Hello and welcome to the show!
My name is Alex and this is TechFlow.
Talking about tech, we've got a lot of networking gear here today.
We're going to be upgrading my home network.
Let's do this.
So, this right here is the UniFi gateway.
I'm going to go through what all of this is and if you guys want to do this yourselves,
the link's in the description.
This is probably the best prosumer networking gear that you can buy on the market, in my own
humble opinion.
So, that is our security gateway - the "router."
Then we have our cloud key which ties everything together and let's me access the network remotely
and monitor it.
These are three UniFi AC HD access points.
These have in them multi-user mimo 2.4 and 5 GHz radios.
These are absolutely mental access points.
We've got three of them for WiFi around the house and then this is our 16 gigabit POE
switch with two SFP ports.
We've got a lot of gear to configure today.
We need to start with the router, the security gateway.
So, I'm going to try and walk you guys through it, as simple as this is.
I know it's, like, prosumer gear so it feels, like, kind of intimidating to set it
all up.
But it's really not.
It's really easy.
We don't need the instruction manual.
This is the security gateway, so this is the new router, err, for the house.
It has a nice LED ring around there and then there is your power port just there and then
it comes with, erm, the wrong adapter, for some reason.
But there we go.
There is our power adapter.
We plug that in there and then we're sorted.
This is our router.
So, a bit of background before I go in to this - I actually run an ISP, an internet
service provider, for, like, the people in my village.
This is the router that has the main internet in to the house and then this actually distributes
it off via this fibre cable to my current home router.
We are going to switch that router off right now.
Say bye bye.
The final switch off to our last router.
And we're going to be replacing this one with the new edge router which is down there.
So, I'm going to get to configuring that with this cable.
So, this right here - this white cable.
Let's just pretend that this is the cable, the ethernet cable, that's coming from your
home broadband.
This is the cable in to your house, the ethernet jack, from your main router, your ISP's router.
This is going to go in to the USG, right.
So, this is the router of your new network, the USG.
Right, most typical routers, you'll find that you have a switch on the back, you'll find
that you have, maybe, a few ethernet ports that you can connect your devices to and your
router will also give off WiFi.
It's also got an access point built in to it.
But not this.
All of the devices are separate.
So, as you can see here, we have our WAN 1 which is the internet in and then our LAN 1.
There's only one local area network port which means that we can only plug in one device.
Therefore, we need a switch.
So, we need a switch.
This is where the UniFi Port 16, 150 watt comes in.
This, this is a mad ass switch.
It has a 150 watts of power and why that is important here is because our access points
- our three wireless access points that we've got here, right - obviously, these need power
for them to work, but you don't have to run an ethernet cable to these and plug them in
to power at the same time.
They actually are power over ethernet.
So, you run one ethernet cable to each of these devices which also has the power.
Now, you can choose which ports on this switch are going to give out power.
So, I can choose ports 2, 3 and 6, sorry, 2, 4 and 6, to give out power.
Plug my ethernet, sorry, plug the ethernet cables in to those and then run these to the
access points and that switch, out of this 150 watts of power that it has, is going to
power these access points through one cable.
And as well as the cloud key.
This needs power as well, right.
If we unbox this, look, you can see that it has a micro USB port on it, so you can power
it by micro USB but, if you don't want to do that, you can power it via ethernet, right.
So...
There you go.
It makes it all streamlined.
We need to get this switch out of the box.
This is only if you're serious about networking, like, if you love networking, if you have,
like, a passion for it and if you've always wanted to experiment.
This is the sort of gear that you go for if you're wanting a proper, full-on set up.
This is what you go for.
So, it comes with ball mounts in the box and this is our switch in here.
It, it's absolutely gorgeous as far as switches are concerned.
There's our power cable.
There we go.
Obviously, our wall mount's there.
Before we start drilling things to the wall and setting things up, the first thing that
we need to do is get it all set up and working on the floor down here.
We need to test it all and that's when you start drilling - after you've tested it.
You don't drill and then test.
You test and then drill.
So, I need to get this hooked in to our network and everything up and running first.
Right, so, we're going to give some power to our switch and then we're going to give
our switch internet access via this cable from the USG that's just in there.
So, we're just going to plug this in to..
So, we're just going to plug...
So, we're just going to plug this in to, in to
port one.
I'm then, I'm then going to plug in our Ubiquity cloud key which is going to tie everything
together on this install.
That's just going to come up like that.
And now, we've got our three wireless access points.
So, we need to get these out of the box.
Let me show you what these look like.
They're absolutely massive but they are just the best wireless that you're going to get.
These are incredible.
So, that is it.
It's a dish that you put on the roof.
You drill that up to the roof like that and then this goes on to there and clicks in.
This is going to replace my older ones.
As you can see, they're a fair bit bigger.
So, while I'm testing all of this out, obviously, we're going to test it up down here.
So, I'm just going to plug, plug everything in here.
Err, I'm going to plug that one in there, that one in to there, that one in to there
from my three access points and then, hopefully, the switch to detect that these devices need
POE (power over ethernet) and supply them with that.
As you can see, the cloud key is powered on through the POE from the switch.
So, we'll take these other two, other two Ubiquiti access points out of the box and whilst I'm
doing that, I'll just explain again how power over ethernet works and why it's really important.
So, say if I'm wanting to install this wireless access point in a place where's there's no
power source, what I can actually do is just run a single ethernet cable to this access
point to get the internet to it and the power will also travel along that ethernet cable
coming off of the switch.
So, if this is going in a remote location where's there's no power, it's going to work
because the power runs over the ethernet cable.
It's brilliant because POE works with switches so you could get one of these switches, a
smaller one of these switches, and power it over ethernet, if you wanted to, and have
it in a remote location doing all the switching for you.
So, that is why power over ethernet is just so, so, so important and so powerful.
So that is what, that is what POE is for.
So, this is now me, on the laptop, logged in to the cloud key.
So, this is the little device that ties everything together.
So, as you can see, the cloud key has found one, two, three, four, five devices.
I'm counting one, two, three, four, five devices including the gateway in there.
So, we'll click next and configure all of them.
And now it's asking us to create an SSID.
For the moment, I'm going to create a new network called "Marz Media."
And give it a password.
I'm going to enable guest access and name the guest network the name of my house, underscore, guest.
So, there we go.
I have internet.
I can see my Marz Media network on my phone.
I'm now connected to it.
So, what I'm going to do is, for the sake of the testing, I'm just going to unplug that
access point and that access point because these are all provisioned and ready to be
installed.
I'm going to leave this one on just for testing purposes.
And we'll just do a quick speed test to make sure the WiFi is, is, you know, working which
it absolutely is.
Now it's time to go and make a mess and install these access points.
In a nutshell...
Access point three installed.
So, I need to dissemble all of the SFP modules and all of the old router that we had installed here
and, as you can see, I've got it all cable managed extremely, extremely well.
There is our SFP port and then that is an SFP module and then these are the three cables
that go to the three access points.
So, these will have the POE (power over ethernet) for those access points and then this is the
old router which should just come off the wall.
Somehow.
Please help me.
There we go.
JED: Sweet.
JED: You put it where it needs to be and I'll hold it for you.
ALEX: Hopefully, this works.
It all worked when we tested it down there.
It's now been drilled up.
Hopefully, it all works.
Right, we've got internet.
Let's see if we can do a quick speed test with everything all plugged in, just to see
what we get.
Let's see what happens.
Twelve ping and it should stop at fifty meg down and twelve up.
Sorry.
Fifty meg down and fifty meg up.
That is definitely working.
Definitely working.
Right, connecting to the Marz Media wireless network.
And, as you can see, we are pulling the fifty meg on the WiFi as well and I can walk around
the house and my phone will seamlessly go between all four access points.
That's mad speed.
Wow!
I only paid for fifty.
Like, I only gave myself fifty.
Right then guys, I've got sweat on my forehead.
Let's recap over what we've done.
We've taken out the old router which was there, we've replaced it with the USG.
The USG goes to the sixteen port switch, the sixteen port switch powers the cloud key which
ties all of this stuff together which is like the console for it all.
Err, that's powered by power over ethernet.
We've got the three black cables which go out to our three access points.
One here...
One there....
And one there.
One of the most overpowered networks a home needs has now been installed.
Here's all of the boxes for it.
This is everything that we have installed today in a massive mess.
If you guys want a dedicated network tour when everything is looking, you know, it's
not as messy as all of this.
It's all a little bit, you know, a little bit more uniform, then drop a like on the
video if you've enjoyed.
But for now, my name's been Alex, this has been TechFlow, this has been installing Ubiquiti
full on network in a house.
I'll see you in the next episode.
Adios.