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[Scott Holtzman]

While I'm not Scott I've been using this method instead of password protection for a few years now with Ubiquiti APs. It works perfectly but I have to say I'm strongly considering going back to passwords - it's a total PITA to have enter mac addresses every time you need to connect some new device, which, for me at least, has turned out to be every so often.

Oh brother......Yes, populating the MAC table is the best way to lock down the AP.  Keeping track of the MAC's is the barrier here.  I frequently have clients ask to access their monitor mixes on their devices.  This would make this a non-starter for me to populate that table on the fly.  That's 12 hex characters to have to enter correctly, way too much for my old brain.

[Kevin Maxwell]

Oh brother......Yes, populating the MAC table is the best way to lock down the AP.  Keeping track of the MAC's is the barrier here.  I frequently have clients ask to access their monitor mixes on their devices.  This would make this a non-starter for me to populate that table on the fly.  That's 12 hex characters to have to enter correctly, way too much for my old brain.

When you say " I frequently have clients ask to access their monitor mixes on their devices." are you letting them mix their own wedges? Or is this only if they have IEMs?

[Tim Weaver]

Oh brother......Yes, populating the MAC table is the best way to lock down the AP.  Keeping track of the MAC's is the barrier here.  I frequently have clients ask to access their monitor mixes on their devices.  This would make this a non-starter for me to populate that table on the fly.  That's 12 hex characters to have to enter correctly, way too much for my old brain.

I never went that far, I just hid the ssid and passworded my network, BUT I did use a small Linksys router/AP in a rack by the stage and my Ubiquity Nanostation for broadcasting to FOH. If you had a similar setup you could put a guest network on the stage-side WAP with a limited range. Just enough to let the musicians get on and use apps. The FOH WAP could be Mac filtered.

[Johannes Halvorsen]

Ubiquiti gear arrived today, and just configured it.

Observations:
- Documentation leaves much to be desired; it lacks clarity around the order of setting-up and configuring items
- The gear is slow to reboot, initialize, "adopt" (Ubiquiti term)
- Required many reboots of the switch
- Localhost application vs CloudKey - man, that was a little confusing... still is odd
- Doesn't appear to have MAC filtering/blacklisting unless you "block" a client that's actively on your network
- Entire process was wonky, overall. Had to factory reset devices several times before they would "take" the configs we wanted to use. Seems to be common... several of the online tutorials showed people having to reset/reboot along the way when things didn't work as they should've
- Chrome plug-in required to find Cloud Key
- Pricey... The WAP, Switch, and CloudKey came in at over $400
- How do you rackmount the switch?? I can't find a kit that'll work with a 19" rack

+ Management panel and insights are pretty cool
+ Much more control over WAP channels/output

So... given the initial experience, I'm hard-pressed to say if this is an improvement over the Airport Express/Netgear swtich solution. Going to try this at a gig this weekend; AE/Netgear will be along as back-up.


If anyone is interested in the Ubiquiti solution, here's what we bought:

Unifi Switch8 150W switch
Unifi AP Pro wireless access point
Cloud Key management device

If this all works out, and time allows, I'm going to create a "set-up for dummies" video and blog post.

You got all this just to power your foh wifi...? If that is the case I think you have overshot the goal by aprox. two astronomical units...

The AP makes perfect sense; it is a rock solid solution with few or no competitors for its power at that price point. The switch and the cloud key, though... If you use this setup as part of a larger network it makes sense, but for mixer+tablet+laptop you can use any old router with a build in switch (as long as wathever integrated wifi acces point it offers can be switched off!) and run the Unify management software on the laptop. After the initial configuration you won't even need that tool until you make some kind of setup change.

What is REALLY cool with the Unify system is the ease with wich you can extend your wifi coverage. If you have a large venue you can put one ap on stage, one at foh and eg. one at the back of the venue, connect them to the same switch with cat5/6, adopt the new aps in Unify and booom!... Seamless solid wifi coverage all over the place.

[Scott Holtzman]

When you say " I frequently have clients ask to access their monitor mixes on their devices." are you letting them mix their own wedges? Or is this only if they have IEMs?

Only IEM's.  Never even had anyone ask to mix a wedge.  Love informed folks, they ask if I have a spare channel for their mix.  Usually keyboard or drummers, I drop a feed for their ears and they are happy as a clam.

[ProSoundWeb Community]