
UniFi-Video Products End of Life Announcement - watersb
https://community.ui.com/questions/UniFi-Video-Products-End-of-Life-Announcement/dc529d39-0e58-43cc-96f0-8f0eed0d002c
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dotBen
What's going on here is Ubiquiti want to sell you a hardware+software
combination (Unifi-Protect) rather than provide a free software NVR (Unifi-
Video) which could run via a container on 3rd party hardware/cloud/etc.

This is part of a trend towards a higher TCO for their products. _However_ as
a long-time owner of Ubiquiti network and security camera equipment I have to
say I welcome the move as it has resulted in higher quality products. On the
security camera front, Unifi-Protect still represents the best one-time Cap-Ex
rather option rather than Op-Ex options such as Ring and Google Nest who
charge monthly for camera cloud storage, etc.

~~~
tw04
I completely disagree. Their code quality has gone down the tubes. The new
UDM/UXG routers have 1/10th the functionality of the previous generation USG
and have been buggy from the get-go including such basic functionality as not
hard-locking when utilizing an SFP for your WAN ports.

The Unifi Protect software isn't even close to feature parity with Video and
there's not even a hint that it will get there before they EOL Video. Their
largest "hardware" option supports a whopping 4 hard drives and forces you to
use RAID-5 across them.

No AI functionality to detect humans/animals/cars, it barely even qualifies as
an NVR.

Blue Iris runs absolute circles around Protect and actually has a full feature
set for less money and no hardware tie-in. Ubiquiti has been trying their
hardest to jump the shark in 2020 and I'm getting closer to dropping them from
my network entirely.

~~~
mason55
> _I 'm getting closer to dropping them from my network entirely._

What are the best alternatives right now? Planning to do a whole house in the
next few months and have been planning on Ubiquiti. I've heard some complaints
lately but haven't heard of anything that makes for a good replacement.

My number one requirement is mesh APs with fast handoff. Close second is ease
of admining multiple networks and ease of setting up segregated VLANs for IoT
stuff.

~~~
c0nsumer
I've been thinking of Aruba APs and a FortiGate 61F. It'll be more manual
setup, but should work fine.

I've got a nice UniFi setup at home (CloudKey G2, USG, 8-port switch, wired
AP, mesh'd AP) and it works well, but it's lacking in some frustrating ways.

For example, it advertises DPI, but it doesn't provide data that can guide
decisions. It'll group things into buckets, but you can't look at it over any
timeframe (doesn't even say when you reset the counters) much less trigger on
if anything exeptional happens.

There's also this nifty power widget which you can connect to a cable modem
(between it and mains power) and when the internet connection fails, it'll
power cycle the modem... not a bad thing for some iffy ISPs. It works, but it
doesn't log to the otherwise-reasonably-extensive system logs. So, you never
know if it actually DID anything.

The setup here at home works well. The APs are solid, as is the security
gateway. But it just seems to lack in some advertised ways; enough so to make
me question sticking with them when it next becomes time to upgrade.

~~~
myrandomcomment
So I installed the UniFi smart power plug and it does log. Not much detail,
and there are server post in the forms asking for more details on the settings
(timeout settings, how long it waits, what it pings, etc.) that have gone
unanswered, but it does log. The message in my log is:

{ap} outlet 0 has been power cycled

Running latest GA on CloudKey2.

~~~
c0nsumer
Really? Thanks! Maybe that changed with an update since I got mine... That's
excellent. I'll make a power cycle happen later and affirm things here.

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vvanders
Pretty torn on this one. Really wish I could host Unifi-Protect on prem with
my own hardware. Most of their dedicated hardware doesn't even offer raid or
decent backup solutions.

It's really a shame because everything else UBNT does is pretty awesome but
this one feels pretty shitty.

~~~
m0dest
The combination of video streaming, bring-your-own-hardware, and closed source
is just really difficult to get right. For every customer who has a good
experience, there are three others who have some kind of persistent issue.
There's just no way to deliver appliance-like reliability for a video server
without controlling the hardware and OS.

~~~
vvanders
Isn't that what cloudkey/dream machine covers though? The people who provision
the types of systems we're talking about are the same that are familiar with
how to spec server hardware.

I had no problem with unifi-video, in fact I had _better_ reliability via ZFS
zraid then what the dream machine supports with a single disk.

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m0dest
The actual title of the article is "UniFi-Video Products End of Life
Announcement". That's very different from this headline. Ubiquiti is very much
still in the video business. They're just deprecating the previous generation,
which has been a long time coming.

~~~
syshum
You definition of "long time" and mine are very different. Security camera
life cycle is measured in manymany years (min of 5 if not 10+). This move is
very sudden for people that have invested thousands of dollars into a security
platform only to be told you have 5 months before we leave out out in the cold

Not a good look for UI. I was thinking about using UI protect for myself. But
their treatment of UI video customers has me rethinking that

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henriquez
They have been saying the older Video products are deprecated for over a year
now, and it’s not like they’ll suddenly stop working either. The nice thing
about those cameras is the self-hosting. Nothing changes there, so what’s the
problem?

~~~
syshum
They have been talking out of both sides of their mouth to to ensure UniFi
Video NVR customers would keep buying camera's

They have been saying the UniFi Video NVR would be supported for security
released until Protect provided the same feature set, then they would give
amble notice to transition

Protect does not have the same feature set, nor is 5mos ample time for
transition

As far as "nothing stops working" Well things will stop working, remote access
for example

Further as one person on the Ubnt site asks "How long will the keep the mobile
app in the app stores" if they remove it from the iPhone store and a user
upgrades their phone they will have no way to install the app again.

That is just 2 of the huge list of issues that this move brings

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noodlesUK
The most frustrating part of protect to me isn’t that it only runs on their
hardware, but that there’s no way of making the system even a little bit
redundant. You can’t back up the system, you can’t stream motion events over
the internet etc. It’s very annoying. The only way to get video out of the
system is to save clips to a PC with the web app. I know there was some effort
to RE the proprietary video storage format, but I don’t know where it went.
Otherwise it’s fantastic...

~~~
def8cefe
You can get RTSP feeds off the cameras.

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syshum
If I have to set RTSP and a secdonry dvr to get off-site backup why would I
pay for their overpriced camera's and lose many features

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def8cefe
I don't know. Is this a rhetorical question?

Lots of people on the internet like to talk about problems and not give any
solutions. I like to focus on the solutions and leave the evangelism and
griping to others.

~~~
syshum
RTSP Streaming is not a "solution" to any of the problems mentioned in the
Grandparent's comment about the shortcoming of UniFi protect

it is simply a way to use the UniFi Camera's with another DVR platform in a
limited (very Limited) way over a standard like ONVIF which is supported by
lots of camera vendors but not Unifi

So if you want to talk about solutions, great but your comment is not really a
solution to anything

~~~
def8cefe
I have Unifi cameras. It's a workaround to avoid buying all new cameras before
you expected to.

Don't project your anger at Ubnt onto me. Sick of the negativity and 'Well
actually'isms on this site.

My comment adds a lot more than any of yours have, which is just to dogpile on
with more 'I'm mad!' and 'this sucks' bullshit and tears to fill the seemingly
bottomless social media reservoirs.

Have some basic respect for others and don't be rude out of the gate talking
to complete strangers.

~~~
kryogen1c
I appreciate you.

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karlshea
I love Ubiquiti, but that's because I'm a home user. I'd never deploy them for
a customer.

It was obvious Protect was going to be the only solution going forward as soon
as they announced it years ago. I can't fathom the surprise by anyone in that
thread, because this is what they do with all of their products.

They announce the replacement, lie about not phasing out the current product,
and then two years later phase it out anyways. This happens every single time
and should not be a shock when it happens.

Next up is probably EdgeOS. That _might_ be different just because a lot of
ISPs use it, but they keep pushing UNMS and some of their new products require
it (see their EA store).

~~~
syshum
Home user also. I will no longer be buying or recommending UI products.

Looks like I am off to find a new networking vendor. Maybe mikrotik

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glogla
Mikrotik is pretty good for ISP-style stuff - CPEs, routers with OSPF, etc.
They are rock stable and get long-term support. Great value for the money but
don't expect state of the art tech or best performance.

For "better wifi", TP-LINK EAP line of APs is pretty good - they sell
controller separately but it works without. Cisco WAP line was good as well,
but it was discontinued I think.

But a lot of people are happy with "better" consumer routers, like better Asus
(say RT-AX88) with custom firmware - or the ultimate geeky toy, Turris Omnia
(I have that one).

None of that will give you the slick UI of ubnt. But it would give you more
stability and less planned obsolescence and unnecessary cloud integration.

~~~
syshum
flashy UI was not the selling point for UI to me, the ability to manage
multiple AP's in a single interface and add new AP's to the network seamlessly
were the 2 main driving points for me.

If you only have a single AP it is over kill for sure, but if you need
multiple AP's then it is a great system

TP-Link EAP systems looks integrating I will have to look into that more.
Thanks for the suggestions

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raesene9
It's interesting to read down the comments on that announcement page. Sounds
like a lot of service providers feel like they're getting burned on this move,
as their customer are using the services that are about to be deprecated.

Another example, if one were needed, about not building your business on
someone else's platform, as it can be removed at any time.

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kawsper
I own 1 camera from them and self-host on my own network behind a VPN, I want
no cloud stuff near something as sensitive as cameras in my home.

Ubiquiti have for me always felt like a hardware company that tried to do
software, I'm sad I have to find other options than their NVR, but maybe that
is the way forward.

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lloydjones
I invested in a UniFi video system (NVR + 3 cameras) in mid-2018.

It feels quite disheartening that these are considered legacy (unsupported &
abandoned) products already..

~~~
pdx6
The title was a little misleading earlier. They are only discontinuing their
Unifi Video product, but all the camera hardware is still supported.

I have a Protect and several cameras deployed and I originally ran Unifi
Video. I think the Protect product is much better but migrating from Unifi
Video blows -- you can't move over your video archives.

~~~
lloydjones
Yeah I got that actually (but thanks for clarifying). It's just a pain that
the NVR is going to be left to die..

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Khaine
Disappointing from Ubiquiti. While I don't use their video products, I was a
user of their networking gear, but given this and the lack of quality / bugs
in recent releases, the key features that are still missing or barely
functional, I will be looking to migrate.

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traskjd
It's long been a bit strange that they had two products. I needed to upgrade
onto Unifi Protect as I literally couldn't get the Video app to load, it would
just instantly crash.

Protect is nicer, however the app is also fairly buggy. It let's down the
quality found elsewhere in their product suites.

Since upgrading to Protect, and rolling out new hardware at a new home, I
still need to manually kill the app every time I've used it on iOS. Otherwise
it says it can't connect to my system. It'll always work the first time, it'll
never work a second.

It's frustrating, and hopefully moving from building two sub-par products, to
focusing on one, will improve the experience for everyone.

~~~
myrandomcomment
I have the same issue on IOS. It’s really annoying. I know okay, kill the app
and restart it, but trying to get the non-tech family to do that is painful.
The concept of closing an app on IOS just does not register (which overall is
not a bad thing expect around issues like this).

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annoyingnoob
In my experience, Ubiquiti's software leaves something to be desired. Rather
than move to their hardware I'll move to other software. I'll still use their
gear, just not the NVR.

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exabrial
I'm totally confused... so it's not the cameras themselves? They just aren't
offering cloud managed cameras, correct?

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unixfg
Protect is their 'hybrid cloud' product. Authentication and remote access are
managed by their servers, but the videos are stored locally.

My guess is they managed to re-implement enough features in Protect that,
after years of neglect, they could officially kill Video.

It's still not feature complete :-/

~~~
paranoidrobot
From what I've heard, the biggest drawback is that if you have more than a
handful of cameras that you want to record in reasonably high definition, then
none of Ubiquiti's hardware can keep up.

~~~
unixfg
Their solution before they had bigger/faster devices was to run multiple
appliances.

The other pretty big problems are no backup solution, video exports limited to
10 minute clips, cloud account and Internet mandatory (at least for initial
setup). What drives me bonkers is no support for valid SSL certificates
because they don't want you to have to worry about that or something. It
breaks the protect app when you don't use their snakeoil default.

I'd still be using Unifi Video, but they broke the iOS app for like a whole
year so it was use protect or switch over to something that took in RTSP from
the cams.

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beezischillin
This was to be expected, when they talked about deprecating Unifi Video about
a year ago they explicitly said that it's not going to be updated so it was
just a matter of time until the final EOL-ing.

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exhilaration
I've been planning to install cameras at home and was considering Ubiquiti or
Synology. What do you folks recommend? I'm looking for something with local
storage but still has a slick app.

~~~
tw04
If you want something that "just works" I would venture down the synology path
but be prepared to spend $$$ on camera licenses for any sizeable installation.
If you don't mind rolling your own, Blue Iris is probably the most extensible
with the downside that it requires far more manual configuration.

~~~
dayjobpork
I bought a 2nd hand hp i5 to run Blue Iris, poe switch and a couple of dahua
cams. The set up was pretty straightforward, there is info on the insanely
toxic ipcamtalk site on recommended Blue Iris settings. Basically you need an
Intel CPU to support hardware encoding and use less power, and specific
setting to save the vids without reencoding.

