I am starting over and building out a kind of Christmas list here. I was thinking of moving to Ubiquity, but now I’m leaning toward Omada. This is for home use where I mostly want better support for VLANs as I do a lot of IoT/Home Assistant stuff.
Is Omada a good way to go?
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Unifi. Just works, does everything you need. Simple UI, lots of different hardware.
I’m all Omada except for my router. I initially bought theirs but didn’t care for it. Firewall features were lacking at the time. Not sure if that’s improved. I ended up with a Firewalla gold and have been happy with it.
I have some omada networks deployed had a few issues with the controller but once that gets worked out everything has been so far so good easy setup customer service is not the best however , they basically tell you to reboot the modem, eero is option 2
Probably Omada. I just ordered the ER8411 over a udm pro se. I’m hoping their new WiFi 7 APs come out early next year.
You’ll be happy with either I think. I run Omada and it’s great for my home use. It was also less expensive and didn’t have supply chain issues when I was searching. Today, I’m not sure but I have seen many complaining anymore that UniFi just isn’t available. So I’m guessing they fixed that problem.
That’s great - thanks. Do you know if I need a switch? Can I do things with an unmanaged third party switch? It seems like their switch has really loud fans.
FWIW I have a TP-Link managed switch (TL-SG2428P) and I’m very pleased with it. I also have Unifi APs and everything works well together. Unlike the Unifi gear the switch doesn’t have to run with the controller, not sure if the same is true for their APs.
The switch is pretty much silent.
I know a basic ‘dumb’ switch can’t handle VLAN tags being passed through it, but something like the TP-Link ‘smart’ unmanaged switch (TL-SG108E) might allow it. It’s fanless and supports VLANs at least by physical separation and 802.1Q support.
According to ChatGPT:
Yes, the TP-Link TL-SG108E is a managed switch, and it supports VLAN functionality. This means that it can handle VLAN tagging and pass VLAN-tagged frames through its ports.
If you have an access point or any other device upstream that is tagging its frames with VLAN information, and you connect it to one of the ports on the TP-Link TL-SG108E, the switch should be able to pass those VLAN-tagged frames through to other devices on the network, provided that the other devices and the switch are properly configured to handle VLANs.
Keep in mind that for VLANs to work correctly, all the devices involved, including the switch and the devices connected to it, must be configured consistently with regard to VLAN settings. If you need to segregate network traffic using VLANs, you’ll need to configure the TP-Link TL-SG108E accordingly, specifying which ports are members of which VLANs. Additionally, the connected devices, such as the access point, should be configured to tag their frames with the appropriate VLAN identifiers.All this said. I’d recommend a switch that can VLAN and POE. I’m never buying anything non-POE again.
For budget I’d +1 Omada. If you have the extra money go Unifi. I have Omada at home and use Unifi for work, Unifi gives you a nice clean interface to work with and is pretty easy to configure, but you pay the premium.
Omada has a lot of the same functionality of the Unifi stuff but you have to wrestle with the initial setup a bit more, and it’s not as intuitive.
After initial setup however, I have the Omada controller running in a docker container on a Libre PC (Raspberry Pi clone) alongside WireGuard and PiHole, with an indoor WiFi 6 and outdoor EAP225 unit and it all runs like a top, no issues.
For switches, it’s pretty much a commodity item. I prefer Trendnet at home because they actually had a simulator on their website showing the GUI. For more professional gear, I’d use FS switches. For AP’s, I use Grandstream.
Unifi is great for wifi and L2 switching. If you need more than that, Unifi isn’t the way to go. Unifi’s routing products are often subpar for their price range.
I can’t say Omada is better. I don’t have any experience with them.
mikrotik
You should also check out Aruba Instant On.
I just ordered the new Grandstream networking gear (GWN7003, GWN7813P, and GWN7664). Looks like it might be a good alternative.
Interested in Grandstream. Let us know how the setup goes!
Will do. There is also a subreddit for Grandstream Networking. I think there are 8 people in it. I hope to add some stuff there as well, good or bad. I’m hoping for good stuff though.