What is the secret to getting Ubiquiti equipment?

HCHTech

HCHTech

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I have been trying to get some Wifi6 In-Walls and an Aggregation Pro switch for a couple of months now. I'm signed up for the "notify me when in stock' emails from the UI store, I'm signed up for the Ubiquiti In Stock subreddit, but I just plain don't have time or inclination to monitor the damned site 24/7 to snipe stuff. The last time the Aggregation Pro came in, I was driving back from a clients - maybe 30 minutes until I could check...nope, sold out again.

D&H gets some stuff in, but ETAs on the things i want are currently at May & June...which means they are just a guess. I also don't want to pay Amazon scalper rates, so here I sit,..
 
For the past couple of years we've leveraged several different distributors/resources.

First try is Streakwave.....which is a top level reseller for UI. Of course we prefer this since we purchase below MSRP.

We used to sometimes use Ingram Micro (who...gets their stock from Streakwave)...but a few years ago we started shifting away from Ingram...aka "ChingGram"...since China bought them up.

We do purchase lots of stuff from D&H...and sometimes they have stock....also below MSRP so we try them early on.

Often we do purchase direct from store.ui.com when things are avail....

We also have used DoubleRadius...not in the past year or so, but...we have.

A common one is B&H Video, located in New York City...so regular shipping usually gets it to us the next day. They surprise us with stock at times nobody else has stock. When I went to a Ubiquiti training class in NYC a few years ago, there were 2 or 3 sales guys from B&H that went there to learn the product more....and one of them I would order bulk from and get a little discount. He's no longer there. :(...so we pay MSRP from them but shipping is fairly low since they're so close.

Flytech Computers in Florida is another resource we've used a couple of times.

We try to keep pretty good stock on our shelves...ordering when stock is available rather than waiting for a project and hoping to find stock right then and there. I know this isn't do-able or doesn't make sense for many people..depends on your monthly cash flow, number of clients, etc.

Price wise...yeah, since we bought quite a bit of them at MSRP....sometimes having additional shipping costs on them, our out of pocket cost is quite high and over MSRP...so we do have to appropriately mark them up. Price of the "project"..and we tell our clients that..and tell them unfortunately with stock shortages we have to do that...and our clients get it...they understand.

I have been keeping my eye open for another brand to start using, which might have more stock. Thing is, we've been doing so much UI for...jeeze, since '06 or '07...we have a TON of networks out there. However, we may have to start using another brand.

Aruba has that "Instant On" product line which looks great, however...only switches and APs. No router. At least last I knew. And yes we're so spoiled by Ubiquitis Unifi controller....we want router/switches/APs to all be managed together like Unifi does.

I couple of other IT guys I know jumped over to Engenius...and I signed up for to be a reseller, just haven't ordered anything yet.

TP-Stink...I mean...TP-Link...came out with a Unifi clone/rip-off called Omada. I really don't like TP-Links products..have used them occasionally over time, and years ago took on a client that had their "managed access points/switch" setup...which was total crap..couldn't wait to replace that. BUT...a few IT guys have taken the chance and deployed a few Omada setups and they like it. I actually went to an RV campsite that wanted me to take over their maintenance....they have an Omada setup across their RV park, I looked at it for a bit...sure looks a lot like the Unifi controller...just subtle graphic changes. I passed on it.

On, and..Arista...who bought up Untangle....has a whole product line from router..switch...to AP. Management is coming together. Have not seen any units yet. The "north east" or "eastern" sales guy for Arista is located in Maine and called me back around Thanksgiving to say he's stop by our office to meet us, since we do (did) a lot of Untangle volume. But..haven't heard a peep from him...so....patuey!

So....yeah....we've been managing to do OK with Ubiquiti....right now I have a DM Pro, the 8 port aggregate switch, and 5x of the 48 port Pro's...with a buncha larger HD and InWalls ready to deploy next week at that new client I mentioned the odd 365 hack on yesterday.

If you're really screwed on getting them in time for your project, I have 3x on the shelf right now....but they'd be priced high. Not too far of a road trip..lol.
 
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Minor correction. Omada is TP-LInk, TP-Link != D-Link.

The Hostifi guys are selling a brand new managed Omada controller for a reason, and MANY Unifi shops have abandoned Unifi for Omada because of the supply issues.

So far, the quality of the two products seems quite comparable, and I've considered doing the same.

Arista has been BONKERS SLOW to get product to the shelf. I suspect they're having the same problems Nexgen has, which is why Jim and I gave up.
 
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Yeah my bad....I mean TP-Stink. (edited post)
Tired from getting up early this morning to clear snow....
I should remember...I stared at the admin panel for a bit.
 
I've not had the problems with TP-Link gear you seem to have. But then again all I've used from them consistently are little 5 port dumb switches to act as port replicators on fiber / cable hand offs.

The UI of Omada looks similar to Unifi because the two projects use the same UI framework. They are nowhere near the same under the hood! But aesthetically yes, they look very similar. It'll be another year or so before I'm ready to put my stamp on them as a full Ubiquiti alternative, but they are making solid progress there.

Ubiquiti better get its act together, TP-Link is going to sink their home market if they don't. Well assuming the trends hold.
 
Seen Reillys from Hostifi's posts about a hosted Omada controller. He looked for any interest a month or so ago....I guess enough people raised their hand, so he spun up a controller and is selling that service too!

For giggles I searched for Omada at D&H...just to see avail of stock.
Out of 27 items that they list in the Omada lineup....13 of those items are in stock. Checking stock numbers....most are under a dozen of each.
So roughly 50%.

Comparing to Unifi...D&H lists 153 Unifi products....of which 43 of those items are in stock. What they do show in stock, popular items such as current models of APs and switches..they stock at least in the hundreds..if not thousands.
So roughly a little over 25% off the top of my head.

D&H does better with Omada stock as far as range of products. But not high numbers of each.

Still don't know if I can sink that low and consider them....we joke at "linksys rangers" and the like...craigs list pizza tech stuff.
 
@YeOldeStonecat From what I've gathered from the grape vine, Omada is made available to the channel at regular intervals.

Ubiquiti is prioritizing its own online sales to the expense of everyone else.

Talk to your Streakwave rep, he'll give you a nightmare tale... I love Ubiquiti gear, but they're behaving more stupidly than Untangle did on a bad day, and that's saying something.

Still, these are the only two options available to me at present, because I refuse to use a product that lacks a self hostable controller.
 
Stock sucks for everything, everywhere, all at once. They finally got some G4 Bullet Cams in at least... it only took about 2 years.

I've never used Omada - but I've used TP-Link plenty and I've already sworn them off (in my mental space). Would be interested in some feedback about Omada if you set it up and get a system running.
 
MudRock said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong; Wasn't Omada essentially an earlier source rip of Unifi as a base?
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That was the rumor, but after working with a few outfits that decided to jump on the wagon to integrate with it, it became very clear very quickly the structure of the database is hugely different.

It just looks like a Unifi rip off because they used the same UI toolkit.
 
I signed up for notification of a basic 48P switch at store.ui.com about 2 months ago ... I logged in yesterday and they finally had it in stock ... never got notified.

UB stock is FUN & EXCITING ... IT TAKES ME BACK TO MY GAMBLING DAYS, ROLL THE DICE FOR STOCK BABBBBYYYYYY
 
Sky-Knight said:
That was the rumor, but after working with a few outfits that decided to jump on the wagon to integrate with it, it became very clear very quickly the structure of the database is hugely different.

It just looks like a Unifi rip off because they used the same UI toolkit.
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That would make sense. WHILE TP-Link does some weird stuff, I wondered how they figured they could keep rolling someone else's code.

That said: I'm really floundering. Tempted to sell my UDM-Pro. Fact I can't get any decent APs, I'd be tempted to offload and then try something new.
 
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The U6 In-Walls are back in stock at ui.store.com, just FYI. I ordered 7 for my job that has been in limbo for 2 months, so I can at least move forward now. No luck on the Aggregation Pro for the other client, but it's going to be a cold spare, so less pressure on that.
 
HCHTech said:
The U6 In-Walls are back in stock at ui.store.com, just FYI. I ordered 7 for my job that has been in limbo for 2 months, so I can at least move forward now. No luck on the Aggregation Pro for the other client, but it's going to be a cold spare, so less pressure on that.
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I was just looking at D&H for Unifi stock and I saw the 8 port aggregate in stock..all 4 D&H warehouses in the country have stock.
 
It's the high-speed ports, I've got 3 physical servers, each one has 4 connections. One is 25GbE x 4, the other two are 10GbE x 4. It's a nice setup, and not one I'm like to get budget for at any of my other clients - haha. It's been running smooth as silk since November when it all went live.

The downside is that the aggregation switch is the lynchpin of that whole network, so I want a cold spare sitting there on the shelf in case I ever lose the active one. That would be a bad day.
 
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