You should have no trouble with the routers or switches as APs what you lose is the ability for finer grained control and diagnostics. I started with the Netgear Orbi RBK50 and when the satellite died swapped the whole thing out for an UAC Pro I had on hand and a FlexHD. The "Early Access" Unifi 6 Mesh looks interesting but is sold out.
Interesting. I have two Ring Doorbell Pros at two different locations. Wifi works perfectly at both locations, and my wife and I have always had high end phones (currently Galaxy Note 20 Ultra).
I've had these doorbells for several years and I have NEVER been able to initiate a conversation with someone who rang the bell, before they gave up and walked away.
I also have three Ring floodlight cams and two stick up cams. Activating the camera after a motion alert comes in usually takes so long that whatever caused the alert has gone. And then I have to wait minutes before I might be able to see the recording. More often than not the phone app hangs and I have to restart it.
The whole Ring ecosystem just sucks, and I would like to start replacing it, especially at our rental property. What's the minimum I need besides the G4? Do you have to buy into the whole Unifi ecosystem or are there 3rd party apps that work with it? Ring was supposed to be an open system but that's a joke and I'm not buying into any more closed systems if I can avoid it.
I am not sure about the doorbell cam, but if you have a PC or Mac that runs constantly you can run the controller from there and I think that is it. I do know that you can use WAP's this way and if the controller goes down the points will still function as usual.
I outfitted my new home with a UXG-Pro (still in beta but it works fine for my basic network topology at least), two POE switches, and a few access points (WiFi 6 and WiFi 5 since the newest stuff is also in beta and not always available).
The security gateways don’t have built-in unifi controller like the dream machines, but I have an always-on server anyway, so I run the controller software on that.
I’m pretty happy with the results, and look forward to tweaking it more in the future.
VLANs to segment IoT and other untrusted devices is next on my list.
technically, if you want to run the controller on home desktop/laptops, the controller does not need to run 24/7. you can install it on a desktop/laptop and use it to set up unifi equipment and turn it off. you only need to run it 24/7 if you want to collect the logs/stats.
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Well Unifi Protect is hardly an open system. However, you can enable RTSP on all their cameras and then use 3rd party apps to tap into their streams. In that sense they are open. To truly benefit from all the features (like built in motion and object detection) you will need a unifi "recorder". I have the Dream Machine Pro which is their all-in-one solution. It's my Router/firewall/NVR/Unifi Controller. Their is also the Cloud Key that acts as a unifi controller and nvr I believe...or if you really want to go all in with a ton of cameras and a ton of storage..the Unifi NVR.
Another Unifi user here.
UDM Pro
POE switch
AP Nano HD
AP Pro
AP Lite
I spread out my purchases a bit. I started with the AP Lite hooked up to my crappy CenturyLink router. Then bought the switch and next the UDM Pro.
The system has been solid in performance. I reset it last month due to a loss of internet. It turned out that they disconnected me at the pole so the gear was fine. I only reset the Unifi gear first because I wanted to rule out my end before I got on the phone with CenturyLink.
I use the Pro and Nano APs to cover the house. Right now the Lite is being used to provide a wired connection to a PC. Once I move that to my new office space I'll move the Lite to my workshop. It will connect to a small switch so that I can bridge ethernet out there for things like CNC machines.
USG functionality is built into the UDM.
Just as a point of clarification - The bandwidth reduction is due to deep packet inspection. If you turn that off it is closer to 800 Mbps throughput.
The firmware and software is pretty bad. I got most of what I want working and haven't touched it since. One of the biggest issues I had was setting a static IP for some devices. For example, my Hubitat hubs are .5 and .6 on my IoT VLAN. They seemed to work OK but I had a horrible time getting my Lutron hub setup. When I saved the settings it would say it saved OK but then when I would close the tab it would ask if I wanted to save or revert the changes. I don't know how it every started worked but I spent a lot of time dealing with that. I now have another device I can't get on the proper VLAN.
Even with the software issues I still like the system. It has been stable in performance if not in configuration.
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If I were ever to get some Unifi equipment, it will probably be this configuration.
I have an Edgerouter X to use for a router and have an iMac that is always on to run the controller software. I would get 3 of the AP wifi 6 lite to make my wifi network and get one of the 5 port flex switches for the garage and a 16 port 8 poe lite for the house. I just can't get behind the Protect, just seems like a lot of money. Do you all think this will work OK.
I am not sure that you can mix the Edgerouter with the Unifi controller. It's not the same system.
I believe that I can use the ERX as a router, I have seen Youtube videos that do just that. The thing that I can't do us use the Unifi controller software with the ERX. I will have to configure the ERX using EdgeOS and once configured hook it up and use the Unfii controller with everything else.
You can definitely do that but what a pain 
Not really too much of a pain. Once configured all you have to do is plug stuff in.
You know now that I think about it, any time you need to change rules you will have to change to a different OS. Yes you are right what a pain. I should get a UDM or a pro.
I use a hybrid setup (EdgeRouter and UniFi for Switching/WAP only) and it's not a pain, as long as you're ok with a different UI. It's faster if you want to do it on/via the command line.
Like HA, once you set it up, you rarely need to touch it again, although you'll be compelled to tweak it 
If you're comfortable with the command line, you can do a crazy amount of extra stuff, and the EdgeRouter side of the house is using fairly fast kit (the ER-X's are a stretch at Gb level circuits). It's handy to be able to swap-out/upgrade the components over time.
There's a truck-load of how-to's both from UI and from 3rd parties
Detailed config, if you're bored...
Active-Active WAN (failover) to a friend's network, filtering of all sorts of traffic, 5x VLAN's to segregate the traffic types (Work, Home, Device, Guest, Bridge), implemented in the switches, router and WAP's (5 SSID's)
House setup is mostly wired, but has the following bits in hybrid config:
- EdgeRouter ER-12 (Main router - Hooked to 1Gb Comcast, VPN access etc)
- UniFi Switch Lite USW-Lite-16-PoE for the backbone
- in a SWC, powering the WAP's, Flex, Hubitat a few RPi's, CloudKey and a Serial-Ethernet for my Alarm Panel
- UniFi AC-LR Wifi/WAP for downstairs
- UniFi U6-LR Wifi/WAP for upstairs
- 2x UniFi Switch US-8 for the WFH Office's
- 1x UniFi Switch US-8-60W for a cold spare
- UniFi Switch Flex in the attic to feed/power the P2P Link
- UniFi CloudKey Gen 2 to manage the UniFi bits
- UISP VM to look after the non-UniFi bits (mostly link monitoring, and tinkering)
- syslog Server for all the above (PoE Powered)
- Pi-hole DNS Server for all of the above (PoE Powered)
P2P link to the backup network
- 2x airMax NanoBeam AC5 Bridge nodes
- One on my roof, the other in their Window
- EdgeRouter ER-X (Backup router - Hooked to their ATT Fiber and powering the airMax via a long/thin Ethernet cable.
I have a bunch of their older gear, gathering dust since I moved to lower-power stuff (ER-3, ER-8, ER-8Pro, ES-24, ES-48, AC-Lite, AC-LR etc, etc) and a few things I need to remote when I can travel again (ER-4 for VPN to in-laws, etc)
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Glad I found this thread... I have used the Peplink ecosystem for years. Currently using Balance One Core. I just installed Starlink and have same issue with Static Route to WAN for Stats. I too am heavily invested in Peplink with many AP's and ease of management. There is chatter on the Peplink forums about requests for a firmware upgrade becasue this will be a big deal as Starlink goes mainstream..
Glad I saw your post. I was googling this the other day as we had signed up for Starlink also and use Peplink for dual wan. I was curious to see if there were any gotchas in our future setup.
On a related topic to the thread, one thing I noticed after switching all APs to Unifi, it takes a few seconds longer for my phone to attach to the access point. I thought this was just a glitch to my setup at home but after we upgraded our AP at work to Unifi I started to see the same delay.
iOS or Android phone?
Android, a Pixel 3XL
I've never had Wifi connections that worked as fast as wired, even with my newest phone and laptop. And I use the network connection to access a local fileserver, as well as for Internet access, so that speed matters.
Luckily our home is small enough (just under 4k finished square feet on three levels) that my one Wifi access point right in the middle provides adequate performance everywhere for phones and tablets and laptops -- and everybody plugs in at their main workstation, desk usually, where they need the best performance. If I were going with multiple APs, I'd want them wired together, not depending on radio backhaul.
Also our Internet outside connectivity is gigabit, so while you don't very often get that through to one site, every now and then I do (sites made for videos, when I'm uploading a video, sometimes can absorb the full rate we can send out). With no local fileserver and slower internet, there'd be much less interest in whether the wifi connect was at 650Mb/s or the full 1000Mb/s.
Impossible until the make APs with 10Gb uplinks. You can never go faster then where you start. Especially when you add in all the security packets that aren't need via wired.
AP's sold as such are "max" meaning fully loaded with clients pulling everything each can. Plenty of YouTube's on it including a good one from Crosstalk
Here are two great YouTube channels on networking:
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