Unifi AP Covers

[HCHTech]

I knew these things existed, but I never had the chance to use one before. Client wanted black APs, so perfect - "I've got just the thing". His install is 4 NanoHDs, and of course the covers are only available in packs of 3.

First impressions:

• I found them only on store.ui.com - $48 plus shipping for a pack of 3, so I paid $110 for 6. That's a heck of a bump to change the color.
• Incredibly, they were in stock and shipped right away, so only 3 or 4 days between ordering and receipt
• Like many things Unifi, they are pretty over-engineered. Having never seen one, I though they were stickers. Not so much. They are 2-piece plastic covers that envelope the AP and twist to lock together.
• There is a pass-through slot to unlock the mounting tab and a pass-through slot for the cable if you're mounting them with the cable exposed.
• They are smooth, with no place to grab them, so the only way I could hold the pieces security enough to lock them together was to wear rubber gloves
• One benefit of being smooth, is that you can't get dirty fingerprints on them when mounting because you were recently handling a drop-ceiling tile that hadn't been touched in 5 years.

So now I have 2 of these things in stock and I'll probably never use them.

Available in "Concrete", "Marble", "Black", "Woodgrain" and some kind of black mesh - don't know if that's a fabric cover.

I think they are over-priced, but I can also imagine it's a niche market so they're trying to recoup development costs quickly.

Witness:

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Beats spraypainting though right? They allow the logo to remain in the middle, and the halo ring. Spray painting would ruin them.
Plus your time. At a typical IT hourly wage of >$150/hour....getting spray paint, setting up a place to spray (outside...large carboard backing, do the paint, throw away the cardboard backing, let dry, retrieve after drying)..all that's over an hour.

But yeah, "Ubiquiti over-engineering"...quite true.

We just got in a bunch of these wall mount brackets ....so you can properly mount a ceiling AP "horizontally"...instead of mounting them vertically flat against a wall. For those cases you can't get a run across a ceiling. The built in holes in this device accept the small UAP mount.

Wall Bracket Wireless Access Point, Right Angle, White | Eaton

Universal wall-mount wireless access point bracket mounts your WAP high on a wall or ceiling to protect it from damage, theft. or tampering.

www.tripplite.com

 

[Markverhyden]

Over the years I've had more than a couple of conversions about covering up "those ugly things with lights" that are in the middle of the room. The AP's of course. After giving some thought, the first time, I mentioned that there is a very real issue with signal strength depending on the material so you need to be careful what is used. Ended up sketching out something like a Japanese paper lamp cover. It could be hung with a gap between the ceiling and top of the cover allowing air circulation. They asked if I would it. I just laughed, I'm not trying out to be a starving artist. I guess they abandoned the project once they got the pricing from some real artists.

 

[HCHTech]

Back when we used Sonicpoint APs, they looked like this:

I got more than one request to hide "that thing that was scaring the conference room guests" - haha. We used to put them above the drop ceiling when they complained if we could. The Unifi stuff looks so much better - and you can turn off the LEDs if they bother folks. I've never had a business complain about the light, but residential folks do - they are pretty bright when they are new. You can scale down the brightness, too. But also, the LEDs tend to get dimmer with age - I was in a place with 3-year-old AP-Pros yesterday and it was pretty hard to see that the LEDs were even on in daylight, and I think they were at the default 85% brightness.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ahh yes the Sonicpoints....I always LOL at those, they look like some of those crazy home routers aimed at performance/gamers. Odd for a place of business.

Recently acquired a client that has those, letting their Sonicwall subcription run out before I rip those (and the Sonicwall routers) out and replace with Untangle/Unifi.

 

[frase]

AKA the spider thingy...