Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine All-in-One Router

My home network has been neglected over the years with just my ISP Wi-Fi router and the odd Wi-Fi router to take over Wi-Fi and add Ethernet ports. My house is partially hardwired but none of the points suit current locations of equipment nor appeals to have them on show. Being tech savvy I knew full enterprise equipment was going to be overkill but I needed a robust system due to the ever increasing Wi-Fi devices in my house. 3 kids, wife and myself and smart IoT devices meant 20+ devices. I had purchased recently the Google Wi-Fi mesh solution with 3 points but lacked customisation and the backhaul network is not great when on different floors of my house with solid brick walls etc. I had thought about a switch and multiple access points dotted around the house, but would either need a PoE switch or powered APs. Did I want a managed or unmanaged switch. My conundrum continued for several months. I work in buildings which are littered with APs and I have access to server rooms and know the kinds of kit you can buy. Everything overkill. I knew of Ubiquiti and there line up of kit and Unifi seemed the best solution for me. I didn’t want multiple boxes (the wife) nor the cost of them. Although extending my ISO coax to my loft is doable, and may still consider but they’ll charge me if I have to call them out to a fault. So the Unifi Dream Machine was my solution, well, a good part of it. Move the ISP box to point of entry to my house, pop it into modem mode. Take external Ethernet from Port1 to outside around the front and back in, hidden behind skirting boards to UDM WAN port. From Port1 of UDM back outside with second cable up to my loft to a UAP via a PoE injector. Drop the cable through the ceiling at the top of my stairs. This will be the AP for upstairs and front of house IoTs and mobile devices, whilst all media/lounge equipment via the UDM. Fairly streamlined compared to full rack mounts and less patchy the mesh Wi-Fi. Total cost less than £450 for devices and cables etc. It works. The Unifi GUI isn’t anything I haven’t come across before ad there are plenty of tutorials online/YouTube etc. setup was easy either via the iOS app of via web browser IP or unifi.ui.com. Pros Setting up VLANS to separate different types of equipment. IoTs on one, kids iPads on another and medial devices and work devices on others. Great threat management Good GUI The wife requires a secure connection for work, although she connects via a work VPN, this separates her laptop from all devices. I did once connect to her laptop by mistake and saw stuff I shouldn’t have. This stops mistakes. The kids iPads are setup fairly well via iOS but this gives better security over what they access as I sometimes forget to enable restrictions after I’ve used their iPads. Again, keeps them safe from getting attacks. IoT devices can be easily accessed/hacked should anyone want. Although my network is more for leisure than business, this allows me to isolated these easily hacked devices from all other devices and put firewalls up to stop them access other LANs. Assigning dedicated VLANs and Wi-Fi bands to each group is great. Anything that can happily run on 2.4ghz means my media devices don’t get bogged down on 5ghz. The fan noise on startup is just that, ramps up full and then drops down to quieter than a whisper. Cons I’m constantly looking at the GUI as the information of my network is amazing. For home enthusiasts to SMBs, I’d recommend Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine.

I had been using a Security Gateway, AC Pro, and a Raspberry Pi as a Cloud Key previously but eventually decided to put up the dosh for an all-in-one unit, and I'm very glad that I did. LOOKS The unit is small, quite a bit smaller than I thought it'd be. But it looks clean, so much so that I took it out of my network cab and placed it on a cabinet. There's quite a bright blue light on top, which will flash or change colour depending on the state of the UDM. If you find the light annoying it can be disabled via the console. SETUP The setup was surprisingly smooth, so much so that I was able to complete the entire process on my phone! By the time I had finished the process on my phone the unit was fully configured and there was very little for me to do on my PC besides just renaming devices. As I previously already had a Security Gateway I did have the option of exporting and importing a backup, but I opted to start fresh. PERFORMANCE It's not Wi-Fi 6 but with the equivalent of a Nano HD inside I found that it's more than powerful enough. And the unit itself is strong enough to provide coverage all over the house! The signal is still strong upstairs so I've been able to sell off my old AP. ISSUES Everything with the UDM has been smooth sailing, so I'm quite hard-pressed to think of anything to complain about. The only thing I've noticed is that if I'm downloading something and then attempt to log onto the console, the fans on the unit will kick up to 100%. It's not too much hassle as I'm rarely on the console for very long, but it's something to keep in mind if noise would be an issue for you. ANYTHING ELSE? I'm really pleased with the unit, and I hadn't realised how much nicer having everything under the one dashboard was. Updates are completely automatic (although you can change these settings), and backups are too. I never have to restart it, never have to check on it, it just chugs along.

Packed full of features and outstanding performance and wi-fi range. Techies will get those most out of the features and be able to appreciate the bang for buck when compared to other small business setups, the UDM has it all in one box. Yes, there is no wifi6 but to me that isn’t important, not for a few years at least for home. Easy to setup and configure, despite my comment about techies - just download the app, plug it in and follow the instructions. I have mine setup to FTTP (300/50) and it doesn’t miss a beat. Been installed for 3 weeks now and hasn’t dropped out once. GUI is simple to use and, again, use the app to comprehensively monitor your entire network. Bought another three for work, ticks all the boxes.

I added the UDM to my home system a few months back and I have been really happy with it. I use this at home to manage WiFi and security for a 3 story building together with 2 other Ubiquiti access points (AP). I added the UDM when I suddenly realised the initial AP had “just worked” for over a year, and I wasn’t getting the same WiFi stability from the router that came with the cable broadband service…. My system is WiFi 5 - Ubiquiti have some WiFi 6 devices now, but they are hard to find, and there wasn’t a WiFi 6 UDM last time I checked. I am getting 100 to 300 Mbps on my more up to date WiFi devices and wire speed on Gigabit Ethernet so at this point I don’t need it. Please note the Ubiquiti equipment is more expensive than typical consumer devices - but more capable, more reliable and stable, and more configurable. It gives a lot of information about what is going on with your network and gives you controls to block or rate limit users, devices and applications. Spend a bit of time to learn the system and configure it, add names for devices and so on. You will probably find things you didn’t know about…. The manufacturer also provides LAN switches, routers, VPNs and point to point radio - but I haven’t used those. If doesn’t give the same level of management or scale as a full fledged enterprise cloud based networking system - but it doesn’t need the same levels of expertise and training, or costs. So good compromise between reliability, cost and functionality for me. Recommended.

I have Virgin Media and the VM Hub is, without doubt, absolute pants. I put a Netgear Nighthawk in about 3 years ago and that was a massive improvement but I wanted to update things. I was really nervous about spending quite so much but working from home means that I need a really solid connection or it justifies being recalled to the office more. Got this and it took about 15 minutes to set up. The interface on it is a thing of beauty compared to the Netgear which looks like it took its inspiration from Windows 3.1. Speedwise, the performance is better by a long way on most devices. My Surface Pro is at least double the speed on WiFi. I'm not expecting miracles on my Mac but then, to be fair, that always performed very well on the Netgear. If anyone is thinking of updating and feels, like me, that 300 quid is a lot, I'd say put those fears aside. You're obviously looking for a reason. I doubt this will disappoint.

A really nice product - interesting (and cool) design: - easy to set up, just switch on, download the app on mobile (or via web browser) and that's pretty much it - provides a great insight into network performance traffic, usage, etc. - reasonably quiet (you can hear the fan upon startup but beyond that it's almost silent) - well made, feels like a quality product. I would advise considering this if you want a router and firewall in one device (together with some excellent network configuration features - e.g. different wifi networks, etc.). It's much easier to set up than other Unifi devices. The only physical downside is the small number of ethernet ports - if you want more then you'll need to invest in a network switch. My setup is BT smart hub (home broadband), then the Dream Machine ("UDM") and then a Unifi network switch which worked really well. Most of my wifi devices connected directly to this UDM - I had 3 wifi networks - the main one, one for IoT devices and one for guests. My network switch has a couple of Unifi Access Points, all of which worked really well with the UDM (I used the UDM to manage everything). So...unfortunately I ran into an issue I wasn't expecting - the UDM doesn't work so well with Sonos music products - I have a SONOS system (wired and wireless) and I had all sorts of problems with it. One of the causes was the iPhone IP masking feature that Apple really introduced (very easy to switch off so not a problem) but it just wasn't happy. There are various workarounds out there but it looks like it involves advanced config/ssh which is too complex for me. In the end I switched off the UDM and Sonos was back to normal and worked perfectly. Overall highly recommended, not much more than the Unifi USG so work serious consideration - providing you don't have a Sonos system!

I was umming and ahhing whether to get this, given the price. I bought a TP-Link Deco P9 kit and had nothing but problems with it. Decided to sell that and bought this instead as I've heard nothing but good things about Ubiquiti. I managed to get some Unifi Access Points from work that were being replaced and so I'm going to Cat 6 my house and hard wire them. I am extremely impressed with this device. It's one of the cleanest interfaces and setup I've seen and packaged full of features and intelligence. I have a few additional access points connected to mine and plan to eventually buy a Ubiquiti PoE switch to complete the installation. I nearly went with the Dream Machine Pro as I'm putting a data cabinet in my house. Decided not to in the end as this does everything in one box, the added benefit of the dream machine pro is the NVR but what put me off was having to use their cameras,

Cannot say how impressed I am with the Ubiquiti devices. I have ordered both the UAC AC LR and a UDM as the base router to replace my struggling virgin media setup. With the UDM serving the downstairs where the Virgin router is (now setup as just a modem) and the UAC serving the upstairs. Was very easy to setup and configure. The management of UniFi products are fantastic, maybe a bit overkill for those that want plug and play. But for some like myself who has an IT background, this system is brilliant. Goodbye to those horrible dead spots in the house and hello to great stability, greatly increased signal and throughout and fantastic device and system management. Not the cheapest to buy but now when both myself and wife are working from home, as well as 2 children having home online lessons it has been a saving grace. Cannot speak highly enough about it.

Met Ubiquiti heb je altijd wel kwaliteitsmateriaal in huis. Dit toestel verenigt 3 componenten: Gateway Switch Cloudkey De setup neemt nauwelijks enkele minuten in beslag en zoals je dat van deze fabrikant mag verwachten krijg je een zeer gedetailleerd en helder overzicht van de werking van je netwerk

Had trouble. Refunded not questions.

My 2nd device. Installed in a huge house, extending coverage with UAP-AC-LR. Scalable - I can extend coverage in future for one more distant house with additional AP. Easy deployment and everything just works. Will never go back to standard consumer routers.

Llevo ya unos años y ha sido un antes y después en casa. Cuando viene gente y ve el dashbord y las posibilidades que tiene junto con la facilidad de uso... terminan queriendo uno siempre. Altamente recomendable.

INCREDIBILE! UBIQUITI si conferma ancora una volta un passo avanti su tutto. Collegato, acceso, tempo due minuti ed era già autoconfigurato, aveva già riconosciuto il provider ed era pronto a navigare. Nulla a che vedere con la macchinosità del netgear che avevo prima. Entrando nella parte di configurazione c'è da sbizzarrirsi con impostazioni di ogni tipo e personalizzazioni a volontà. Per dettagli tecnici lascio la consultazione della scheda tecnica ma ad oggi a questo prezzo è difficile trovare un router con queste capacità di gestione firewall. Ero titubante per il problema segnalato da alcuni circa la rumorosità della ventola. Fiducioso nella qualità Ubiquiti ho voluto ugualmente provare e confermo l'assoluta silenziosità, nella fase di accensione che dura circa 3 secondi si sente un po' poi assolutamente più nulla nemmeno da vicino. Provengo da un router netgear business sul quale nutrivo molte speranze ma alla fine si è rivelato pieno di bug e limitazioni peggio di un prodotto consumer. Il Dream Machine è una bomba, ho ridotto di 2 ms il ping, aumentato di 2 Mb il Down e 1 Mb l'up, numeri incredibili solo per aver sostituito il router. Effettua il roaming automatico sugli altri 4 access point ubiquiti collegati in rete e viene gestito tutto da un'unica interfaccia intuitiva e completa. Non so come dire, io ho circa 50 apparecchi collegati in rete tra cablati e wifi e l'impressione è che giri tutto meglio, che sia tutto più veloce.