But Unifi should be able to implement this with zero extra hardware, just with VPN-style clients on phones and laptops?
I'm just surprised this needs an extra device. It would make sense if the device provided its own connectivity (with global wireless service, say), but this doesn't seem to be the case here. It still needs an uplink.
I run OpnSense, Wireguard, hooked up to third party WiFi access points, and I had to do a lot of configuration and work that I wouldn't have had to do if I had just bought Ubiquiti equipment.
I did save money, a really significant amount of money.
Obviously, yes, I am capable of going through the work that eliminates my need for this product. I have no trouble configuring Wireguard and setting it up on my client devices and running through all that.
But it was a lot of work to get to this point and I had to spend a lot of time learning how to do that, even as a person who is already technical. Wireguard in particular took me a solid half a day to build understanding and get it configured.
If I was a little bit richer and I went back in time I'd probably just buy all Unifi. Actually if I went back in time I think with my same levels of wealth I'd probably just buy Unifi and save some precious time.
This specific device does seem like a really nice extension of their product line.
The catch is figuring out what's going to stick around and what won't.
I have a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite that's a little over ten years old. At the time, it was revolutionary in its ability to pump a whole lot of data over a cheap device with a lot of features - but a lot of those features weren't available in the GUI at all; you had to go CLI and learn Vyatta (of which it was a fork) to do them. It's been updated over the years and is now much easier to use as the web interface exposes a lot more functionality, but it's not part of Unifi (and never will be).
Early on, I looked at and even tried one of their AP's. 100 Mbps wired uplinks for N wireless? No thanks. Even the one that I got to test with had absolutely abysmal range. Say what you will about TP-LINK generally, but their Omada unified control system had AP's that actually worked in my house. So the early Unifi stuff wasn't anything special, and based on how they had dropped the ball on so much of their early hardware (the EdgeRouter Lite had its software on an internal USB drive that, out of warranty, failed in a way that I was only able to diagnose with a serial console cable - at least it had a port so I could monitor it during boot, and searching for the error messages found a way to replace the thumbdrive and reload the software) I had no reason to go with them.
If I were setting someone up today, with all new gear, I might go Unifi, but I have no reason to spend any time at all replacing a system that works just fine.
What I didn’t like about TP-Link Omada was their weird requirement for a separate controller hardware thing, or running a controller server thing. If I remember right.
I ended up with the OpnSense box plus Zyxel APs. The Nebula cloud offering has been surprisingly good for me: it offers plenty of features in the free tier and the APs don’t actually need the cloud service to be configured if it were to be discontinued.
They phrase it oddly, I think to try to get people to buy a controller, but you only need it for setup, and the free software controller works fine for that. You only really need a hardware controller for a business environment where you expect to manage multiple sites remotely (it can be done remotely but isn’t worth the $80 you save vs having a hardware controller on site). Once configured, the devices will keep on doing their thing after reboots. You will have to fire it up for upgrading devices, but that’s no different from running Unifi without a controller with only AP’s - there has to be a provisioning controller somewhere to get them to work as a true network with seamless handoffs and the like. Otherwise, running in standalone mode, they are just like running consumer AP’s individually.
I have a hardware controller, but I will probably end up putting it in my in-laws’ house because software is fine for where I live. I actually set the whole thing up via software controller and transferred the config when it was all set and I would only be making small changes.
I’m in the market for a solid travel router, and my home network is all Unifi gear. This is a no brainer, especially with the built-in Teleport support.
I liked it! I have a suggestion: some AppSumo products have (or had!) the option of a free plan, and a one time purchase that would remove their branding "Powered by AppSumo". Maybe you can have it here as well a one time purchase that would remove the branding but for your $1/m plan.
Interesting point about removing branding! I've noticed that many early users really appreciate it when they can customize their experience, especially if they plan to present the tool to clients. I remember trying a few budget tools in the past that offered branding removal for a one-time fee, and it really made me feel like I had more ownership over my projects.
It could be a neat way to upsell, too—kind of a win-win where users can feel good about their investment. Plus, there's something appealing about making something feel more premium with just a small one-time buy. I wonder if adding a super low-cost option like that might draw in more users, even outside the indie maker community.
I’m curious—how big of a factor do you think branding really is for smaller teams? Would it really sway someone to choose your tool over another?
>I will eat my hat if Google had nothing to do with the demise of Mozilla
One has to be truly naive to think they get half a bi a year from Google "just because." They have less than 5% of desktop market share and ZERO mobile presence.
IMHO, they wouldn't get this kind of money if they had a competent, technical C-suite that actually cared about creating a truly competitive free browser. The money is flowing because, not in spite of, the current C-suite.
Thanks for sharing! I want to have some sort of agentic "helper" to my new puzzles website [1], and I've learned some tips from your post/code, thank you!
Have you given any thought about how to create the puzzles? Do you think it'd possible to create them using LLMs?
I noticed it was added to a couple of others that I didn't submit to (goldles.com and dles.aukspot.com) I'm not sure if there are others I should be aware of.
Puzzleship - a free daily puzzles website with the archives paywalled. Right now it has Logic Grid Puzzles and Zebra Puzzles. I'm pretty proud of the LGP generator algorithm and some experienced players also liked the way the puzzles are constructed. This is my first subscription site and it's been online for about 15 days, so I'm learning a lot and trying to figure out the pricing.
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