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UniFi 5G

UniFi 5G

37 comments

·December 5, 2025

sschueller

I am confused, this is just a 5G router right? Like the 5 year old Huawei CPE Pro 2 but with wifi7, poe and eSim?

[1] https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/

kkapelon

I am already doing what is shown in the video with Teltonika OTD500, fully unlocked and with esim support as well.

tow21

How does the Teltonika work out for you - I nearly bought it earlier this year but it doesn't have support for external antennae. I'm just on the edge of 5G coverage and I'm not sure I want to splash out on something which I can't tune for decent reception.

Seems an odd omission for a ruggedised outside modem - the Unifi also seems to not support external antennae.

(I'd also prefer a unifi version just so it fits in the with rest of the networking infra I have in the mökki.)

amelius

These things are nice when they work but when they don't you're completely in the dark. Even figuring out how much GB is left on your simcard is a nightmare.

dagmx

The fallback support for UniFi setups will be awesome.

I’m honestly tempted to get it for my house. My ISP downtime is pretty low but it does happen every once in a while, at the most inopportune times, which impedes working from home.

Having a wireless backup would hopefully cover those downtimes

sschueller

I have a wireless backup[1] using Vyos[2] and a 5G router provided for free by the 5G service provider for those rare moments when both fiber links are dead.

At the same time I would never recommend anyone get 5G internet as their primary service if you have other options and especially not from one of these cheap providers.

[1] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/wiring-a-home-with-fiber/

[2] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/vyos-router-update/#wan-f...

ansgri

There are now quite a few options for wifi APs with cellular backup. I use TP-Link, and it's ok for the price, I guess, and supports adding OneMesh range extenders.

The problem with this setup for me is that it doesn't work with uplink that sometimes becomes unstable yet nominally working, and in general LTE fallback triggers slowly.

Are there any prosumer-friendly options for connection bundling, which can balance uplinks continuously?

killingtime74

I used to do that. Now I use starlink as backup

qwerpy

We had a 5 day power outage (Bellevue WA, not exactly in the middle of nowhere) and after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I had backup power but no internet. On the way back from Best Buy with my new starlink, everything came back online of course. But now I’m ready for the next multi day outage.

I have a network cable from my secondary WAN port on my dream machine running to my first story roof where there’s a wall mount ready for starlink to be plopped in.

lostlogin

I’ve made the second WAN a 10gb uplink.

I wish there were cheaper 10gb switch from Ubiquiti. The link Agg is good, but still pricey.

thatwasunusual

> after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped.

I discovered the same thing the hard way myself recently (in Norway); turns out that cell towers only has enough battery for ~24-36 hours (if you're lucky).

However, someone messing with the fibre to my house is a bigger possibility than power outage, so I'll probably end up with this 5G product. :)

botto

Yeah, the fact you can use any of the ports on a dream machine as a WAN (its not optimal, but is an option) makes it really easy to have a couple of fallbacks if you really need high redundancy.

jwr

The 5G max outdoor looks very good and seems to be a direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series. I wonder about the antenna gain, though, the Mikrotik certainly looks more impressive.

(I've been using Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit devices for years now)

cromka

The fact that the outdoor version is directional kind of limits its adoption in mobile usage, doesn't it? Most similar products have omnidirectional antenna. Can't imagine you would rotate it by hand on a boat towards the land while on passage

botto

This product targets businesses where they will mount it in a fixed position and target a specific tower so they get the best throughput.

cromka

Did you read through the press release?

nkrisc

Not GP but I’m trying to figure out what you’re insinuating.

> For tougher environments or deployments with poor indoor cellular coverage, the outdoor model maintains the same high performance cellular connectivity with improved antenna performance in a durable IP67 rated enclosure. It is built for rooftop installs, off site locations, and mobile deployments where reliability is critical. Just like its indoor counterpart, you can also connect it via any PoE port, anywhere on your network, greatly simplifying cabling requirements.

And the first image they show of the outdoor model is it installed in a fixed location on a rooftop.

gvkhna

I think it’s going to be targeting mostly stationary HA redundant uplinks. Backup for primary uplink or low usage primary link. In those scenarios pointing at your nearest antenna fixed is much better than an omnidirectional antenna.

cromka

They clearly mention mobile use and show it on the animation as well. Which is why I am surprised.

phoronixrly

Can't wait for this to get OpenWrt support so I can buy it and the first thing I do to be to nuke the UBNT firmware.

tucnak

> Up to 2 Gbps downlink

> 2.5 Gbit/s PoE to upstream switch

Can anybody explain to me why these supposedly premier networking devices are lacking so much in bandwidth? I get it that mmWave is really only ever realistically going to hit 2.5G over the air, but is there any reason why they're not willing to provide at least 10G copper, or an actual SFP port? Hell, even Macs support 10G these days. I never understood this. Do they mean 2 Gbps downlink per client, or per device in total? If it's the former, 2.5G wired seems like a major bottleneck to any serious consumption.

If a single client at 2 Gbps is all the promise of 5G amounted to, well, it would be disappointing to say the least.

johncolanduoni

This is a modem, it itself is the client of a cell tower/base station. So unless you put it in a faraday cage with the base station next to it, 2G is almost certainly enough.

The better reason to put a 10G transceiver in this would be that some (cheap, honestly garbage) SFP+ transceivers can’t negotiate anything between 1G and 10G. But I’ve only seen that on bargain-bin hardware so I don’t know that they should be designing products around it.

jasoncartwright

I think you answered your own question - also the places where mmWave is available, there is also often other better internet connection options.

fulafel

The whole 2.5 G spec is a weird step for ethernet speeds too. It's unfortunate it took off.

tucnak

They said the same thing about 40G but hey, I've loved it for bridging the gap between my two (10G and 100G, respectively) Mikrotik switches. You can have a dozen Gigabit ports, as well as up to four true 10G devices on your aggregation switch, and neither would be bottlenecked by traffic to and from the backside. This has been a massive boon. However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?

johncolanduoni

40G on Mikrotik is just channel bonding of 4 10G links at layer 2. It’s not like the vast majority of 100G that does layer 1 bonding. I really don’t know why they did it other than to have a bigger number on the spec sheet - I can’t imagine they save any money having a weird MAC setup almost nobody else uses on a few low-volume models.

JoshTriplett

> However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?

Portability and heat. You can get a small USB 2.5G adapter that produces negligible heat, but a Thunderbolt 10G adapter is large and produces a substantial amount of heat.

I use 10G at home, but the adapter I throw into my laptop bag is a tiny 2.5G adapter.

yapyap

I gotta say, I hate it when companies use “xxx bits per second”, whether its Mega or Giga nobody uses bits per second and for the average consumer it’s very unclear that this differs from bytes.

Having to explain to relatives and such that “yeah you actually have to divide that by 8” is a hassle and I get tricked by it subconsciously at times as well.

2 gbps meaning 250 megabytes per second is a SCAM. A marketing sham at it’s finest.

“I have 100 mbps download” meaning “I get 12.5 megabytes download per second” is ridiculous!!

AceJohnny2

and how do you feel about HDD vendors (and Apple) using giga-/tera- for their strictly SI power-of-ten and not power-of-two meaning?

flanked-evergl

Just bought a Gl.iNet Puli. It's only 4G but seems like a better option if you want to supply internet to some devices that you move around. Planning to use it for setup and management of a headless presentation PC as it can directly be connected to the LAN port.

walterbell

Does it support eSIM? For backup internet, eSIM is good for avoiding monthly subscription, by paying per GB when needed.

flanked-evergl

I have read that people managed to get an eSIM installed on it, but I think there are also physical eSIM options. See https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/

Edit: The SIMPoYo eSIM Physical Card (see https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ ) seems really cool, may even be nice for a phone.

ur-whale

We're doing ads on HN now?

haunter

The majority of posts are ads on HN

Did you know there is an entire post category for ads and self-promotion? https://news.ycombinator.com/show

grim_io

Sir, this might not be a Wendy's, but this is a VC owned site that regularly shills its questionable investments.

skrebbel

I see you've never opened HN during an Apple product launch event