Hi all, my Unifi Doorbell just died after only 4 years of service. I’ve been pretty disheartened with them lately, other products haven’t lived up to the company’s promise.
So I’m not looking to replace my networking stack yet, but I am looking for a doorbell camera. I only have the Unifi machine, but I also have an extensive docker/kubernetes stack, and mostly I want to use it with Home Assistant.
Any recommendations? Open to software, hardware, you name it. I have a few other Unifi cameras too, if they could be brought into the fold while I slowly migrate, I’d be interested. Thanks!
Everyone in this thread is complaining about their short-lived UniFi devices, meanwhile I have two dream machines (the original WiFi 5 sol’n, not the rack mounted variant) that have had zero issues and are still running 24/7. I guess I should count my stars. (They replaced multiple failed netgear routers).
I have an alcatel lucent switch from the 90s
It’s been running 24/7 for 25 years in some companys rack and now it runs for 10 in mine.
Got it for 30$ on ebay (and a second one for 20 as a backup)
I’ve learned it really depends on the device. It’s completely a mixed bag, and that’s why I can’t trust it. Half the time it lasts over a decade, the other half less than a year.
For example, I got their “Enterprise” Switch 8 PoE with 2 SFP+ ports. I plugged it in in my garage, where it was 50 degrees (F) at the time, and it overheated. I googled it, apparently the SFP ports simply overheat. Turns out while it has a fan, it doesn’t turn on and simply overheats because they “Didn’t want a noisy fan on someone’s desk”. Which… uh, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work. Their enterprise term means nothing.
That being said, my rackmount switches have been solid, oldest one is 10 years old. However that unknown makes it hard to justify purchasing new equipment.
IIRC they had a whole generation of switches that overheated like crazy.
On the other hand, I kind of want one of my nano-HDs to die so I can justify an upgrade to wifi 7.
Same here. I went through 3 Netgear’s and a Linksys in as many years and said no more. Moved to Ubiquiti and haven’t looked back. My current dream machine of two years replaced a still working but older/slower cloud gateway of 5 yrs with AC Pro’s and now a WiFi 7 AP. The last NetGear I replaced cost more than the Cloud Gateway + AC Pro. And the latter was way faster with better coverage.
Everyone’s got different luck with computer gear though. I know I’ve had bad luck with things other people rave about, so choices are great to have.