Upgrade for my mom

My mom recently moved across town and called about her internet not working after setting everything back up. I knew she still had an old DD-WRT flashed Nighthawk R7000. Upon walking through how she had it all configured she asked if it needed "the green thing"... Which was a Pi in an acrylic case running pihole that I forgot I had set up. After reconnecting that, the internet was working again.

This set me down the path of wondering If I should get something more modern for her. She lives several states away, so I was wanting to go Ubiquiti so I could manage it remotely. If I were smart, I'd have just picked up a Dream Router 7 and been done. I've been wanting to do something with one of the 10" mini racks for a while but couldn't justify buying one for myself since I already have 3x full size racks...

So anyway here's what I ended up with
DeskPi RackMate T0
Cloud Gateway Ultra
Lite 16 PoE
U6 Pro
Pakedge P2
I bought the 3D printed mounts since I don't have a big enough printer.
Between Microcenter open box and ebay I was able to get most of it for pretty good deals. Still afraid to add it up since it's probably still double a UDR7.

Now to decide if I'm going to drive 13+ hours to deliver it or get interrogated by TSA while attempting to bring it in a carry on lol.

i would just give her a dream router 7 and be done with it. my mom would tell me to gtfo with that setup lol.

yeah that looks way overkill for a "mom" setup...

She's used to my shenanigans by now. Couple years ago she asked if I had any basic Windows computers laying around because she had some software that wouldn't run on her Mac. Ended up with this Louqe Raw S1 build.

It helps that she's a really crafty person so she does see the value in building things vs off the shelf solutions. Not that any of this was super involved.

It looks good it's not as big as the camera makes it look. But a udm pro SE would have done the same thing and had integration for cameras and door access in the future and have been only one device.

I've taken full rack mount routers and switches in carry on before so no biggie with TSA.

She has a system that works. Are you giving her a new system because that's what she needs, or because that's what you want her to need?

That is overkill. If she's calling about a Nighthawk 7000 and "the green thing", she's gonna call 4x as much with whatever you're trying to setup. Which is not a bad thing, a call from mom is a good thing. But IMO you're creating a solution to a problem tha does not exist, it will create more problems.

Lastly, I'd drive the 13 hours just to see mom, eat some food, confirm things work, show her basics, giver her a hug, then drive back.

I will say that there is a need for an upgrade. One of the three antennas apparently got broken off the nighthawk at some point and the coverage and speeds aren't the best. They have Gig fiber coming into the house so there is some performance being left on the table. The whole mini rack thing is 100% me taking the opportunity to play with one of these setups. I am fully aware that it isn't needed and is overkill vs just dropping in a Dream Router 7 to do the same thing. I already have a Ubiquiti setup at home and manage a few others for smaller clients at work so it's something familiar and convenient for me. I realize the UCG-Ultra is the weakest link, but I already know she's considering moving out of Florida. Once she ends up in her "forever home" I can run some lines for cameras, additional APs, etc. and just swap to a different gateway at that point.

I fly down to see her once or twice a year and talk on the phone regularly. I was mostly joking about the driving to avoid being questioned by TSA while bringing it in my carry on. Regardless of how it gets there, I'll set it up.

I love my mom, but she's too retarded for that setup.

She gets something like this (two items):
https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-wifi-integrated/products/ux7
https://adguard-dns.io/en/license.html

MikeTrike said:

I love my mom, but she's too retarded for that setup.

She gets something like this (two items):
https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/cloud-gateways-wifi-integrated/products/ux7
https://adguard-dns.io/en/license.html

Click to expand...

I went to Wal-Mart last year around thanksgiving time and bought a small tri-band mesh system that was on sale.
They watch netflix. They don't mine bitcoin or try to hack into Russia. Netflix. Maybe some online solitaire.

This became evident they needed an upgrade when I was trying to stream a show from my plex server and it kept buffering.

Looks cool, but you lost me with the idea of upgrading to Ubiquiti ...

agreed on the dream router ultra plus what ever the top is. My parents have this and works perfectly for them. I even integrated a door bell camera setup for them