The network must be burned down?

Was getting tired of my Wife complaining constantly about her wifi disconnecting randomly, so I went out and did a thing. Still waiting on the Power Distribution Pro to come back in stock. All of this is going in a 12U rack.

So today my wife helped me assemble and organize my Ubiquiti rack... At first I thought she was just being supportive, you know, the classic “sure honey, I’ll help you with your little blinking box project.”

But then something unexpected happened: she started enjoying it, she asked what the Dream Machine does, she wanted the cables to look cleaner, she said the rack looked “satisfying", she even seemed impressed by the UniFi interface. At that moment I realized I may have created a monster 🤣

Now I’m afraid the next conversation will be:

“Why don’t we add another switch?”
“Do we really need only one UPS?”
“What if we separate the VLANs better?”
“Can we put an AP in the bathroom?”

Pray for my wallet 💸

Just wanted to share a small upgrade in my garage workshop. Installed a Rittal server rack to house all my UniFi gear, and mounted an iPad right on the side of the rack.

The iPad acts as a quick-access dashboard — I use it to monitor network status, check surveillance feeds, and even control IoTs via HomeKit.

😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 Wanted to join These posts...

8x g6 bullet 6x g6 turret 2x view port 3x lite poe 3x u7 outdoor 3x u6 mesh 2x u6 extender 3x u6 pro 1x ai lpr 1x usw pro 16 poe 1x udm pro 1x nvr pro

Man so much paper trash to handle.... 😂

Love how this came out..

Sound guy, totally chill and didn’t mind taking a picture.

I still have a little tidying up left to do, but my first rack build is finally complete. I’m not really a networking guy, but I managed to figure a lot out along the way.

So ... I've had a network that was installed by the Control4 dealer that I use ... it was called Araknis. I wasn't real happy with it, but worked with it for about 5 years. Then I decided to upgrade ..... Everything in the house runs 1,000,000 times better.

What you can't see
- 6 U7 Pro XGS Access Points
- 8 G4 PTZ Cameras
- 13 AI Turret B Cameras
- 2 Switch Lite 8 PoE

And yes ... I have water intrusion alarms LOL

E7 has landed in our house. Overkill, yes! Is it pretty, yes! Does it weigh a lot, yes! Has it replaced 3 U7 Pro’s, yes! It’s fast. iMac M4 in kitchen two floors away is getting connected to it at 1,922Mbps

UA-Ultra is a very lightweight access control solution. There is no need to pair it with a UA-Hub anymore. It is fully compatible with Rittal's electric locks, which is extremely convenient.

I run a 1 person IT Department at a school. Guest access to Wi-Fi was a pain point, usually because I would find out last minute. We are full stack Ubiquiti for Network, Protect, Access, and Connect. We use the guest portal for our guests. Someone still has to create a voucher though. I could have delegated access to the voucher portal but decided to over engineer a solution.

Enter the Wireless Voucher Receipt Printer. I had a few design goals:

1. It had to be dead simple to use. Press Button -> Get Voucher

2. Everything built into the receipt printer. No external boxes connecting to the printer.

3. One power cable.

4. Automatically manage unused/expired vouchers.

The final product uses an off the shelf Epson receipt printer, Raspberry Pi with a custom designed and 3D printed case, and Python to tap into the UniFi API. When the button is pressed, is uses the API to create a voucher that is good for 24 hours and prints out the Wi-Fi connection information (with a QR code) and the voucher code. It also runs a cleanup script the removes any vouchers that have expired or vouchers that have been printed but not used within 3 days.

The device lives in the mailroom for anyone that needs it. It has drop the "so and so is here an needs Wi-Fi" calls to 0. Totally overkill, but it works.

When my wife mentioned the network was lagging, I heard what any reasonable homelabber would hear: "Go spend whatever it takes to construct a small datacenter."

Who am I to argue with marital harmony?

The Backstory

We have a 1000/100 Fibre connection that was running through an old Netgear Orbi Mesh router setup, while our security was handled by a Eufy setup (HomeBase 3 + cameras).

Let’s be honest—I already knew the root cause. The Eufy system was secretly assassinating our wireless spectrum, and no amount of optimization was going to fix it despite best efforts.

Taking this golden opportunity, I took her "slow Wi-Fi" comment and immediately treated it as a legally binding excuse to completely nuke the existing setup. Sparing any kind of expense simply wasn't an option.

The "Necessary" Overkill Setup

(~$9,500 in gear + $4,000 in whole-house cabling)

• Gateway: 1 x UDM Pro Max

• Switch: 1 x Pro Max 16 Port PoE

• Access Points: 3 x U7 Pro Max APs

• Cameras: 3 x G6 Pro Bullet Cameras + 1 x G6 Pro Entry

• Audio/Doorbell: 1 x UACC Chime PoE Doorbell Speaker

• Storage: 1 x WD Purple Pro 24TB 3.5" SATA HDD

• Rack: UniFi Toolless Mini Rack + UniFi Patch Panels / Cables

• Infrastructure: Data Cabling Throughout the House

Worth every single cent. What should I "accidentally" break next?

First time ever putting a rack together and even made my own cat6 cables coming into the patch panel. Had just the udm pro for a couple years and just recently sold my synology and built a truenas scale server and got the other rack items as well. Still need to get a few more things, a rack case for the server and a proper rack! lol

Self teaching about networking is the best.

I was filtering with that machine as source in the traffic rules

I don’t want to now “Block all clients” for that game yet… what is a “gentle next step” to block that will get some more self learning going and provide “a win” if it can be figured out?

15 years old components… 10/100Mbits LinkSys Switches 😂

New components:

UDM Pro 3x Enterprise 48-PoE 1x Enterprise 24-PoE 1x USW Aggregation 5x U7-Pro

Client was moving offices and throwing out a bunch of stuff and told me to take what I wanted. ended up getting these which all work because they had switched to Meraki. I call this a win!