I sold my UniFi gear because I shouldn’t have to install software on a server or buy an accessory to get the full features of my device. Their gear is great, but there are several lines that can’t be managed from the same control plane. It was infuriating.
It's more infuriating when you realise that there's no consistency between devices. The Security Gateway is an ancient MIPS thing that can only barely keep up with 100 megabit WAN even with hardware offload, the Cloud Key is a Mediatek dongle that makes remote management slightly less painful (although Power over Ethernet is nice) and the AC access points are some Qualcomm SoC that's sure to be abandoned as soon as the next shiny thing comes along.
Oh, and that $400 AP is slower than the Turris Omnia that it was replacing - and that was doing 4x gigabit switching at the same time.
What part? The Unifi controller software is not for "a device", it's for multiple devices, imagine having to manage SSIDs / auth for primary+guest Wifi network across just 5 access points. I don't think anyone would enjoy logging into 5 separate AP UIs. Add your Unifi gateway + switches to that and the need to have a unified control plane is pretty obvious.
If you want self-contained, that's a separate product line, usually prefixed with "Edge". What's "infuriating" about having two product lines I don't understand. Honda makes motorcycles, boat engines, cars and jets and nobody gets pissed about it.
