Ubiquiti is known for their easy to manage business and enterprise switches, they have released the UDM Base aimed at the home and small business user, It’s based on their UDM pro product but packaged in a more home-friendly design.

The UDM Base main features

• A built-in 4 port managed switch
• A built-in access point, providing 802.11ac Wave 2 4×4 MU-MIMO
• A build-in network controller
• A built-in security gateway providing advanced security
• VLAN SUPPORT
• VPN support
• Powered by an ARM Cortex-A57 Quad-Core at 1.7 GHz

The UDM Base differs from the pro as it’s designed to look like a smart speaker and doesn’t look like the usual home or small business networking kit, it’s very clean looking and comes in a white pill like design with the access point which is built-in located at the top of the unit, it doesn’t look out of place at all, and looks really contemporary which I really like. It has a flat round base which gives ample stability and the access point has a blue LED that illuminates the top of the unit (which can be turned off) that I think looks really cool.

The access point provides 802.11ac Wave 2 4×4 MU-MIMO for 5 GHz and 802.11n for 2.4 GHz, It’s easy to set up additional wireless networks if needed.

Setting up

The initial setup of the UDM base is done via Unifi’s app, which is available for either Apple or Android handsets and is really easy to do, plug in the power then open the app and the new device is automatically found and the setup is done by simply following the on-screen instructions, one point to note however is that you require a UI account to set this up, its a free service and only takes a matter of seconds to create, a local account can be created after the setup process.

The UniFi Network app and UniFi cloud provide remote access to the controller from anywhere. The entire network can be kept updated and safe with automated software updates, which are free of charge.

The UDM Base has powerful security

The UDM offers advanced firewall policies and persistent threat management to act as an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and can also be configured as an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), it has a built-in Radius server that can be used to secure the wireless networks and the VPN, the added VLAN support is fantastic.

The Wave 2 4×4 MU-MIMO wireless access point allows you to add up to four wireless SSID’s giving you the possibility of creating a guest network or segregating your staff from your IoT (internet of things) network, this can be configured to allow access to the internet but block access to your main home or small business network.

The wireless networks created can have bandwidth profiles applied to enable you to limit the upload and download speeds of guests, preventing them from consuming all the available bandwidth, which is another great feature.

Content filtering can be applied to each network you create, and each network can be filtered by different categories, however, I have found these to be quite basic, there is currently no way to block adverts, the three currently available options for blocking website content are:

• Family – VPN’s, explicit, Pornographic and malicious domains. It also sets search engines and YouTube to safe mode
• Work – explicit, Pornographic and malicious domains. It also sets search engines and YouTube to safe mode
• None – no content blocking

Wifi

Home users require extremely high throughput (4×4 MIMO streams) for video streaming, low‑latency gaming and local video, photo, and file transfers. The UDM delivers the required high-performance Wi-Fi.

I have to say that this provides possibly the best WIFI coverage of any router I’ve used.

Small business users are more reliant on a strong and reliable signal, the UDM Base provides that in spades, it’s been rock solid even when utilising all four wireless networks at the same time, the unit has performed really well in the office and the speed and reliability have been brilliant.

Final Thoughts

As a router for home use, it’s more aimed at the prosumer, compared to a lot of routers that have very simple interfaces, the UDM’s whilst clean looking can be confusing. Ubiquiti are currently updating the firmware and as of version 1.9.3, the settings are split over the new style and the old design.

But for more experienced users and small businesses, this unit is fantastic, the options available cover just about everything you could need, and the recent updates continue to add better workflow and system management functions.

For the cost of £270 plus change, it’s very competitively priced, is it better than routers supplied by your ISP? absolutely. Would we recommend one? yes and we do all the time.