Ubiquiti Protect Video Surveillance Profile

That NVR appliance looks super cool

Nope

Let's leave UBT realm for the IT/MSP/WISP/ISP groups out there. If your technicians are calling into tech support because they have bandwidth issues, cannot enroll an IP camera, fat fingered the IP and do know how to reset well they should just stick with Axis, Hikvision or what ever manufacturer that you feel comfortable with letting your technicians soak up installation hours on basic start up configurations sitting on the phone on with technical support.

Ubiquiti is easy to work on, deploy and troubleshoot. It is not perfect and like all devices has issues, bugs, failures, updates and success. All IT/IoT devices require maintenance and so do security systems. Why do Integrators fail to keep their systems up to date? 

Security Technicians/Engineers/Sales Reps/Integrators: Take off your tinfoil, dolphin splicing, burglar alarm, relay logic out dated analog technology hats and upgrade your IT skills. I laugh when I get a call finding out how long ABC company was troubleshooting simple issues, then say it cannot be fixed because they are not on the DOR or your SSA is expired. Take care of the customer in a timely manner, having the right skillset is key. Do not send your fire alarm tech to trouble shoot a video wall. Do not send your access control guy to sync peoplesoft DB with AD and your Access Control DB. Last but least do not try to sell the manufacturers professional services, wait I thought you were the professional! 

Ok, don't ranting. Ubiquiti is pretty cool, so is Milestone. I think my anger is focused on the shortage of all these super techs integrators are talking about. They don't exist, never have, never will. IT guys taking over, we got this.

I was hired to design the surveillance and access control for a Southern California municipality. I used a typical higher-end camera as my basis of design. The city's IT manager was approached by an acquaintance and shown the Ubiquiti cameras. They were incredibly inexpensive, on the order of $75 or so when purchased in a 10-pack (approximate, I don't remember the exact cost), so the City went to an owner furnished procurement and purchased them. The City also utilized the Ubiquiti VMS solution. The installation was completed last August. They're happy with it so far, I'll continue to monitor the system's performance.

I have been using Unifi Protect since August (as an "Early Access" product), and Unifi Video for a year before that at my home.  Prior to that I used Synology Surveillance Station, and Milestone Essential+ with some older Axis cameras.  Since my home network was all Unifi, it made sense to make the transition.

Where this product really excels, is the mobile app.  Personally, I think it blows away Milestone, Genetec, Exacq, Synology, etc.  My only complaint at this point is that there is no way (that I found) to play back video at 2x, 4x, and so on.  I have never had a VMS app that worked as well as this over lower bandwidth cellular data.  I can easily scroll through hours of video to find what I am looking for.  If I need to export a clip, I can do so with a few taps on the screen, and it ends up in my photos/videos.  In the Ubiquiti forums, they have said many times, they are focused on an excellent end-user experience, and I think this shows.  

The Cloud Key Gen2+ is a solid product, and I think a good value for the money - especially if you are also using it to manage a Unifi network at the same location.  I just received the "Early Access" rack mount kit, which works as advertised and cleans up my installation, but probably a bit expensive for what it does at the current $99 price tag.

I really think the use cases are residential and small business for the product at this point.  Ubiquiti had talked about releasing the software as Linux package or as a Docker container, but decided against that (for now), to the dismay of many.  

For the price, I think the cameras are pretty solid, and for the most part 1080P is sufficient for their use case.  I currently use the standard G3, a few of the Flex, and a Micro.  There are some FCC application documents out there that point to Unifi cameras with greater resolution being on the horizon.  

However, currently there are quite a few missing features.  The NVR records 24/7 and there is no other option.  It is similar to some of the newer codecs with dynamic compression and frame rate.  When there is no movement, the bandwidth scales back.  You set up motion zones and it tags spots in the timeline where motion occurred.  There is no way currently to test the sensitivity of these zones as there was in Unifi Video.  A maximum of 5TB storage and no capability for Raid will make this a no-go for many.  Some folks coming from Unifi Video were looking for feature parity, and disappointed in the initial feature set of Protect.  

This system definitely meets my needs for home use, and I look forward to seeing it evolve.