. 4 - If isn't broken, dont upgrade the firmware, unless is stable LTS or you dont care about you can risk your network stability atm. The controller update that Ubiquiti pushed a month ago was BETA, not RC or Stable, anyone who upgrades to this versions could expect ir. I'm not a Ubiquiti defender, I have problems with the lack of focus and some broken products as well but they grew kinda too fast and started trying too many things. The current stuff in EA I find interesting to look forward.
@@jpw5996 You can roll back. The cloud situation with this really turns me off though. Unifi isn't great, but as long as you stick to stable updates of their APs you are fine. I'm still looking at a unifi pow switch because I'll never light up more than 3 or 4 poe devices.
@@Geopirate3 The switches and APs are really solid, Routers I dont like and neither use it. But with just aps and switches you can manage your network really well through the controller.
@Brad Smith For my application, the USG-PRO-4 works fine & will continue to be my router until I put more time into learning pfSense. I like how solid the Unifi switches & APs are built, but I'm not a fan of being used as a beta tester, so I update LTS firmware when I need to & I won't ever buy Ubiquiti equipment as they drop. The Dream Machine Pro is one of a few examples of why. I'll look into EnGenius, but not totally sold yet.
@@Gaming_Biker I bought a unifi router once... Didn't offer a simple way to clone the Mac address for a cable modem and sent it right back... Pfsense for the last few years no regrets
Can I host my own controller with EnGenius? I'd rather not depend on the manufacturer's cloud services for my equipment. At least with a controller I host, I can control what versions I'm running on all the equipment. Because of that, I wasn't affected by Ubiquiti's recent mistake that was the version 6 release. My controllers are still on version 5.
Level1Techs 2020: Cloud-crippled network equipment TekSyndicate 2020 (in alternate universe): build your own x86 Linux Access Point using spare hardware and HostAPd What the heck, Wendell?
I use ruckus APs and switches at home. Lath and plaster home as well, a single R730 gets coverage everywhere. Their antennas are amazing. Their unleashed product is great even for medium sized businesses. I deploy them all over. Also not happy with ubiquity at the moment, we are trying out fortinet aps recently, time will tell if they are good.
Wendell: "Cisco, I mean, they know what they are doing..." Me 3/4 of the way through a Cisco bridge call when the network engineer states, "It's the end of my shift and I will be passing you to an overseas support center": Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
That statement confuses me, too. I mean it feels like not a single week goes by without yet another hard coded Cisco password or some other vulnerability. I seriously doubt that they know what they're doing.
We need this type of videos to continue, like a series testing network gear, specially Access Points with mesh and handouts. I like Ubiquiti a lot, but i also think they are sleeping in their laurels, while others might be getting better. Try to ask for samples of the following - TP-Link Deco X90 (or X60) - Aruba AP-515 - ASUS - ZenWiFi AX - Cisco Catalyst 9115AXI-B - NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System
Unifi doesn't manage client handoff between APs; all roaming decisions are made by the client device. The Unifi APs also don't do active RF monitoring and just select a free channel on startup. Enterprise APs like my Aruba IAP-325s at the office have both of those features. But they also cost 8x more than a Unifi AP. A newer laptop with a decent (aka Intel) AC/AX WiFi card will roam just fine on Unifi but old/crappy WiFi devices may have trouble.
I recently moved a client from older EnGenius APs to Ubiquiti. The VLAN tagging for guest wifi networks seemed to be much easier to implement for Ubiquiti as when I tired to implement it on the older Engenius models it would not tag correctly. It could just be a difference in generations though as the EnGenius AP's were 5+ years old. I'll have to keep an eye on it for the future. Thanks Wendell!
everybody should hire Wendell as the consultant because they need that *What are you doing* guy from making crap products. Great video as always. Give us moar of this stuff.
As someone that uses both professionally, I have to say there's no competition. Ubiquiti does everything better and lasts longer. Engenius WAPs last a year, if that.
engenius waps I have installed all have lasted years. Hell I got 2 at hope that are 6 years old and still trucking along. But yes you will run into the odd lemon.
We deploy Ubiquiti AC Pro's in office and warehouse environments. Note I stated industrial warehouse environments where it's hot, cold, and dusty. We have zero problems with the gear performance is great.
I have some speed/connection issues with my Ubiquiti AP in the house. My outdoor one works great. My Router in the main house is just the ER-X while I have an EdgeSwitch 8-150 in the GarOffice for my Outdoor POE powered AP and all my devices in there.(couple printers, couple computers, Streaming boxes, etc.). After watching this I am tempted to stay on the UI Router and Switch and get the EnGenius AP for the house to test it out.
Dude...thank you for this episode. About 5 years ago a network buddy and I worked together on doing a couple of small office upgrades on switches and wireless. He recommended the Engenius AP and I have used them exclusively since. I have done a 2.5 acre compound with solid concrete walls with a main house/basement and a huge dance hall and used all the Engenius AP and it has worked very well. I have other who swear by Ubiquiti but all I hear is complaints from the users (yes it could be the installation that is causing problems). Again thanks for doing this video. I like Engenius products and I am getting ready to redo my house with POE, Cameras and AP.... One last thing. Glad to hear someone else say that they want a faster backbone than what most people put in. They don't realize how nice it is to transfer files between systems at higher speeds. I even looked for switches that had a huge backbone speed between ports so I could transfer files between devices on the same switch without bogging it down.
Cisco does provide innovation in wireless products with location services. These cheaper suppliers don’t offer these extended services - especially where location services is important.
Small quick tip on terminating RJ45 for everyone. Pull the TP's out slightly out so that when you correct for length and push the plug on, the jacket slides neatly inside and gets locked at the back of the plug. Easy and makes it want to twist and kink less with the added rigidity from the jacket.
It doesn't seem like there's a lot of info around Mikrotik. Have you considered doing a series on them, or comparing their capabilities to other brands?
yes, Mikrotik while not so user-friendly in the beginning and has some steep learning curve, is actually one of those best bang for the buck products, be it for home, Soho, or mid-size company network product. I hated learning everything I needed to set up the everything i wanted out of it, but once you do, you never look back, especially if you want a rock-solid product with enterprise features that usually cost arm and a leg as Wendell pointed out *cough Cisco cough*
@@emeraldbonsai The Mikrotik switches with SwOS really have some problems with STP/VLAN usw and the bug are not fixed for years. Out of the 10 routers I used 3 of them were crashing without any reason after a week.
1. Put the plate on the box 2. Acquire marker 3. Uncap said marker 4. Place marker point in plate holes 5. Remove plate from box 6. Cap marker 7. Poke out marker points with pen Template done
Won't go through lathe & plaster? Thats why I bought my first engenius radios back about 10 years ago. I had a site where an additional building was added, and we needed connectivity. A VPN meant going through Comcast limited upload. Dsl was the only other option. Couldn't put an antenna on the roof. Couldn't trench. No Los through building windows. Ended up getting a pair of 1000mw ap's in bridge mode with sector antennas. Shot bridge link out the window of one building through a brick wall into the other. Got about 48mbit across the link on 802.11g.
Ubiquiti for sure slept on their own success for awhile. USG is one of such products that should get an upgrade unless you run it with less then 100 Mb uplink.
Man our Ubiquity system just randomly started dropping its access points from the mesh, no change on our end, save for the firmware update. So frustrating.
Funny that you make this I actually just upgraded my home to a pair of EnGenius EWS357AP a week ago. I went with the on prem APs with their ezMaster controller since I am highly skeptical of cloud solutions but they have been reliable with good performance so far. Nice to see them get some attention.
This video came at just the right time, as I've been shopping around for a Ubiquiti/Unify system lately to improve my household wifi. Very useful information, and gives me a better idea of alternatives 👍
Go with Ubiquity. I've installed both Ubiquity and EnGenius in multiple locations for clients and also manage the networks for them. As far as Wifi hand off and coverage I'm calling BS on that. The difference is that you have more configuration options and features for Ubiquity compared to EnGenius. Yeah you just plug and play Ubiquity but to get an optimal experience with multiple access points you have to tune it. I have all Ubiquity in my house now. I've had EnGenius and SonicWall Firewall along with their access points previously.
I tried an Engenius AP at home back around 2012 and had nothing but problems. Had to reboot it at least once a week, but 8 years is at least 2 eternities in IT, so I'd be willing to try them again if they don't force you to use their cloud.
I've go Aruba IAP-315's in my house. They automatically form a cluster on a local network and all share the same config. One AP is elected to be the controller so there is nothing in the cloud to worry about. If the controlling AP goes offline another will be elected to become the controller. I haven't had any issues with handoffs between AP's and they can be purchased from sites like eBay for not insane prices.
have those as well, like the clustering too, but they seem to be limited compared with my mikrotik setup. i also haven't found the channel width choice menu on arubas, its a bit of a mystery for me right now....
ive been using aruba iap315 & iap225 as AP with mikrotik rb3011 as firewall router. moved out from ubiquiti environment. no regret at all as aruba + mikrotik pair have been excellent!
I got a Cloudkey Gen 2+ and it runs pretty damn hot. Heat likely killed the backup battery. One update caused the rackmount kit to corrupt the database and it reset to factory, emmc and SD card (with my config backups) wiped. My RPi controller worked better. Only reason I even got this was due to Unifi Video being replaced by Unifi Protect and the latter currently (likely won't ever) does not allow you to run your own hardware. Ubiquiti needs to stop expanding their product lineup and focus on making their core products better first. Mikrotik is looking like a much better solution right now if they continue emulating Google's graveyard.
Nearly all UI products run hot. They are also sensitive to power fluctuations. The founder that left Apple basically brought thermal and power regulation ideals with him. I am only in love with the UAPs and bridges, none of the other UI products.
@@Wahinies Yeah I've had good experience with their APs, esp with the UAP-AC and later models. Only complain is that rubber coating they use on some models; it melts and dust sticks on it.
I like tp-link WAP because I don't need a separate controller or one of their routers. I can log into the WAP itself or run the controller software off a server. APs don't phone home unless I want them to check for firmware.
Ubiquity also force pushed firmware to their protect software even for people who had automatic updates disabled. The kicker is the software pushed was broken and locked people out of their security system. It’s a big violation of trust for me.
They all really need to start supporting IoT gateway in their AP's, EnOcean, Zigbee, Z-Wave, what else is also there? Aruba supports EnOcean already, which is great since it covers all possible home automation cases.
Thank you! Ubiquiti went to crud. Every new update would just degrade performance or something else would break. Ran their cloud controller on a Ubuntu server and they never updated software to work with the latest packages. They didn't want anyone using their controller without buying a hardware controller. Tons and tons of issues during a migration. Just never ending problems across the board. Flashed my Ubiquiti APs to openwrt and removed their controller from my network, never looked back. Oh and I also had their gateway which would lock up every couple weeks due to thermal issues. Threw that away too. Only thing I wish Engenius hardware had was the second ethernet port that bridged the incoming line.
Not sure how you've had so many issues with Ubiquiti. I've deployed over 200 units this yr alone, 1 AP needed to be RMA'd. Never had a client say handoffs were a problem and one of the best things they love about UBNT is that they control the controller. I've used EnGenius before too, they work great, never had an issue in my lab with them, couple clients have them too. A lot of my clients don't like handing over infra to cloud registration so thats why we stick with UBNT and a local controller that's only accessible via vpn outside of the network
We upgraded the entire network with MIKROTIK, best decision. Cant beat there value for money. Enterprise functionality and performance at retail/residential price. Needs a bit of getting used to RouterOS but lots of support resources on web and youtube.
8:27 It's funny. You say that you don't need the AP's unless you have 50 people in your house, but with a lot of IOT devices that are WIFI enabled. It's almost just as having 50 people in your house.
The question that needs to be addressed: which device(s) offer DFS compliance? In a apartment type situation, having a WAP without DFS is a recipe significant lag/delay.
Anyone tired of running on-prem controller and experience hardware or firmware crash like me? Meraki is too expansive for me. This one looks like a good alternative.
Same here. It's like NAS vs google drive. Of course you can spend a lot of time to maintain your own controller. However, cloud would always be more efficient and easier to use.
I'm sticking with my own firewalls with pfsense/opnsense still too. I've yet to find anyone who can match - and absolutely not the UBNT USG's - the newest UXG Pro doesn't even support config.json - at least with the config.json hacking around you could make the USGs somewhat serviceable. Releasing newer products with less functionality. Brilliant.
The disappointment in the mentioned Ubiquiti products and their support is on target. People can stay out of most trouble just by using stable firmware and leave beta to more experienced users. It’s been an incredibly stable platform for me and my clients however.
I had unexplainable wifi dropouts that I attribute to my Engenius AP's. I setup a secondary wifi network with Unifi AP's and switched my users to it, and the problem stopped. They were from 2016 so maybe the new stuff is better, or maybe I just have some lemons.
Ive taken a punt and bought an ecw120. Ive started running a pfsense router to learn on. I just read through the comments and i do agree with the cloud argument but thought id give the 2 cents.... First and foremost i think although i cant confirm that you can actually log in and administer these locally...i can go to the ap's webpage and theres a username and password....earlier when i was messing around with it i did a full reboot and killed the power to the lan port and when it was initializing it came up with another name (i didnt make a note but) i think thats the local admin username....ill post back on that one... I am impressed (cloud interface arguments aside) its got really good range (at the top of a 4 storey house and my sons phone still picks up a signal in the basement....weak but it does it. Ive ordered another one to go in the basement and face upwards....that should give me 100% coverage. Ive never heard of them before (i was about to buy a ubquiti) but didnt like fact of having to buy a cloud key.
I like my Unifi gear. I have a HD Nano + ER-X + Rpi w/ mgmt server on it. Only moderate complaint is wanting 2.5GbE backbone for local backups. Literally nothing from Unifi is 2.5 GbE+PoE. And 10GbE is $40+/port. For a small time homelabber I might go with the QNAP unmanaged switch (QNAP QSW-1105-5T) to fix that. If I was doing it all over again I'd totally look at EnGenius.
This is reminding me of Open Mesh. Great in idea and simplicity for setup but hardware had 20%-30% failure rate for me. After 15 locations with multiple AP's per site, it was a deal breaker. No money in going back to site to replace what was recently installed on warranty repair.
Interesting .. when you search EnGenius + bricked, update failure, firmware problems or you name it .. there are plenty of problems. My only issue with Ubiquiti Networks is their lacking of WiFi 6 (802.11ax) on their UAP Access Points.
With the proliferation of wifi home automation gadgets I already have over 70 things on wifi at any one time. And the majority of my home automation is still Zwave (and will likely remain so since it has far less wireless overhead and works on different frequencies). I fully expect more and more homes are going to have what we would have considered crazy wireless use just a few years ago. I can't wait :p
Maybe along with the idea of networking, you can go over ways to optimize for latency and then optimizations for throughput? because there is a lot of false information out there and im sick of trying to get lowest latency only to try settings that seem to make shit worse. Just way too much false information on the internet. Getting a solid networking guide would be SWEET
sniffwifi.com revolutionwifi.blogspot.com Both excellent sites if you want to get a solid understanding of Wifi. Linked to the original revolution wifi site since not all of their old stuff has moved to the new site yet.
It's Ubiquiti's apparent connection drops that's frustrating. It sometimes sends me on a troubleshooting wild goose chase. I hope their stuff calms down soon but right now it's still an issue.
7:33 I've had that issue before on some trash consumer AP (we were a poor startup), AFAIK it was an issue with the AP thinking it knew better what the subnet mask was and limiting our /21 down to /24... so some devices received their data (our servers on static, low, easy to remember IPs) and some others with long-term dynamic DHCP leases (we had fleets of raspberry pis) the AP didn't know where to send, since it didn't have its ARP/routing table or whatever built up correctly. Switched to Mikrotik and everything was great after that.
My ubiquiti cloudkey can't recover from a crash last week. All configurations and logs are gone. The cloud solution might be worth a try. I guess EnGenius Cloud should also support redudancy and high availability?
Just bought a NanoHD to connect to my edge router via a Netgear GS 8 port Gigabit POE and deployed a controller on a Debian box which is running UNMS and Node Red and Open VPN server. What a mouthful. What disappoints me is that UNMS can't control it all and I need 2 controllers. Why didn't you release this video last week.
MikroTik is a lot more hands on. It doesn't have these pretty web dashboards with "smart" firewall etc, you have to know what you are doing. No cloud management. It hase CapsMan for central wifi ap management, a bit ruff around edges, but you can do a lot. RouterOS runs on almost all they're devices with same capabilities. Fearlly frequent software updates, with chage-logs, you do get bugs like with everybody else. New products sometime are not weary stable with existing software version, also similar to other vendors.
I would argue that almost everybody needs a commercial-grade WAP... the adjacent network interference and general consumer 2.4 congestion kills the consumer grade stuff
UBNT doesn't know what they want to do. If they would just focus on fundamentals(switching/wireless), they would be a great company. I've done a few UBNT installations for small business and they work great when set up correctly. The In-Wall APs are particularly nice, as you can get by with cabling that is already run.
