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So I saw a lot of positive posts here and other places about Ubiquiti’s unifi ap so I thought nothing about buying one for my house and I was going to bring up to my bosses to add them as a partner to the company. But after my experiences with them I think it is safe to say we will never be selling these products.

The first one was DOA. I understand these things happen so I opened a support case and RMA’d it, they didn’t provide a return shipping label, which I have never seen a company not do that before, so I dropped $10 at ups to send it back. It took a few days to get the replacement, unacceptable if this was in a production environment.

So I get the replacement hook it up get it configured and all is good, it had good range and power, but then after a week the radio died, the ap still was alive and reporting to the controller, but the ssid wouldn’t broadcast and I couldn’t wirelessly connect to the ap. so I open another case with support, oddly got the same guy as before (was that just dumb luck or are they that small of a company?), and after a few hours of exchanging e,mails he decides I need to RMA it again, of course it is up to me to pay for the shipping again. I told him I needed to talk to someone and he informs me they don’t provide phone support. You can’t call them for anything! I looked up their number on line and all it is is a message saying to go online and email them.

I am about ready to report to my states AG’s office.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? I would reccomended avoiding them like the plauge.

@HP @Cisco @Ubiquiti_Inc

42 Spice ups
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Ubiquiti does not sell direct, they use resellers so you have probably run into a bad one. Their products are inexpensive due to the fact they do not really have to advertise or offer support.

I have never had an issue with any of their products, nit even a bum AP and only issues of my own making with the controller software. I have 6 LR APs deployed at my company and never a hiccup. I have 3 LR and 4 - Outdoor APs at a clients site with no issues at all.

I would find a different reseller with a good reputation.

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They do sell direct you can order directly from their website. And the reseller doesn’t explain 2 bad pieces of equipment back to back. The first was brand new sealed in the box the second an RMA directly from Ubiquiti.

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DOAs and RMAs suck. However, the SW Community, which has many SMB I.T. Pros, has had good experiences from them.

Do feel free to pay 100% to 150% more and jump to Meraki. Believe Cisco branded wifi is a bit more still (haven’t priced them lately). Feel free to check in with Ruckus, Aerohive, or Aruba, and let other here know your experiences with them.

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So low cost is an excuse for poor customer service?

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Get what you pay for. As any manager knows, salary component of a budget tends to be one of the larger pieces of the “pie”. Cut customer service, and can (& Ubiquiti does) pass the cost savings back to the buyer.

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SWeaver, I have two hotels on Cocoa Beach that are filled with these APs I have yet to have any issues, as well as I know for a fact that they do NOT sell direct unless you sign up as a distributor (please share the link to where you purchased them so we can tell people to avoid a fake.) Ubiquiti is also used by our ISP for countless other properties as both the main feed and the Backhaul. (The use the AirFiber) These devices are personally my favorite and I am planning on using them at our other three properties.

@Ubiquiti_Inc

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No ,low cost doesn’t excuse low quality or poor customer service. I purchased mine before the online store so I am just going off of my experience. Maybe they haven’t ramped up their support and RMA process. Not sure why you received so many bad pieces of hardware either.

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Really you know that for a fact? https://store.ubnt.com

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You get what you pay for… One word, Cisco

You might get 1 DOA in about 1,000 APs. Don’t fool around with those other vendors.

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At checkout you sign up to be a “reseller” that’s how they get away with it. Besides those are the same prices you get from a distributor, you’re better off going through the distributor than taking on that role yourself.

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If you go to UBNT.com they list distributors. We use Streakwave.com and have never had any problems other than maybe one or two getting backordered.

They feel cheap, but from our experience they work well. You won’t find granularity, like beacon interval settings, etc… but they do offer 4 SSIDs and you can do VLAN tagging, which is nice on a guest network. For most of our customers, justifying $400+ per AP is a bit overkill. The larger deployment scenarios I have personally worked with on Ubiquity products are 16 APs total.

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Um… No

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Well, their whole “disruptive pricing” narrative is based on that. If you want support you’ll have to go to their forum and most of the support you’ll get will come from experienced users who have found their way around issues. Their RMA process and quality control have improved over the past few months but are still flaky. Not to mention UniFi is still in a glorified beta state.

UniFi is a good-enough product for scenarios with very basic connectivity needs and very tight budgets where you just can’t afford a real WLAN solution like Aerohive, Meraki, Ruckus, Airtight, etc. It is still better than lower-grade stuff like Engenius, Open-Mesh, SonicPoint, etc, though. There are three things you need to have on hand at all times when going with UniFi: spare APs, USB to TTL adapter, and a whole lot of patience and time to go through the forums.

Omar

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Yeah- that ‘disruptive pricing’ model is quite the tag line. I was going to go with them, but because I couldn’t get demo equipment, I had to pass.

I tried Ruckus, which was pretty good, but their licensing for their Zone Directors seems exorbitant.

Cisco wanted $66k for our company of 200. Yikes!

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Ruckus is simply amazing, if you can afford it. Try Aerohive, Airtight, or Meraki. Those are very good, well-rounded solutions with fantastic support and better licensing options.

Omar

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We used Unifi’s at my last place of employment, were slowly replacing the Aerohives with them.

Aerohive, is good hardware, but not very user friendly to setup properly to take full advantage of them. If you want a plug and go solution, then the Unifi’s are great.

Had a play with Meraki AP’s as well, wasn’t that impressed unfortunately - some great features, but only if you could get the things to stay online long enough to do anything - maybe I happened to be trying them at a bad firmware stage ?

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Let me get this straight. You replaced Aerohive because you didn’t know how to manage it? The reason why UniFi seems so user friendly is precisely because it lacks the functionality you need to “take full advantage of them”!

Omar

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It sounds like you had a bad experience, I have deployed close to 50 units and have only ever had one fail, Yes they make you pay your own return shipping. I got a replacement right away and had no issues with it after that. A single bad unit does not mean they are cheap or no good it is just bad luck, 2 bad units in a row… well I can see how that would frustrate you and turn you off a brand.

Ubiquiti has no real support department, nor do they have a sales and marketing department. They make no secret about that. It is part of how they keep costs so low and offer such affordable products. You are correct when you say there is no one to phone and they are not the only company that has a policy like this. When was the last time you tried phoning google for support?

If you want the ability to phone someone and get support you will need to go to a higher cost provider and you are free to do so, just remember you are paying for that support it is just hidden in the higher upfront cost of the product.

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Hi SWeaver32 -

Very sorry to hear about the poor experience you had with a DOA and our RMA process. It is very, very rare to have a DOA as each unit is individually tested. Did you happen to switch the POE when the new one was received?

Please send me the name of who you worked with. Also, please send me your address to ben.moore@ubnt.com and we will get replacement units shipped to you ASAP tomorrow via overnight.

This is not a common experience and this is not a matter of “getting what you pay for” we have many users with thousands of these devices in use for years without issue. Yes, we are unique with our support model, but this is usually handled very quickly (either on our community forum or on Spiceworks or via email).

Please advise ASAP and we will get you taken care of.

Regards,

Ben

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