Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Key Gen2 Plus (UCK-G2-PLUS), Single,dual band

I have been using UniFi Wireless Access Points for my customers for years. They are great for business level wireless deployments (as well as home), easy to manage and deploy, and have a lot of the features of enterprise setups without the cost or monthly fees. The CloudKey G2+ is how I manage most of my deployments.I use one of these for my home deployment of 5 WAPs, 6 cameras and 3 UniFi Talk phones as well, and it has been rock solid.The CloudKey can manage a few of UniFi's product lines, including: Wireless (Network), Cameras (Protect), Phones (Talk), Access Control (Access), Multimedia Displays (Connect) and Deployment Visualization (Innerspace). There is a lot to be said about all of these technologies, but I will focus on the CloudKey for this review.The CloudKey is a small, simple to install management and storage device. It comes with all of the software you need installed and can be provisioned easily via a web browser or a cell phone app using Bluetooth. Once provisioned and added UniFi Site Manager, web based management is possible from anywhere and free! Overall it is a great little device and will continue to be my preferred management method for my UniFi deployments, but because there is a hard drive in them and a lithium-ion battery, I put them on a 5 year replacement schedule for my deployments.PROS:Small, inexpensive and simple to deployIntuit screen for a quick glance to see WAP and Camera status1TB HDD included (replaceable) for NVR storage and backupsLithium-ion battery for safe shut down in case of power failureFree management from anywhere via web browser or cell phone appAutomated Cloud backupsConfigurable notifications (via UniFi Site Manager) for all applicationsCONS:Lithium-ion battery is not user replaceableHDD is replaceable, but is a spinning drive with a limited lifetime.No power supply included (These are PoE powered but can also be powered via USB-C with a QC 2.0/3.0 adapter)

I've had this little guy running 7x24 for six months with no issues, zip, nada. One upgrade you should do right off the bat is to change the hard drive to a high performance SSD with more capacity than 1TB unless you are only going to run two or three cams. I'm using a 2TB Samsung V-Nand SSD 860 EVO SATA 6Gb/s and I'm running 12 G3 cams and one G4 cam. I only get about one week of recorded video and would like a 4TB SSD but they are really expensive. The Android "Protect" app works well. The user interface is well designed for both the network management and Protect. Simple and intuitive.Before this I was using Ubiquiti's NVR box for the cameras and it was a complete disaster, very unreliable and undependable, slow. So that now sits on the shelf with all of the other orphans.Cons: I really haven't discovered any. This little box sits in my rack and does its thing - it's happy and I'm happy.

You have to understand what this device is before you pull the trigger. This is the exact same thing as a Unifi Controller system coupled with their Unifi Protect software and a dedicated hard drive all inside a neat little package with a dedicated management interface. You can easily pick up a Raspberry Pi 3+ for $35, a POE hat for $30, a 1TB hard drive for cheap and have almost the exact same thing minus the fancy case with the onboard screen and device manager. Honestly, for the home IT demons out there who love to tinker I would even recommend that route. Another option, if you already have a server running VMs, you could easily build a headless Linux VM running Debian. Carve off 4GB of memory, dedicate a couple CPU cores or load balance across more and dedicate a physical hard drive for to it for video.However, what these guys have done with this device is very impressive. This is a solid product for the footprint both in power consumption and size. I'd buy it again only so I wouldn't have to tinker with the server side of things. This device makes network management of Unifi APs and Cams super simple.The major con I have about this device though, vendor lock-in on the IP cameras. There's no option to add existing 3rd party cameras to the system.

The company I work for uses Ubiquiti/Unifi equipment so when I had a chance to purchase some equipment for my home office I opted to upgrade my network. My first purchases were Unifi Outdoor AP's, I used the controller software on a computer that is part of our home theater setup since it's on 24/7.I opted for the Cloud Key Plus so that I could migrate the AP's off the pc, and have a dedicated device for the AP's. I opted for the Plus because I'm also installing some of the G3 Flex camera's by Ubiquiti.So far it has done it's job, I have two of three AP's installed and one camera installed. Wifi is solid, the controller just sits there displaying data about the AP's and then the Unifi Protect/Camera side.Not much I can say, it has all the features and functions of the controller software that I have noticed. I don't have a fancy setup so most of the settings are left at their default setting.