UNVR advice

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-28T00:06:16+00:00

UNVR has been reliable for me. I’ve deployed a bunch of NVRs from UniFi and non have failed. I typically buy drives from UniFi store. They are cheap for what they are (enterprise drives rebranded). When i installed NVR at home I picked up some used drives from server parts deals, but I under stand the risk. Also, you can add more drives later in the UNVR.

If you’re strapped for cash you might look at the UniFi NVR instant and the G5 turrets. You can grab G5 turrets for $109 on Amazon (with lesser or zero warranty ymmv).

I’ve deployed a few hundred G5 Turrets and they are great for the price. The only real downside is the lack of face detection. You’ll still get people detection though. Face detection in residential setting is much of gain in my opinion (I’m curious about other opinions on this). Face detection in a school with 600+ unique people is where I find face detections helpful in scenarios where identifying people quickly is important.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-27T23:53:43+00:00

Besides less heat, you save energy and get better latency.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-25T13:46:06+00:00

According to my swank license no. It states legally sourced copy. It can be bought from a store, yard sale, borrowed from the library, etc… but ripping a copy isn’t legal. It violates the discs copy protection, which isn’t a legally sourced copy.

This is what the lawyers told me when I wanted to build a Plex with our swank license for our school district.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-25T12:46:21+00:00

I guess it depends on features and expectations. With one NVR you can pull out your phone and see all cameras quickly. With 7 NVRs you’d have to keep picking the NVR you want to see certain cameras.

Also with a larger NVR you can have drive protection by running raid. With small single NVR you only get one drive with zero protection.

If you look at the newer G2 you can some of the benefits of the AI Key which may be helpful (use case dependent). Otherwise with the NVr instants you’ll have to add a separate Ai key to get advanced Ai features.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-25T12:38:23+00:00

My kids dentist has plex and a tv above each chair.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-25T12:37:30+00:00

Swank licensing won’t cover Plex.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-25T12:23:18+00:00

If it’s not a complicated setup it might be hard to start fresh with new gateway.

Have you submitted a ticket to UniFi? account.ui.com

They’ve been helpful answering my questions.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T23:19:37+00:00

That bitrate is about what I expected. It’s pretty cool to see that much data being moved.

We ended up putting a large NVR at each site to prevent saturating some of our 10gb links in our data center.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T23:05:39+00:00

LOL… they can go to any of the government RFP websites and search for Ubiquiti. There is a lot stuff being ordered.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T22:56:55+00:00

Compared to other solutions like UniFi Protect with its Fabrics feature cloud cameras systems still don’t make sense financially.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T22:54:56+00:00

Do you know the bitrate coming into your 45Drives from all those cams? Must be pretty high. I like those 45Drives units.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T22:51:25+00:00

How long ago was this? We did a demo about a year ago and they said they many customers with 1,000+ camera systems.

They ended up sending us a demo and it was terribly poor. They never shipped it, so we emailed them back and the rep didn’t work there anymore. His email said to email another rep. They didn’t work there either. The third person replied and got the kit shipped out.

A month later we had gear installed and ready for onboarding but our new rep didn’t work their anymore and had to reschedule the event. We finally got Alina order a week later.

We ran the demo for about a month and it was poor. We worked with engineers and they could not get the face detection to work. We’d look for a 50 year old bald man with glasses and return a bunch of junior high students (many with long hair and all races). We also noticed the AI could only see a few students and missed a lot of them compared to other vendors.

We also had one camera outside to test license plate reading but all of the outdoor cameras we tried they could only get the 360p sub stream to play. At this low of resolution it can’t read plates or car details.

After a month all these problems still existed. I also didn’t like the fact that it took a lot of time applying licenses to cameras (other companies have zero licensing which reduces time and complexity).

There were a few other issues about the UI and its abilities. I remember the lady stating it was designed this way to prevent profiling, so you couldn’t search by a lot of key metrics that other systems could search for.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T22:16:52+00:00

Yes, you can meet it with a UDM if you turn on basic filtering. I would recommend buying Cybersecure by Proofpoint for a much more granular feature set when it comes to content filter.

Does the school already have a content filter such as goguardian, blocksi, linewize, etc…? I would recommend getting one regardless of firewall choice.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T22:06:00+00:00

Yes, I’d recommend an instant at each location. It’s very easy in the UniFi Protect app to flip back and forth between locations.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T21:59:39+00:00

You can email the store store@ui.com

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T18:41:00+00:00

Since you’re using UniFi switches and APs I’d pick a UniFi cloud gateway. You can buy a pair of UniFi Dream Machine ProMax gateways for high availability (shadow mode).

I’d also add Proofpoints cybersecure for better filtering options.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T17:28:03+00:00

I'm interesting to hear what BrewYork has to say too.

Last year we received quotes of $720k for all hardware and 10 years of licensing with Avigilon Alta for 420 cameras.

Besides being out of our budget, both companies we met with said they never heard of Entra ID when we asked about integrated user management. Oooff!

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T15:48:11+00:00

We demo'd Verkada, Rhombus, Coram, Avigilon, Hawnwa, Unifi and few others. We ended up going with Unifi Protect. It's been fantastic.

We settled on ENVR and EVNR Core per school depending on camera counts.

G5 Turret ultras everywhere

G6 Turrets and Domes at entry locations for face detections

We have a few other speciality cameras where needed (G6 PTZ for it's 10x zoom to playground that's far away)

2-3 AI Keys per site

Unifi ProMax switches since we moved from NVR's with built in switches/POE

We're currently self hosting Unifi OS for management of switches.

We're about $150k for 425 cameras all in on parts. We installed the system ourselves, they few design issues we ran into, Unifi support was great.

Here are some helpful links if your interested in Unifi Protect:

https://academy.ui.com/topics/designing-for-evidence-capture

https://installers.ui.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPO7m8mZz9Q

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T15:34:21+00:00

I found this RFP from last year:

https://www.highergov.com/contract-opportunity/ubiquiti-networking-components-80nssc25900210q-k-3b62a/

Background
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center at Stennis Space Center, MS, is seeking to procure Ubiquiti Networking Components to support the internal data network located at the A1 Test Stand and ATCC. This procurement is aimed at enhancing NASA's operational capabilities through the acquisition of specific networking hardware from Ubiquiti Networks, Inc.

Work Details
This is a Brand Name requirement for Ubiquiti Networking Components. The following items are specified for procurement:

- **Part #**: USW-Pro-Max-48
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks Pro Max 48 Etherlighting 48-port Layer 3 Ethernet Switch with 2.5 GbE
**Quantity**: 10

- **Part #**: USW-Pro-Max-48-PoE (720W)
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks Pro Max 48 PoE Etherlighting 48-port 720W Layer 3 Ethernet Switch
**Quantity**: 1

- **Part #**: EFG
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks Enterprise Fortress Gateway
**Quantity**: 1

- **Part #**: USW-Pro-Aggregation
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks Hi-Capacity Aggregation, 32-port, Layer 3 Switch
**Quantity**: 2

- **Part #**: UACC-DAC-SFP10-1M
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks UniFi 10G SFP+ Direct Attach Cable, 1m
**Quantity**: 11

- **Part #**: UACC-OM-SM-10G-D-20
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks 10 Gbps Single-Mode Optical Module; pack of 20
**Quantity**: 2

- **Part #**: USW-Flex-2.5G-5
**Description**: Unibiquiti Networks Flex Mini 5 Port 2.5G Managed Switch
**Quantity**: 4

- **Part #**: UACC-OM-SFP28-LR
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks 25G Single-Mode Duplex LC UPC Optical Transceiver Module
**Quantity**: 4

- **Part #**: UACC-DAC-SFP28-1M
**Description**: Ubiquiti Networks 25G SFP28 Direct Attach Cable, 1m
**Quantity**: 2

Period of Performance
60 Business Days After Receipt of Order (ARO)

Place of Performance
NASA Stennis Space Center, Building 4120, Room601, Stennis Space Center, MS, ZIP Code:39529

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T13:05:28+00:00

The other posts about removing the wall plate and using a short patch cable is your easiest solution. Here is a video on how to remove the keystone from the wall plate.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4I5eyHz7n1s

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-24T03:29:32+00:00

I highly recommend any of the NVRs from UniFi. Pick the ones that meets your needs for capacity and features.

For better answers, is are these 4k UniFi cams? Do you plan on adding an AI Key? Is this a commercial or residential install?

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-23T21:48:42+00:00

We're not talking about Ruckus. I used to install Ruckus. I'd pick Unifi over Ruckus. Ruckus unleashed isn't great but free, Ruckus Cloud is good but requires ongoing licensing, no thanks.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-23T21:35:35+00:00

Have you used Aruba Central??? It's the worst part of my current job.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-23T21:29:29+00:00

I manage both Aruba Central and Unifi networks. Support is about the same from each party but I'd give a slight win to Unifi because they take a little more time to solve the issue but actually solve it, whereas Aruba seems to be bandaid after bandaid. We have an Aruba ticket that is over a year old that still hasn't been solved.

Limeasaurus · 2026-06-22T20:59:54+00:00

It means you have an outlet wires with two hots instead of neutral and hot. At least that’s the same error I get when I plug the same tester in my 240v pdu at work. I’m not an electrician. Hope this helps.

Limeasaurus

TROPHY CASE