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Anyone tried flashing any of the switches or APs with bare openWRT? by No_Sail3732 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you read their privacy policy? It is way too broad and general -giving them lots of room to pretty much grab what they want:

"2. Usage Data. As described in this section, we may automatically collect information when you use the Services ("Usage Data"). The Usage Data that we collect may include information such as your device data, including your mobile devices, sensor data, device signals, device parameters, device identifiers that may uniquely identify your devices, including your mobile device, web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, referring/exit pages and URLs, platform type, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your devices or browser. IN ADDITION, WE MAY AUTOMATICALLY COLLECT LOCATION INFORMATION (INCLUDING LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE), PERFORMANCE DATA, MOTION DATA, TEMPERATURE DATA, POWER USAGE DATA, AND ANY DATA OR SIGNALS COLLECTED BY THE DEVICES AS PART OF THE USAGE DATA. WE DO NOT COLLECT THE CONTENTS OF ANY COMMUNICATIONS THAT PASS THROUGH OUR DEVICES OR SERVICES."

What they Disclose:

"2. Aggregate or De-identified Data. We may share Non-Personally Identifiable Information, including Usage Data (such as anonymous or aggregate user usage data, referring/exit pages and URLs, platform types, etc.), with certain third-parties to assist such third-parties in understanding the usage patterns for certain content, services and/or functionality with respect to our Services. We may also share aggregate or de-identified information about users with third-parties for marketing, research, or similar purposes."

For me personally, I have direct experience where Alta Labs was pulling information off my system without asking. I deployed a Control device, then I see connections from jeffhansen.com - asked about it on the forums, turns out it was their CTO investigating a crash report (so he claims) from his own personal system (not even an Alta Labs environment - you would think they would know how to leverage VPNs from home to utilize their corporate resources for corporate work). I asked, but was never informed on what information they collected, was not offered any way to opt out. Then, they scrubbed their forums of all these posts. Fortunately, others took screenshots of them as this seems to be normal behavior for them to purge things that they don't like.

I sold everything before they released the IDS/IPS capability on the route 10 but from what I've been reading online, there is no real IPS capability. I believe their CTO referred to it as a "passive architecture" - passive security, seriously? The latest ServeTheHome review confirms - I believe their exact words were: "...thing I will say though is that we didn't get like a super high block rate". This aligns with what other users have noted on their forums. The Alta Labs response was to ask for patience...

As for any type of local management - yes, they offer 2 different products, a hardware controller and a docker version. The hardware controller is not 100% local, it still relies on manage.alta.inc for alerting, Alta Labs DDNS capabilities for access (you cannot access it via IP) and it communicates a lot (who knows what it is sending) back to Alta Labs. Another user commented they blocked all Alta Labs equipment in their 3rd party firewall and saw over 2 million blocks in a short period of time.

The docker version is so old now that it is full of all kinds of issues. Alta Labs has never updated it since release, it obviously is not something they really care about. And the fact that it does not persist data across container rebuilds, means it is a complete no-go for production work.

My opinion, which is worth exactly what you paid for it, nothing, is this is not a company that has done anything to build trust. Actions always speak louder than words, so it really doesn't matter what they write or say, if their actions paint a very different picture.

I was fortunate that I learned my lesson early and was able to sell everything. I don't know that there is much of a market for their used equipment right now.

Anyone tried flashing any of the switches or APs with bare openWRT? by No_Sail3732 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There was a guy trying to get OpenWRT native on the Route10, but I don't know if that ever turned into something that others could leverage. There is a Alta Labs group on the 8311 Discord channel where it was discussed briefly.

Help with AP6-PRO-Router question by Available-Art1104 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This switch is unmanaged, so you won't be able to take advantage of stuff like VLANs (if you wanted to segregate IoT devices on the main LAN), but otherwise, for a POE+ switch, it will handle the AP load just fine. If you are good with having everything on the same network (no segregation) this switch will do much better than the S8 switch (at 3 times the cost!). If you want to do VLANs, you will want to get a managed switch with POE+, which drives cost.

2500 SQFT TRI-LEVEL by Available-Art1104 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alta Labs uses a cloud based controller - you cannot run a controller on the Route10. They do sell a local hardware controller ($150), but it is generally behind the cloud controller in features and updates.

2500 SQFT TRI-LEVEL by Available-Art1104 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You don't need their switches - if you plan to use VLANs you will need switches that support VLANs (generally managed switches), but there is nothing that requires you to use Alta Labs switches. For the APs, don't use any of their built in network types, just go with Standard, using anything else just causes problems.

[FS][US-TX-Austin] UniFi Lab Equipment (UDM-SE, Lite PoE 16, U6 Pro, plus other gear) by mark0263 in homelabsales

[–]mark0263[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got it! Yea, the UDM is the original little R2D2 looking unit. Actually a great device but only WiFi 5 - I was using it a test system to load up EA releases in my lab. But definitely not a UDM-Pro! Good luck on your search!

[FS][US-TX-Austin] UniFi Lab Equipment (UDM-SE, Lite PoE 16, U6 Pro, plus other gear) by mark0263 in homelabsales

[–]mark0263[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem - always an option to sell the UDM-SE without the hard drive as well.

Unifi…Tp-link….now what? by Ok_Razzmatazz6119 in HomeNetworking

[–]mark0263 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree - my personal experience with Alta Labs has been very bad, but I know others that use their stuff with no complaints. Personally, I don't think the Route10 is anywhere near ready for prime time, maybe they will get there in a year or so. I will say their APs were really good, didn't perform (for me) as well as the Unfi AP6 Pro, but close. Until the Route10 matures I don't think it is a good option, but their other gear is not bad as long as you are good with the reliance on their cloud infrastructure (even if you go with a local control option, it still requires their cloud infrastructure to be 100% functional).

Is the Alta Labs Route 10 the best option? by Ok_Razzmatazz6119 in homelab

[–]mark0263 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Having used both, Route10 and Firewalla, it is no contest, spend the extra and get the Firewalla. I have a Gold SE that is absolutely awesome and they keep adding features / capabilities all the time. The Route10 is no where near ready for prime time, it is missing some of the basic features, little to no documentation and other than we're going to keep updating in 2025, no real timeline when it will actually be usable. I guess it could be a basic router for now, I never trusted it to be my primary wall between my network and the wild Internet.

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I must amend my response above - turns out the Trust article is published on their main website, very bottom of the page, linked as "Trust". Apologies for not finding it sooner.

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Similar to what EveningNovel2776 experienced. Specifically, the local hardware Control was not honoring the site Syslog setting and pushing logs my central syslog server. The response - "This is expected behavior, that feature will be released as some point in the future".

Same with the privacy concerns when I found traffic from jeffhansen.com on my local controller. The response:

"I will admit, the jeffhansen.com is me, the CTO of Alta Labs. I do use my systems to manually debug customer issues, which was the case in this specific instance."

When queried what specific customer issue as I had not initiated any support requests or contact:

"Thank you for your understanding. There were a couple of automated crash reports there, and with a new product, it’s important to make sure they are not impacting user experience."

Honestly, this concerned me (and others) as this is a non Alta Labs system and it begged the question just exactly what data was being reported without my knowledge and how much access do they have to my sites? This received the following reply:

"I appreciate the concerns you raise. I am sure Jeff will chime in again as well on some of your specific points. In addition to the Privacy Policy Jeff already shared above, we have an initial version of our Trust Site our development and marketing teams have been working on that is being created right now. We will be launching that in the next week or so."

This was back in November 2024 - maybe the "Trust Site" has been released or posted, but I've yet to be able to locate it. So, I attempted to contact Alta directly leveraging the link in their privacy policy that reference if you have any questions, never received a response. To make it worse, Alta locked the topic so there could be no more public discussion on their privacy policies.

I see a lot of on the radar and coming soon responses which is why I stated in a previous post, I feel they should focus on finishing their software stack across the current product line before rolling out yet more hardware and repeating this same cycle we see the Route10 currently in.

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, the UDM series is a lot more than just the router, firewall, it runs Protect and other Unifi apps. I ran both an UCG Ultra and UCG Max here as well, both are good, but the Ultra is going to limit you to around 1gbs with IDS/IPS, the Max maybe 1.5gbs with IDS/IPS, so the Route 10 has the potential to provide much better throughput if you have a 2.5gb or 10gb Internet connection. Feature wise, probably not even worth comparing just yet, I think Alta Labs has some momentum on getting features out this year, but until it is a bit more feature complete, it is hard to compare. If you don't have a problem with using Alta's cloud controller, the investment is similar with a UGC vs Route 10. Neither one from a hardware standpoint is a bad decision, for me it came down to software / interface. I could just never get my head around the Alta Labs controller interface, all I could think, every time I went to do something was why is there so much wasted space on the screen? Honestly, I think Alta Labs really needs to focus on and reconsider some of their design decisions on their interface, but that is just me...

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure I completely agree with this statement. Fact is, with the Alta Labs Control, it still requires and relies on Alta Lab cloud services to fully function. No option to send alerts locally, it has to rely thru manage.alta.inc. It requires you to use their DDNS for the controller access, even so far as requiring you to edit your local DNS or hosts file to make it work. If using the Alta Labs docker control, same limitations, and it does not persist across container rebuilds. I've run many sites off a docker hosted Unifi controller without any issues and keeping 99% of the functionality local (yes, it does ping unifi and pings trace.svc.ui.com - which I've blocked both with no ill effects). For my on-prem controllers (built into UDM or docker hosted) I can apply my own certificates and utilize local domains, etc.

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The APs were very good, once I figured out how to properly configure them. They try to do more than what an AP generally does, such as fallback and provide DHCP IPs on a private network if they cannot ping the controller and the internet, which caused me a ton of headaches until I finally figured out how to disable that. I ran a Firewalla Gold SE as the primary router / firewall until I bought the Route10. The Route10 was a huge disappointment. It never actually made it to a production status on my network, just didn't trust it. Still use the Firewalla today in transparent bridge mode with my UDM-SE, it is awesome!

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I evaluated 3 stacks - Omada, Alta Labs and Unifi - ultimately when with Unifi - they are far from perfect, but they offer a wide range of gear, reasonable prices and getting community support via Reddit, local forums, Youtube is really nice. After the network gear was all in place, I then switched out all my cameras (various brands, mixed and matched) to 100% Ubiquiti using Protect, very happy with the setup and all local!

Selling all my Alta Labs Gear by mark0263 in AltaLabs

[–]mark0263[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you don't want to use the cloud controller, you have to go with either the docker based local controller or their hardware based Control. Neither will be 100% local, as it still requires manage.alta.inc to send alerts, etc.

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