For the past year I have been upgrading, expanding, testing, configuring, adding and breaking my farm WiFi setup. I have been using Ubiquiti equipment, mainly from their Unifi range, and it has changed how I work, how I play and how I use my network day to day. It has upgraded my professional work with better lighting, more stable connection and removed one uncertain element of country living. For me and my family it has genuinely changed our ability to communicate with family overseas, our local community, our volunteer projects and schools. Most importantly, it has increased the safety of working on the farm outside, as we have no, or very limited, mobile signal. We can now call and communicate in general almost anywhere on the farm (and get those important tweets out!)
When I first started changing my WiFi devices it was to get rid of repeater points mainly, but I also had a bunch of other reasons. I didn’t expect it to have this much of an impact, nor that I would enjoy nerding out over networking equipment that much. But I have.
So far I have covered roughly 30 acres (12 hectares) in stable WiFi, built Llamacam and installed swipe card access to my office, which is made possible by the following gear:
- Dream Machine Pro
- Unifi Switch 24 PoE
- Unifi Swithc PoE+ 24 (250W)
- Unifi Switch PoE 8 (150W)
- Unifi Switch Flex
- 2 Unifi Long-Range Access Points
- 2 Unifi Flex HD Access Point
- 3 Unifi Mesh Access Points
- 1 Unifi In-Wall HD Access Point
- 4 Unifi nanoHD Access Points
- 7 Unifi Protect G3 Flex Cameras
- 1 Unifi Protect G3 Bullet Camera
- 1 Unifi Protect G4 Bullet Camera
- 1 Unifi Protect G4 Pro Camera
- 6 airMax NanoStation AC 5
- 2 NanoStation 5AC Loco
- 1 SunMax SolarPoint
That is a massive list, when I see it like that. It has been a very incremental journey, so it kinda blows my mind to see where I am at now. And because of that, I made this video to give you the tour of the farm and how it is all connected. Enjoy.