My cabin had no room for a swing out rack, so the guys at www.controlfreaks.us recommended hanging the equipment in the utility closet on 4U vertical racks.

Hurricane Isaias hit us on Oct 9th at 7p. My 4 G6 360 cameras caught an hour and a half of the storm. Power went out 20 minutes into the 1.5-hour video. 1 minute in, the roof rips off of the back porch and sunroom. The UPS 2U kept the cameras and DVR and home network running for an hour after the power went out. Network consisted of ATT modem, Cloud Gateway Max, UPS 2U, USW Pro Max 16 PoE, Nano HD, U6+, AI Dome, AI Key, G4 Doorbell, G5 Flex, 4x G6 180, Superlink Gateway, UCK G2 Plus, UNAS-2. The video has been compressed 4x to fit in a 4k format instead of 16k Native in a 2x2 configuration.

Wanted to share so that others might see and get ideas for mounting cameras to a soffit. I’ve seen it on YouTube and another post or 2 in here

New build where I have vinyl soffit panels. I spec’d out where I wanted the cat6 runs but didn’t think about adding blocking before they put the soffit up so I’d have a solid mount above the panels. I got 3”x 3/16” thick aluminum bar that’s 6’ long for like $60 online. Primed and painted it. Drilled 2 pilot holes for the mounting base. Slid the bar in between the 2 channels holding the soffit and then screwed the base to it. Seems pretty solid and is still covered a bit without obstructing the view and limiting the IR reflections.

I got a UCG Fiber and these transceivers - they were really crap, as the lost the connection so often against a whole variety of NICs (Intel X550, some old Aquantia... and also even between a UCG and a Flex 2.5, both set to 10 Gb. So I am bit confused, just bad luck, or make sure to always use the original ones form Ubiquiti? Or is this normal behaviour for such transceivers?

There was quite a bit of interest in my earlier post, so I thought I’d post an update now that I’ve added some more verification rather than relying only on Protect’s animal recognition.

Here’s the earlier post.

The idea is to use UniFi Protect to send our guests a text when there may be a bear or bobcat around our rental cabin in Tennessee. I’m using Google Apps Script, Gemini and Twilio to make it work.

The problem I ran into was false detections from Protect. Sometimes it sees a person as an animal, and since our cabin is dog-friendly, actual dogs obviously trigger animal detections too. I also tried using zones in Protect to isolate the areas where I wanted detections, but that didn’t solve the false-detection problem.

So I added Gemini to take a look at the detection image before sending the text. Protect still does the initial animal detection, but Gemini reviews the Protect thumbnail and tries to determine what is actually in it. If it comes back as a bear or bobcat, the guest gets the alert. People, dogs and other animals just get logged.

If it passes that check, Twilio sends the guest a text with the detection photo. I’m currently using Cloudinary for the image and ImgBB as a fallback. If both fail, the system will still send the alert as a normal SMS without the picture.

Guests opt in using a Google Form and the information goes into a Google Sheet. The script checks their stay dates before sending anything, has an adjustable cooldown so they don’t get hammered with repeated alerts, and they can reply STOP at any time.

I did make one decision that probably isn’t ideal from a false-positive standpoint. If Gemini fails or is unavailable, I send the alert anyway. I’d rather occasionally send something that turns out not to be a bear than suppress a real bear because the AI check failed.

So far it looks promising. I went back through a bunch of previous detections and it correctly picked out the bears while rejecting the people and other stuff. I’m still calling it beta though, and I’m watching the logs before I start opening up more detection zones.

One thing I learned the hard way: just because an image URL works perfectly in a browser doesn’t mean Twilio is going to like it for MMS. ImgBB would occasionally return an HTML error page when Twilio tried to retrieve the image, which caused the photo message to fail. I switched Cloudinary to the primary host and that has worked in my live testing so far.

And just to be clear, I’m not a programmer. I put the Apps Script together with a lot of AI help, along with a fair amount of trial and error getting the pieces to actually work together.

A couple of things I may add next are the location of the detection in the SMS/MMS and possibly alerts for other types of wildlife.

Also wanted to add that this is the first time I've used webhooks, so pretty proud of how this worked out, and I think it will be a useful and fun thing for our guests.

I’m curious if anyone else here is doing something similar with Protect webhooks and image classification, especially for wildlife. I’d be interested to hear what you’re doing to deal with false positives.

EDIT: Just added the info and script to GitHub here: https://github.com/BillR0310/unifi-protect-sms-mms-wildlife-alerts

Does anyone know how to get the lid off of a U7-XGS?

I have one that has something loose rattling around inside. I ship them around for events so they get handled roughly sometimes. Just looking at it, I’d guess a heat gun to the top and sides while prying?

It still works so I imagine it’s just one of the antennas either come loose or unplugged.

​Hey everyone,

​I'm finalizing the hardware for a compact, wall-mounted UniFi network setup and I'm torn between two switches.

​The heart of the setup is a Cloud Gateway Fiber (UCG-Fiber) connected via a 10G SFP+ DAC to the switch.

​Connected gear:

​3× U7 Lite APs (Wi-Fi 7, 2.5 GbE)

​2× G5 Turret Ultra cameras

​1× UA-Hub-Door-Mini (powering a G6 Entry + Intercom Viewer)

​1× SuperLink

​Non-PoE media devices (smart TV, console, etc.) are connected directly to the UCG-Fiber's LAN ports or to bigger switch if ports available.

Home Assistant in the future maybe.

​

​The dilemma:

1. ​USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE + 210W Power Supply (~€260 / $280 equivalent)

- ​Pros: Every single RJ45 port is 2.5 GbE PoE++, meaning full wire-speed Wi-Fi 7 backhaul across all APs with zero bottlenecks, plus a smaller footprint.

- ​Cons: Takes up 7 of the 8 ports immediately (only 1 spare port left), and the 210W external power brick needs to be mounted alongside it.

1. ​USW-Pro-Max-16-PoE (~€360 / $390 equivalent)

- ​Pros: Plenty of headroom (16 ports total → 9 spare ports for future cameras, NAS, desk drops), Etherlighting, and Layer 3 capabilities.

- ​Cons: About €100 / $110 more expensive, physically much wider/heavier (~2.1 kg), only 4 ports are 2.5 GbE (the rest are 1 GbE), and it still relies on an external power brick.

​Questions:

​For those running similar compact, wall-mounted installations, did you regret sticking to an 8-port switch right from day one?

​Is it worth stepping up to the Pro Max 16 primarily for port expansion, even though only 4 ports are 2.5 GbE (matching my 3x APs + 1 spare)?

​

​Appreciate your thoughts and real-world experiences!

The UPS options are about the only thing that I will never get. If I were to get a wall mout rack, what depth would cover everything but the UPS?

I bought a u7 outdoor on Facebook marketplace but it was only the access point, no pieces or antennas. I’m realizing mounting this in anyway will be difficult. Without that piece it’s almost impossible unless I’m just going to do double sided tape.

Any idea where I could track down that part!?

Using a Dream Machine Pro SE in my home and while Guest Wi-Fi works, have ben trying to figure out I can disable the requirement where people need to open a browser window and "connect" after joining the Guest Wi-Fi.

Currently Guest Wi-Fi is set as "standard" application, and none of the settings mention anything about a portal. Only if application is set to "hotspot" can I then go to the portal settings that people see when they connect to my guest Wi-Fi. But since "hotspot" isn't enabled I am at a loss as to why\how people are still being forced to go to it.

I am currently running 5.1.33 on my Dream Machine Pro SE.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can enlighten me if there is something I am missing, or if there simply is no way to disable this extra step for people joining the guest Wi-Fi.

I can route Ethernet easily from this exact location around my house, but I’m worried about fov of the g6 bullet if I mount it this high up and close to where the rafter bay is mostly due to potentially having the roof overhang and gutter creep into the top frame of the video feed (if that makes sense).

Initially I was thinking to mount the cameras lower and have Ethernet pop out of that area (red circle on the image) and then route it down and have a drip loop…etc. then I thought that might be ugly so I was considering installing LB conduit box and route conduit down to a junction box, but I think that might be over kill?

In any case, if I mount the g6 bullets in the exact location in the picture, I can hide the cable cleanly, but again I’m just wondering if I’ll be seeing the roof in frame or getting non optimal fov by having this high versus 6-8 inches lower.

This is for a single story home btw.

Well aware this can be handled by pi-hole and adguard home, but would like to see if unifi can expand on the capabilities with user defined blocking list and additional capabilities seen from pi-hole/adguard home. Would make things easier to adopt for friends and family who are less tech inclined or hesitant setting up another piece of hardware.

Would also assume some companies, especially those in the USA would appreciate it since Candiru is technically on the block list via the government (probably more show than anything) but who knows.

Would also like to hear the community thoughts on this topic?

If you are unaware, you can start with this quick news cap video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNpqIMSGkqw

UoT/Citizen labs findings:

https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targeted-ads-into-a-pipeline-for-spyware/

overly dramatic youtuber, but nonetheless is correct in this case;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4faygDPHgU

Now thats its proven it can be done, and with Ai its only a matter of time till we get more bad actors, if they aren't already present.

I got a bunch of equipment a month or two ago and finally setting up the AP’s. I keep going back and forth on the locations. I have 4x u6 pro’s and 2x u6 in wall units. I originally wanted to use the in walls in my office and in my wife’s office, where we both have things that we want to hard wire. BUT now I’m rethinking that and just ordering some switches instead.
I plan on building a detached garage/shop this year, so the extra AP’s won’t go to waste.
The house is two story and around 3600 square feet.
I keep going back and forth in the design center.
My office is on the first floor in the bottom left room, wife’s desk is above the garage.
Living room is the area between garage and back porch, this is where most of the off work hours are spent.
What do you guys recommend for best coverage?

We are an organization with about 70 physical locations, mostly network gear, some locations have unifi cameras and access control. Our main office had a UDM Pro but we were told to upgrade to fabric we would need to install the beast since the number of devices would tax the UDM Pro and we did have problems adding users and just general slowness on the interface.

Supposedly this was told to us by Unifi Support -- I find this odd and feel that we likely should just be running UnifiOS on our own via some type of compute instance and all these devices should have their notify setup to point to that UnifiOS server.

I have no experience with Ubiquiti other than the Wi-Fi networks I sometimes support at work and an ENVR. I have grown to love it, but I am slightly unfamiliar with their products outside of the ENVR and Wi-Fi configurations.

Currently, the way I am managing my home network is a mess. I set this up as quickly and cheaply as I could when we built this house.

ISP: AT&T 1 Gig Fiber.
Mesh: Eero Pro 6 (qty 3).
Managed Switch: Netgear.
Home Size: Roughly 3,000 sq ft.

Currently, I run into NAT issues, and other issues reaching devices on the network.

• I cannot stream from my PCs or laptops or phones to my TVs, even though they all support it. Doesn't matter if everything is hardwired or on Wi-Fi.
  
• Remote devices are sometimes unreachable.
  
• Cannot host private servers, friends can't join my hosted games, because port forwards do not work.
  

AT&T BGW-320 is not in IP Passthrough mode (explain why later). I have it broadcasting my Wi-Fi, and the three Eero's are plugged into it directly in Access Point mode.

The 4th LAN port on my BGW-320 is plugged into the Netgear managed switch, which feeds the ethernet runs throughout the rest of my house.

The problem this causes is that I have systems around the house that I remote into. One is daily for work. I have my work machine upstairs in a network closet. I RDP to it from my home office where my personal devices live. It works great, usually, but sometimes I have to reset my entire network to establish a connection to the remote device.

I have tried using one of the Eero Pro 6 devices as the gateway, and putting the BGW-320 in IP Passthrough mode. Then plugging that Pro 6 as a gateway into the switch, everything else into the Netgear switch. In theory it should work much better, and it does detect everything, but then I start having major issues with work related tasks and my home NVR is unreachable when I am away from the house and using the NVR app on my phone.

My main issue with all of the above, is I have 3 points of managing my network, through 3 different vendors/apps. AT&T, Eero, and Netgear. I want to simplify all of this, and manage my entire network from one source.

I went looking around, and was initially going to get the following:

• UniFi Cloud Gateway Max (UCG-Max), but I have no need for the onbaord storage feature it offers since I use my own NVR already.
  
• UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE (USW-Lite-16-PoE)
  
• 3 x U6+ WAPs
  

But then I remembered they launched the Unifi Express 7 (UX7). This is where my confusion comes in.

If I go with the UX7 3-pack, do I need to have the Cloud Gateway Max? Or does the UX7 replace that?

If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to let me know.

Topology with UCG-MAX

Topology with UX7

Hey everyone,

Recently became a homeowner and wanted to dig into Ubiquiti for future proofing + clean network, I'm in the UK.

I'm putting together a network plan for a 3-storey house plus a loft. I'm planning to wire the house with Ethernet cables (Cat6A), which run to a patch panel in the loft, where all the core hardware will live.

I’d love to get some feedback on component selection, potential bottlenecks or overkill, or anything I might be missing.l while discovering this.

The goal is to be future proof without going crazy on budget.

Proposed Hardware List:
GW: Cloud Gateway Fiber (UCG-Fiber).
Switch: Pro Max 24 (2.5GbE ports + PoE++ capability + 10G SFP+ uplinks) -> may just need 16 ports ?
NVR: UNVR Instant (with a built-in 6-port PoE switch) paired with an 4TB WD Purple drive for cameras. Thinking to register on event and not 24/7.
NAS: UNAS 2 (2-bay) with 2x 4TB WD Red Plus drives, connected via 2.5GbE.
Access points:* 3x U7 Pro XG (one per floor: Ground, 1st, and 2nd floor ceilings)-> that's where I'm unsure.
*Cameras & Doorbell:** 3x 4K G6 Turret cameras or would Dome be better ? + a PoE Doorbell (G4 Doorbell Pro PoE would be amazing but can't find it as everyone knows. Hopefully a new one comes out soon)

Questions I'm wondering:
1. Does the UNVR Instant's built-in 6-port PoE switch handle the cameras cleanly while uplinking back to the main switch, or is it better to run the cameras directly off the Pro Max 24 switch?
2. Are the U7 Pro XG APs overkill for residential use, or are they a solid future-proof choice for a 3-storey layout?
3. Did I miss anything ?

Here is the topology I was thinking about:
Broadband is 2.5Gbps FTTH.

INTERNET
|
Fibre Entry
|
[ONT]
LIVING ROOM
|
In-wall Ethernet
|
LOFT PATCH PANEL
|
Ethernet patch
|
[Cloud Gateway Fiber]
|
10GbE SFP+
|
[Core Switch]
/ \
[UNAS 2] [UNVR Instant]
|
PoE camera ports
|
Loft Patch Panel
|
Cameras and doorbell

Core switch → Loft patch panel → In-wall Ethernet runs:
├── Ground floor: U7 Pro XG AP
├── 1st floor: U7 Pro XG AP
├── 2nd floor: U7 Pro XG AP
├── 1st floor: Apple TV
├── 1st floor: Gaming console
├── 2nd floor: Gaming desktop 1 (2.5GbE)
└── 2nd floor: Gaming desktop 2 (2.5GbE)

Appreciate any thoughts or recommendations!

10gig isp
2 stacked toolless mini racks
Patch panel
Dream machine se
(Space) for 10gig ag switch
Unas pro
(Space) for UniFi UPS
Pdu

Did some cable management. I love zip ties so don’t @ me. They won’t bite into the cables I promise.

Home use only, 1 floor

• 2x XGS
• 1x UCG Fibre
• 1x USW Pro XG 8 POE switch

I am thinking of swapping out the XGS to XG after reading a few threads here, but besides that I am not sure whether I need whatever else is being recommended

Been in this rabbit hole and overloaded with choices. Going back and forth the more I read. Had settled on a UCG Fiber, USW Pro Max 16 PoE, four U7 Pro XG Ap's, a UCI, and a UPS 2U, all housed in a Sysracks or Tecmojo 15U or 18U mobile rack.

Now I'm wondering if I could just go with a Flex 2.5G PoE switch, and maybe a 10" rack (will obviously not have the UCI or UPS 2U in it).

House is 2700 sq ft, 3 car garage, large patio/pool. Xfinity cable internet. Two kids, non-gamers, will be just for general family internet use, along with usual growing list of smarthome stuff, but nothing excessive. Will have two TVs on Cat5e, Cat6 to the APs. Have Sonos soundbar and may add to it.

MAYBE someday I'll upgrade my four Wyze cams to PoE Unifi cams, and maybe replace my Ring doorbell with a Unifi unit.

Which road should I take? Stay with the 19" gear, or drop down to the Flex switch and maybe a 10" rack?

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to set up an LTE backup connection for my UniFi Dream Machine Pro (UDM Pro), but I can't get it working.

My setup:

Main router: UniFi Dream Machine Pro

LTE router: TP-Link Archer MR200

Mobile provider: Sunrise, Switzerland

Connection: Archer MR200 connected to WAN 2 on the UDM Pro via an SFP-to-RJ45 adapter.

I configured the Archer MR200 to use a different subnet from my UDM Pro's LAN to avoid any IP address conflicts.

However, the UDM Pro still doesn't seem to establish an internet connection through the LTE router.

I also tried connecting the Archer MR200 to port 8 and configuring that port as WAN 2, but that didn't solve the problem either.

At this point, I'm not sure what else I should check.

Has anyone successfully set up an LTE backup WAN using a TP-Link Archer MR200 and a UDM Pro?

I'd appreciate any advice on the following:

Are there any specific WAN 2 settings I need to configure on the UDM Pro?

Are there any settings on the Archer MR200 or the Sunrise SIM card that could prevent the connection from working?

Could the SFP-to-RJ45 adapter or port configuration be the issue?

What troubleshooting steps would you recommend to identify why the UDM Pro isn't getting internet access through the LTE router?

Thanks in advance for your help!