How to Upgrade to Unifi from your old System

If you are looking at Unifi, there will come a day when you need to upgrade from your old system. But what is the best way to do this? Can you run both systems at the same time? Should you name you WiFi the same as before? In this weeks video, we dive into this subject and talk though how to upgrade to Unifi from your old system. #unifi #upgrade #ethernetblueprint

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:34 Setting the Stage
6:12 Connecting your new Unifi System
8:29 Setting up your Unifi System in-line
11:54 Types of Cutovers?
14:22 Downsides to keeping same WiFi Name
16:43 Setting up our new Wifi and VLANs
20:17 Cutover - Modem/Router Combo
23:41 Cutover - Router Only
28:19 Keeping your Same IP Scheme
34:13 My Recommendations - Don't Skip

[danightryder]

You don't need to have multiple SSID. Unifi has a setting where you can broadcast 1 SSID but use different passwords (PSK) to connect to different VLANS. Under the manual wifi settings click the check box Private Pre-Shared Keys

[timhubbard]

Thanks Tim, great video. I've had my new Unifi kit for a week but have put off the migration as it felt a little daunting, now I feel I have a much better handle on what I'll be doing.

[reubennaidoo]

Talk about perfect timing for this video. I just received my Unifi equipment and will be moving my home network over this weekend from an Asus AIMesh system with 2 routers in mesh mode. I will be using UCG Ultra, flex mini switch and 2x Unifi 6pro AP’s. Thank you for making this video. It makes it all clear now as to what needs to be done.😊

[wymm]

Thanks for sharing this information. It’s exactly what I was looking for with my new setup.

[MickPletcher]

Great tip on naming devices—I completely agree that it’s important to name them directly on the router. That’s exactly what I’ve done with my TP-Link Deco routers. Here’s a suggestion: take screenshots of the MAC addresses for each device in your Deco app. These screenshots usually include the device names, making it much easier to match each MAC address with the correct name when setting them up on your Ubiquiti router. It’s a simple step that saves a ton of time during the transition!

[WonPXL]

I’ve only watched 5 mins 30 secs but just wanted to let you know that I needed this last week when I tried to transition from ISP modem (plus digital voice), to ISP modem (plus DV) + Unifi hardware. I got it all wrong and failed. I have a good feeling I needed this video! So glad YT put it up as a suggested to watch tutorial!
Edit: oh I was hoping you would keep the old modem/router in the hardware setup, but you assigned it as a bridge. I don’t have that option with my modem because it has DV and not option to set as a bridge.

[emmgeevideo]

This is an excellent, albeit fairly complicated, approach to something that anyone who is doing a "forklift upgrade" can benefit from. That's what I'm about to do and it's giving me a lot to think about. I had a different approach in mind but this is giving me pause to consider a different approach. Thank you.

And by the way, since you ask so many times in this video: Yes, everything is alright and okay. And yes, you are right. Right?

[grahambollan]

Thanks so much. İ have an aged friend looking to add a unifi express to his modem router combo to take advantage of the vpn client facilities. The job fell to me and caused some real stress. You just alleviated most of that!

[ernieg]

I’m the king of the castle. I just tell everybody there’s not gonna be no Internet for about an hour and that’s it. Problem solved 😂

[ethernetblueprint]

This video is a lot of talking, but hopefully it will help you with your cutovers out there!!!

[wvanthony]

Yes, great timing indeed as I am receiving some new Ubiquiti equipment this week to replace my EERO Mesh system. I have a separate Modem. I'll let you all know how things go but I have some drilling and network wiring to do before I can finalize in my house. (Ubiquiti Gateway Max, 3 U7 Pro's, Switch Pro Max 16, POE, U7 Outdoor etc.) I heard folks having frustrating problems with IoT devices with rollout of U7's but I heard Ubiquiti has made some firmware updates that has resolved most, if not all issues so I went with the U7's. Back on track, I appreciate the guidance on getting ahead of the game and configuring on my old network prior to cutting over.

[rexringschott]

Great content, but for those of us whose ISP offers PPPoE connection, there seems to be a step missing. The old router is the one, initially with the PPPoE connection established with the ISP. When the old router is unplugged and the new router connected directly to the ISP on the WAN port, it will need to take over the PPPoE connection. Therefore that needs to be set up at that step.

[tomlynn]

I would add a step to factory reset your old router before unplugging it to wipe your SSID and keys before you recycle/dispose of it.

[javierro]

I commend you for this gargantuan topic. Not everyone has your dominion of the topic to make it much easier and understandable for us, who need a spoon feeding approach. I got a lot of my challenges addressed by your video. My ISP refuses to give me a public IP address nor does it allow me to get a CGNAT address. So I’m stuck with double/triple nating. I did configured my ISP router to a DMZ forward and it makes it easier to configure my Unifi gateway. Still, I wish I could just get rid of that “man in the middle “.
Again. Any suggestions, as to another approach, are welcomed Great presentation and very eye opening. 👍👍

[MrMyinteg]

Greats stuff. Now I know how Vlan works now.😊

[KeithHeinrich]

I did this recently. Basically used the same IP on the new device, substituted it for the old, migrated the switch and AP job done.

[timrobertson]

One more consideration for the cutover when you're not doing pass through the ISP's Modem / Router combo is that the ISP might be keying off of the MAC address of the original WAN port and it may be something to work with them to enable the Ubiquity Router's WAN Port so you are not denied when the WAN Cable is moved over. It is not clear to me that the MAC address on the outside of the Box is the WAN port's address in all cases, so doing the cut over during the ISP's Support Hours might be a good idea. Great covering of the considerations of various options folks have.👍

[YouTubePentium]

Excellent video and logic! Would be great to see something similar for someone who has a Virtual Unifi Controller (say running from a NAS), and how to transfer it to the same kind of setup as you have, also from old ISP router to a Unifi router, but using the settings from virtual Unifi Controller.

[NoxGarage]

Hi, tks for the video. I understand the point of transferring the devices one by one to name them, I fully agree on having different VLANs, but I don't go the point having different wifi for each VLAN

[ErrrahTech]

I am trying to use an external 3rd party WIFI 7 mesh routers, integrated into the new Unifii Cloud Gateway.. I would love to see a video using 3rd party wifi routers into the unifi network system. I really like the unified system for control/security and wired ethernet access but not a fan of their wifi access points, so would prefer to use my own mesh routers.