Ubiquiti announces UniFi-Video End of life

[MariusJS]

Summary

January, 1st 2021 (01/01/2021) Ubiquiti will drop support for UniFi-Video products, in order to "focus on UniFi Protect"

 

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This means UniFi-Video products will no longer be offered or supported, beyond 2020. More specifically: 

• No software or hardware revisions will be released, including for web UI and mobile applications
• No customer support will be available
• No security updates
• All cloud operations will be shut down and video.ui.com will no longer be accessible

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Switching to UniFi-Protect

If you decide to switch over to UniFi-Protect, a “one-click” migration of UniFi-Video managed cameras and some user settings will be available in the next controller release for a seamless transition.

Several options are/will be available in terms of NVRs depending on your cameras and storage needs.

UniFi-Protect currently supports the following camera models:

• UVC, UVC-Dome, UVC-Pro 
• All G2 cameras
• UVC-G3, UVC-G3-Flex, UVC-G3-Dome, UVC-G3-Micro, UVC-G3-Pro
• UVC-G4-Bullet, UVC-G4-Pro

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To upgrade to Protect, you must deploy a Cloud Key Gen 2 Plus, UDM-PRO, or a UNVR. Existing UniFi Video hardware and custom hardware is not supported. The mentioned one-click migration process should be even easier than restoring a backup per the article - we will provide further details as we get closer to release.

 

My thoughts

My main thoughts are that is seems that they want people to move to their hardware solutions instead of using their own, but it is also scary that they are not even going to release any form of security updates after 2020.

It does seem even in their own forums that the majority of the feedback regarding this is negative. IP Cameras are also in my mind a product that many people will have for more than a few years, I personally have seen many installs with cameras that are 10+ years old and still working fine, so this seems like it is a bit early to end support.

 

It would also be very interesting to hear from Linus regarding this, as he has newly mounted a lot of Ubiquiti Cameras

 

Sources

https://community.ui.com/questions/UniFi-Video-Products-End-of-Life-Announcement/dc529d39-0e58-43cc-96f0-8f0eed0d002c?fbclid=IwAR008t3sjGp-Jqy-Exnr4t0vF4XpHcpoCMzCUk5HkYPUOdQd17qoUGpuUBI

[Velcade]

9 minutes ago, MariusJS said:

It would also be very interesting to hear from Linus regarding this, as he has newly mounted a lot of Ubiquiti Cameras

He's running Protect.  When Protect came out it was stated that Ubiquiti was moving away from Video.

 

I can't believe the amount of people suddenly surprised. 

[MariusJS]

8 minutes ago, Velcade said:

He's running Protect.  When Protect came out it was stated that Ubiquiti was moving away from Video.

 

I can't believe the amount of people suddenly surprised. 

There is a difference between "moving away from" and completely killing it
He could also just as well have bought and setup Video a year ago, and for all you know they will discontinue Protect in two years

[Dujith]

I dont use any Ubiquiti video stuff so cannot comment on that.

But this does feel like a slippery slope, as you cannot run Protect without their hardware.

 

Alot of my customers have an Unifi controller running on their computer or server so we dont need the cloudkey,

this makes my spider sense tingle... i hope i'm wrong and they wont drop Unifi installs on non Ubiquiti hardware.  

 

[MariusJS]

21 minutes ago, Dujith said:

I dont use any Ubiquiti video stuff so cannot comment on that.

But this does feel like a slippery slope, as you cannot run Protect without their hardware.

 

Alot of my customers have an Unifi controller running on their computer or server so we dont need the cloudkey,

this makes my spider sense tingle... i hope i'm wrong and they wont drop Unifi installs on non Ubiquiti hardware.  

 

Same here, it really makes you think, as they have been some of the best in class for updates and letting you run software on almost everything up to now.

[Dujith]

8 minutes ago, MariusJS said:

Same here, it really makes you think, as they have been some of the best in class for updates and letting you run software on almost everything up to now.

 

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You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Next step will be a "licence fee" for future updates... till its Cisco levels where you cant even plug in an Ethernet cable without an engineer on site.

Watching for their reaction as it seems to affect alot more people than i thought.