Ubiquiti UniFi wireless Dream Machine | UDM-US, single band

I will update this review if there are problems later on...I bought this router after being disenchanted with a series of consumer-grade wireless routers. They all worked fine - for the first several months. I last used a Netgear 6400v2 and have an attached USB-3 drive which I used for backups of my computers and to store media files for my Plex server. Then, like all it's predecessors, it started disconnecting from the internet and not even letting me log in to the router. The attached drive became unreachable at times. These problems were separate and unpredictable. I got sick of my wife calling me to tell me that there was no internet.Ubiquiti makes enterprise-grade networking devices. They have really just entered the consumer (or "prosumer") market with the Dream Machine. I had high hopes for this and have been really happy with the setup and deployment so far. The wireless access point is strong enough to not need any satellite access points in my house. All my devices are getting strong wireless signals. I converted my old router to a switch, and now use it just to connect the network drive to the LAN. It seems to be up for that task so far - saving me the expense of a NAS device.The configuration controller program is very flexible and secure. You can turn on 2-factor authentication (via Google authenticator on your phone) which will lock out anyone trying to access the network controller even if they know the password. It works fine in it's default setting, but allows you to make many customizations including combining the 2.4 and 5 Ghz wireless networks into a single SSID. This allows new and old wireless clients to talk on the same network.At Ubiquiti's advice, I bought a good power conditioner to protect my networking equipment from voltage irregularities (Furman PST-8D) , and also lightning shielded the lot of it with L-Com grounded surge protectors.Edit June 27, 2020:It's still all good. ZERO down time. I have never needed to reset it. It maintains consistent connections with wired and wireless clients. Easy to assign fixed IP addresses and port forwarding. This thing is like a toaster - it just does what it is supposed to do without needing any hand-holding. Don't hesitate to buy it.

I debated for a long time before buying this router. I have plenty of other ubiquiti equipment so I know how well it works. Let me tell you I wish I had bought it sooner. Features like content filters and ssid scheduling appeased my wife’s desire to keep our kids off the internet during certain hours. The only real complaint I had was rectified in the most recent firmware. No longer do you need to do hacky cli level commands to make something like express vpn work. Now you just add the config in the UI and boom your whole network gets the benefits of vpn. Since I have a number of other ubiquiti ap’s I don’t broadcast my main ssids from the router but do broadcast the guest Wi-Fi one. All my kid’s friends are like wow your Wi-Fi is super easy to get on and fast. I wish our house was like that. Any of the testing that I’ve done on the guest network would indicate that the router broadcast of Wi-Fi is more than sufficient.

I have been battling wifi issues for years, with my old wrt1900acs, it was good but never great. As more and more were added the router seemed to choke, and every device would be connected but not able to access the internet. I bought and returned 2 other wireless systems that failed to perform before the Dream Machine. The first was a $450 netgear orbi mesh system that promised huge coverage and high speeds, it did neither the second was a newer Linksys that somehow had worse range than the old wrt I had.After reading reviews online saying the UDM was the ultimate and overkill for home users I figured it was worth a try, and simply put I have great speeds and coverage that is well beyond anything I have had before. I have always had a bit of a bias against routers that do not have external antennas and expected this one to be a letdown for coverage when the two previous Linksys devices had huge antennas and couldnt get the job done. I was way off. The UDM went well above and beyond my expectations. It is overkill for a home environment unless you really like seeing absolutely everything that is going on, what devices are doing the most, and what they are connecting to, it gives a deep dive. However, its setup is simpler than what I had to deal with on either the new Netgear or Linksys routers I tried. After that it is up to you how much you want to dig in. In the age of covid with people and kids at home all the time using internet for work, school, data caps, ect. this router is a very handy tool in managing a home network. In the 3 weeks I have been using it, it has continually surprised me on how well it performs, and new features I have found.

We have been adding smart home devices for several years, everything wireless. Sonoff Basic's, Smart Bulbs, Smart Light Switches, Roku and Fire TV's, lots of Echo Dots.I was suffering constant problems with devices dropping off the network and reconnecting using three netgear routers (see photo)Consolidated to the UDM a week ago (see photo) and am thrilled at the results.69 wireless clients, 2 hubs. (Smart Things and Hue)The online "chat" support is amazing and fast. Not sure why others are stating lack of support. Go to Ubiquiti's website, go to support and fill out the short info page and click "live chat" they are there 24/7The only real problem was a decrease in Wi-Fi speed from 300mbps to 200. This was corrected by disabling "Smart Queue"If you are an enthusiast with tons of Wi-Fi devices, or just want to be able to micro-manage your network, buy this.Update: A little over 4 years later this router is still going strong! Has received numerous updates pushed to it from Ubiquiti, always goes smooth and resumes operation after updates install.This is the only router I recommend to anyone that cares to listen.