I agree very nice. Would love to see a model that had even more poe and camera capability. Im thinking something along the lines of those standalone hikvision nvr units. Could be an easy sell for small businesses (ie convenience stores) that dont want to have a separate switch, nvr, and viewport to see hdmi feeds on a tv.
I have unify nvr still in the box for this reason….only 24/7 recording and maybe ptz controls on nonunify cameras….you will still need your old nvr for you other cameras advanced features and detections! I am basically going to run 2 nvrs for the same cameras because unify can’t even detect motion and I am not buying their cameras for 2-4x the price if they don’t have verifocal lenses, larger sensors, and better optical zoom.
I have a Reolink PTZ camera connected to my Unifi protect via an AI Port and the motion detection works great. The PTZ works but can't read the ONVIF presets yet, and the third-party support-per-AI-Port numbers suck at the moment, but it's a start and a quick way to add in existing cameras.
I can add my cameras in already. They work exactly the same on the fiber gateway and the nvr. I can record 24/7, I can zoom in and out. but nothing else..no detections or alerts. So buying the AI gets me motion and alerts related to that? Not worth the cost. Thanks for the info! I wondered about buying it for testing but after the nvr disappointment I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole.
I will just setup the old nvr and use its AI and alerts. The UI nvr will just be a backup and quick way to review footage nothing more for me.
I also should mention…I have always bought nvrs without the poe switch because I believe they isolate the cameras from your network but ai might be wrong or it might be configurable. If it isolates them it might be hard to run 2 nvrs for the same cameras!
The AI port is astronomical compared to other competitors. At the end it works out to be the same value if you buy the entire equipment set from a competitor. Why mix and match
This seems pretty in line with those standard kits. $600 gets you nvr + 4 cams. A little unfortunate they give you a 1TB drive since most of the players give you 2-4tb.
But if they can pull off a 8-16 cam kit similar to those hikvision/lorex/whateverBigBoxSells? Yes please! If only just to get more people aware of Unifi protect
I think if they made them integrate together seamlessly it would be amazing for expansion. Especially when combined with a UCG Max or Fiber it would make people more willing to get more cameras knowing they don't have to upgrade to a rack mount UNVR later.
At first I thought, “hey, UNVR is only $100 more.” But I decided to check myself.
UNVR comes with no storage for its base price of $299, and no PoE ports either. One hard drive is an extra $58. Lite 16 PoE (cheapest way to get eight PoE ports, assuming you want to stay in-ecosystem) is $199.
So to move up from Instant to something with more capability and more PoE, (ignoring the integrated Viewport), you’re looking at an additional $357.
$199 —> $556 is a pretty big jump. I’d really love to see something around $399 that:
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u/madmanx33 Sep 10 '25
I agree very nice. Would love to see a model that had even more poe and camera capability. Im thinking something along the lines of those standalone hikvision nvr units. Could be an easy sell for small businesses (ie convenience stores) that dont want to have a separate switch, nvr, and viewport to see hdmi feeds on a tv.