Quote:
Originally Posted by keratosis
Wow. You guys spend a lot of money. I run 3 Deco 9+ and have nothing wired beside the decos. About 20 things usually running. Stream movies from my server, play games and what not for a quarter of what I think you paid. Also have parental controls. I just don't get it?
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Short term maybe. But I think it catches up long term. I cannot speak for all, but I love the fact that after many years, Amplifi and Unifi (which is basically commercial grade equipment vs consumer grade) is still very useful equipment. I had paid a premium ($500) on higher end hardware to attempt to get off the 2-3 year networking gear cycle and Amplifi blew my expectations away. Maybe I was always unlucky with the other stuff.
I paid $525 for two Amplifi HD routers in 2015 and meshed them. I gave one to my parents and sold the other for $260 a year ago when I upgraded to the UDM (4 years use).
I bought my parents a Deco system for about $350 for 3 nodes with power line 3.5 years ago. It died 2.5 years later (all 3 nodes fully failed) which kinda gave my UDM upgrade momentum.
My parents are not computer savvy at all but report a single non meshed 5 year old amplifi HD was outperforming the Deco P9 nodes with speed and reliability from drops. (Ie: my zoom calls dropped less often and the quality is better before it drops). I got more performance for less price (Deco P3 vs single Amplifi HD) and got to keep the unit more than twice as long so far. It's also do much easier to help "fix" my parents wifi now than the Deco.
Unifi was merely the next step when my brother reporting being very impressed with his Unifi setup 4 years later (not sure what it is, but I know it's not UDM.
My new home would have required 3-4 Amplifi HD (Total about $800 -$1100 in Amplifi gear. But with my parents needing new gear and me needing more than what my existing HD mesh set up could offer, I took the money and decided to toy with UDM system for nearly a similar cost as more HD mesh units and my parents replacement hardware would have cost, and addressed a curiosity. So I think that's a win, personally.
But I understand what you mean. It's kinda like cars or photography perhaps. If you don't enjoy them as much and only view them as a means of transport or picture, you don't really care to put extra money into it. Just what is necessary. That's fair. But for us who understand and like it, we spend extra for features that others don't even know exist or consider necessary in their life. Some of the features we regularly use on UDM systems are not available in deco, velop and other systems. Some of us have intranet monitoring systems, bridge/repeat across dead zones, broadcast long distances, lock certain clients to certain access points etc. Beyond the other features that might be ubiquitous among mesh systems.
I'd highly advise anyone who doesn't have any advanced networking gear to at least get mesh systems, even if they're Deco, velop, Google, Amplifi, Unifi or whatever. I personally just like paying the extra to upgrade my system when I want to and not need to after a specific duration. I deal with IT and it's something I've learned to value over the years. I like doing things on my time and not when I'm fighting fires.
Quite a few of us started off with free gear after a company upgraded and basically just wanted to get rid of the gear. Higher end networking gear lasts longer and is less likely to become obsolete.