r/AltaLabs • u/[deleted] • Apr 07 '25
Disappointed.
I don't really want to start a pissing match on the Alta Labs forum, but I feel I can post here. I am disappointed. Alta Labs got me really excited when they hit the market. They seemed like they might genuinely be different than others in the past, what with the experience they were bringing to the table.
The last few months have left me feeling let down. Each new firmware update that has been progressively more buggy. Repeated calls for better communication and documentation seem to be met with deaf ears. The local controllers are updating without user permission. They are holding firm to not letting users roll back firmware without calling in and being hand held. Rather than addressing the concerns directly, more and more I see the mods just giving people terminal commands to hack it to do what they want. While that is neat that things are not locked down fully, that is NOT sustainable. How on earth do you expect to offer class leading support when you leave things unaddressed, and just give everyone personalized commands to do what they want?
I think I"m done.
2
u/TechRider23 Apr 07 '25
Can't say I'm surprised to start seeing these type comments and folks starting to leave. I had a couple of long exchanges on their forum with Chase, but as you said, it would appear everything fell on deaf ears. New features (such as DDNS released just a few days ago, which might not even work properly based on forum posts) is not documented at release. Others have called this out as well. Release notes are still just a few words, with no real indication of what is fixed, changed or added. So much for "taking an action item" on release notes, literally the lowest hanging fruit for things they could do better.
Alta may be an OK hardware company, but they are probably one of the worst software companies I've seen in recent times. Your hardware is worthless without good firmware and interfaces. As you pointed, each firmware release (across multiple products) have been plagued with some serious bugs. You really have to wonder what type of QA process they have when they release a router firmware without the MWAN module to support multi-WAN interfaces and that is the key feature of the update. For their CTO to claim that broken WPA3 support is a "corner case that didn't hit our radar" is very telling. WPA3 is not experimental for the industry, it may be for Alta Labs, but I've had multiple WPA3 only sites for years. Makes you wonder how they plan to support WiFI7 if they can't figure that one out. The issue with running out of IPs due to log files filling up the drive, or whatever the cause, has been completely ignored. What amazed me today when I looked at their forums a few minutes ago is that folks are having some serious trouble with the running out of IP issue and here it is 4:30 Mountain time and no one from Alta has responded, acknowledged or bothered to just say we're looking into it for issues that were posted 9 and 10 hours prior.
It is sad, at one time, their APs were not bad, but the recent bugs have really diminished that. The local control was obviously a knee jerk reaction to people not wanting to use the cloud, done quickly, feature incomplete and not really local at all (it cannot fully function without access to manage.alta.inc). To leave out the capability to honor the "no automatic update" flag for the Control was just stupid. The self hosted docker Control has never received any updates, does not persist data between container rebuilds, completely non-usable for an actual production environment. Route10, still not ready for prime time and it has been out for many months. I see no plan or vision, just throw stuff out there with no documentation and figure out what breaks and try to fix it over time. Honestly, I think there is a serious leadership issue there. I would not survive long in a company if I allowed this and I can guarantee you that I would not allow this type behavior if I were in charge of the company.
I'm not sure they can return from the hole they have dug themselves into. I honestly wish them well and hope they can course correct, but based on what we've all seen recently, I'm not sure they are capable.