Router recommendation to go with a Ubiquiti AP?

[DarkManX]

I am going to be moving into a new house, its a 3 stories + unfinished basement. its not a huge house (old downtown row house being fully gutted)

My plan is to put a modem/Router in the basement, they are putting network jacks in every room but I also asked for a jack on second floor ceiling hallway for a Ubiquiti AP. Is there any affordable routers that will work well with it to facilitate network hands offs?

 

[boomhower]

Starting from scratch I'd stick with Ubiquiti. You also want to give some serious thought about more AP's, you really need one on each floor. They cover horizontally great but not as well vertically.

 

[fiberst]

I have run for the Ubiquiti access points in my own house. A good choice for Wi-Fi solution

 

[MrMaster]

The Ubiquiti unifi AP have their own controller so you can pair them with any router.

 

[gus6464]

Ubiquiti Edgerouter X. It's dirt cheap at $50 and destroys all the retail stuff you find at best buy. I have an Edgerouter Lite because the ER-X wasn't out at the time and it has been rock solid.

I started with the Edgerouter and an 8 port netgear switch but soon ran out of ports so now I am running a Juniper EX2200 I got from work as they were going to trash it. Have two AC Pro access points in my house. I never have to reboot anything as I used to have to do with the belkin, netgear, and linksys routers I have owned in the past.

 

[boomerang]

Be aware that the EdgeRouter X will not work out of the box. It must be configured. Also, a lot of the configuration for security is already done for you on a typical router you can buy anywhere but that is not the case with the EdgeRouter.

In other words there is a learning curve and how steep it will be is based on your level of expertise.

 

[DarkManX]

Be aware that the EdgeRouter X will not work out of the box. It must be configured. Also, a lot of the configuration for security is already done for you on a typical router you can buy anywhere but that is not the case with the EdgeRouter.

In other words there is a learning curve and how steep it will be is based on your level of expertise.

my goal was to find a wireless router that will serve as an AP for the bottom of the house.

 

[MrMaster]

Keep the router and the wifi pieces separate. You won't regret it. Think of it as those tv/dvd combos or all in one computers. It's annoying when you only want to upgrade the one item or one of the pieces breaks you need to buy a whole new one.

 

[fluffmonster]

I doubt you'll be able to set up roaming between the Unifi APs and some other router's wireless. You will need to either go all Unifi for roaming, or have to run two separate SSIDs one for Unifi and one for the router. Just go all Unifi.

 

[gus6464]

Be aware that the EdgeRouter X will not work out of the box. It must be configured. Also, a lot of the configuration for security is already done for you on a typical router you can buy anywhere but that is not the case with the EdgeRouter.

In other words there is a learning curve and how steep it will be is based on your level of expertise.

The newest edgerouter firmwares have wizards for basic setup. Kinda hard to screw it up. The edgerouter x I setup for my brother in law comes with a manual that tells you all the steps needed to login, update firmware, and be up and running with a standard wan + 1 lan config in a couple of clicks.

 

[gus6464]

I am going to be moving into a new house, its a 3 stories + unfinished basement. its not a huge house (old downtown row house being fully gutted)

My plan is to put a modem/Router in the basement, they are putting network jacks in every room but I also asked for a jack on second floor ceiling hallway for a Ubiquiti AP. Is there any affordable routers that will work well with it to facilitate network hands offs?

Buy an Edgerouter X and 3 Unifi AC-LR access points and put one in each floor. That's $350 and you will get rock solid wifi with a router your will basically never need to reset.

 

[freeskier93]

The newest edgerouter firmwares have wizards for basic setup. Kinda hard to screw it up. The edgerouter x I setup for my brother in law comes with a manual that tells you all the steps needed to login, update firmware, and be up and running with a standard wan + 1 lan config in a couple of clicks.

Yep, just make sure you go download the latest firmware BEFORE tearing out the old setup. I've setup a couple of EdgeRouters and they always come with really old firmware that doesn't have the setup wizards.

Once you have the latest firmware it takes all of a minute to go through the wizard and have it configured for a standard home setup. After that you'll basically never have to touch it again.

 

[gus6464]

Yep, just make sure you go download the latest firmware BEFORE tearing out the old setup. I've setup a couple of EdgeRouters and they always come with really old firmware that doesn't have the setup wizards.

Once you have the latest firmware it takes all of a minute to go through the wizard and have it configured for a standard home setup. After that you'll basically never have to touch it again.

I think the Edgerouter Lites are the only ones that come with ancient firmwares now. ER-X and ER-X-SFP all come with firmwares that have the wizards since they are new and seem to be great sellers.

 

[boomerang]

The newest edgerouter firmwares have wizards for basic setup. Kinda hard to screw it up. The edgerouter x I setup for my brother in law comes with a manual that tells you all the steps needed to login, update firmware, and be up and running with a standard wan + 1 lan config in a couple of clicks.

I had one in operation for a short while and yes, the newer firmware contains wizards that make the setup easy for anyone that can follow directions. And as was said, mine did not come with that level of firmware.

But tell me, what security protocols are in place out of the box?

The wording associated with setting up anything beyond the wizards is not user-friendly for the average Joe. It will require researching which is something the average person is not going to do on their own. They do not have that level of interest in the functions of the hardware. They are used to screens coming up in their browser that walk them through establishing an Internet connection and setting a password for their wireless.

Now, don't think I am bad mouthing this router. That's not the point of my post. I had one in place for a while and am currently using a UniFi AC AP Lite for my wireless. I am simply pointing out, and I feel that this is important for people to know, that these are not as simple to set up as a typical router the average person buys and that IMO, they are potentially not as secure if only the wizard is followed.

Anyone that wishes to prove me wrong on that last sentence will find me listening intently. I would like to know more. BTW, I find their forum participants to be operating over my head at a level my old brain does not wish to ascend to. I am not interested in learning to set up firewall parameters using the CLI which is what the overwhelming majority of them seem to enjoy greatly. To each his own. For me, not so much and for the average person, not at all.

I sold mine to someone here and found that I had to do quite a bit of hand-holding for him to get it operating. This, after making it clear what was involved with explanations based in what I've written here. He was as enthusiastic as I was about the hardware until it actually became time to get it working. He was convinced it was not functional and wanted to know if it was still under warranty. That was our starting point.

 

[kevnich2]

My recommendation would actually be to have another network jack installed in the center of your first floor ceiling as well and actually stick your first AP there. It should hit both your first and second floor's without any problem, depending on your square footage of each floor. Putting it on the 2nd floor would limit how much it reaches to things in the basement or to the first floor.

As others have mentioned, keep your router and wifi separately. Buy an edgerouter or unifi security gateway to use as your router and either 1 or 2 Unifi AP's.

 

[kevnich2]

Boomerang - the newest firwmare for both the edgerouter and for the unifi controller both have wizards designed with the highest security protocols from the get go. You can get both the unifi controller and edgerouter setup out of the box in under 5 minutes without touching the CLI. I'll admit, I love the CLI as you can literally setup a HIGHLY advanced enterprise class setup with hardware that's very cheap. But, you don't have to if you don't want to. The wizards have changed probably within the last year or two. Beyond that, you were correct, they were geared towards the network admin group.

 

[boomerang]

Boomerang - the newest firwmare for both the edgerouter and for the unifi controller both have wizards designed with the highest security protocols from the get go. You can get both the unifi controller and edgerouter setup out of the box in under 5 minutes without touching the CLI. I'll admit, I love the CLI as you can literally setup a HIGHLY advanced enterprise class setup with hardware that's very cheap. But, you don't have to if you don't want to. The wizards have changed probably within the last year or two. Beyond that, you were correct, they were geared towards the network admin group.

Don't take this the wrong way but could you point me towards some information explaining that?

Here's what made me ditch the hardware. I wanted the ability to log into the router remotely to perhaps change settings, etc. Being physically away from the router eight months out of the year is what drove that. I was able to set it up but along the way I got the impression that it was not as secure as it should be.

I mostly want to know if the router is as secure after the wizard magic as your average off the shelf typical homeowner type router. Anything pertaining to remote management would be a plus.

 

[Genx87]

Budget?

 

[PliotronX]

Ubiquiti Edgerouter X. It's dirt cheap at $50 and destroys all the retail stuff you find at best buy. I have an Edgerouter Lite because the ER-X wasn't out at the time and it has been rock solid.

I started with the Edgerouter and an 8 port netgear switch but soon ran out of ports so now I am running a Juniper EX2200 I got from work as they were going to trash it. Have two AC Pro access points in my house. I never have to reboot anything as I used to have to do with the belkin, netgear, and linksys routers I have owned in the past.

Oo! Just when I was going to mess around with one of those Mikrotik Hex Lite (100Mb) routers, this ERX comes along. Thanks for the tip, I love me some Ubiquiti toys.

 

[gus6464]

Don't take this the wrong way but could you point me towards some information explaining that?

Here's what made me ditch the hardware. I wanted the ability to log into the router remotely to perhaps change settings, etc. Being physically away from the router eight months out of the year is what drove that. I was able to set it up but along the way I got the impression that it was not as secure as it should be.

I mostly want to know if the router is as secure after the wizard magic as your average off the shelf typical homeowner type router. Anything pertaining to remote management would be a plus.

Edgemax firmware supports ssh and opendns. If you don't have static ip you could easily setup your opendns account in the router and turn on ssh and with a simple routing rule you have remote management via ssh and/or gui.

 

[mikegg]

I have a Ubiquiti ERPOE-5 powering 3 AC Pro access points via POE. It's been rock solid for a month now since I setup everything. No resets. No disconnects. It just works and coverage is amazing with 3 access points spread apart in a three story house.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[bbhaag]

Anyone got some more info on Oubadahs questions? I recently went with the Edgerouter X + UAP-AC-LR combo and while it works great I did use the wizard to set it up.

 

[freeskier93]

Anyone got some more info on Oubadahs questions? I recently went with the Edgerouter X + UAP-AC-LR combo and while it works great I did use the wizard to set it up.

My guess is nobody cares enough to come up with some big long post about why the worries are pointless and standard wizard setup isn't any less secure then every other consumer router.

If you guys really care enough then I'm sure you can find plenty of security info on the Ubiquiti forums.

Contrary to popular belief you don't have haxzors banging down on your front door, at most you might have something sniff open ports. The default firewall has everything closed that should be closed and everything open that should be open. Don't worry about it.

 

[bbhaag]

Your post is really not helpful. It's actually kinda condescending.
Does anyone else have some helpful input too add?

And please don't tell us to go too the Ubiquiti forums. Everyone on their talks in acronyms .