The Device Bridge Switch is one of those products that solves a problem you assumed was too niche for anyone to build a dedicated device for: bridging a small cluster of ethernet devices to a wireless network. It’s a managed desktop switch with a built-in wireless client—plug in your devices, and they talk to each other locally via ethernet while connecting wirelessly to the rest of your network. Adoption into the UniFi controller is the same single-click experience as any other UniFi device, and the switch ports are fully managed with per-port VLAN support, all configured seamlessly over the wireless link. If you need ethernet connectivity where you can’t run cable and you’re already in the UniFi ecosystem, this is the clean, purpose-built solution.

The Ubiquiti Switch Flex Mini 2.5G is a five-port managed 2.5GbE desktop switch that costs fifty dollars and draws power over PoE—or USB-C if you prefer. At this price point, managed 2.5GbE switching is impulse-buy territory, and the value proposition is hard to argue with. I replaced a collection of 1GbE Flex Mini switches scattered around the house with these 2.5GbE models; the upgrade was painless and immediately noticeable for local file transfers. There’s not much more to say because there’s not much more to the product: it’s a small, quiet, PoE-powered switch that integrates perfectly with the UniFi ecosystem, does one thing, and does it well. Buy several.

The Switch Pro XG 10 PoE delivers 10GbE switching with PoE on all ports—exactly what you’d want for high-bandwidth aggregation, storage traffic, or between-switch uplinks. It also delivers noise and heat in quantities that make me wish I’d bought something else. The fans run hard enough to be audible from across the room, a jarring change from the near-silent operation of smaller UniFi switches, and the thermal output is significant. In practice, most devices connecting at 10GbE speeds don’t need PoE—they’re servers, NAS units, or other switches with their own power supplies—so the PoE adds thermal load and fan noise for a capability I’d happily trade away. If you need 10GbE aggregation in a location far from where you spend time, it performs well; otherwise, consider the non-PoE alternatives.

The UNAS Pro was Ubiquiti’s first attempt at a NAS appliance, and it shows. If your requirements are SMB shares, NFS exports, RAID, and snapshots, it handles those reliably—the 10GbE connectivity is a genuine strength, and once a share is configured it works like any other file server. But the software shipped before it was fully baked and arguably still isn’t: no iSCSI, no built-in rsync or scp in the UI, sparse feature additions over time, and an admin interface tied to UniFi Identity that adds friction to what should be straightforward. If you’re coming from Synology or TrueNAS expecting a rich ecosystem of packages and services, recalibrate your expectations. The UNAS Pro is best understood as a UniFi-native file server that does the basics well, and the newer UNAS Pro 8 is a better buy if you don’t already own the original.

I cannot say enough good things about the Switch Pro HD PoE . This is the switch the Pro 24 PoE wishes it could be: every port runs at 2.5GbE minimum, every port supports PoE, and you get two 10GbE ports plus four SFP ports for high-speed uplinks. The all-port PoE alone is transformative—no more checking port numbers, consulting diagrams, or rerouting cables when you add a camera or access point. Plug in your PoE device, it works. Then there’s Etherlighting, which makes your switch ports glow with customizable color-coded activity through translucent cable connectors. It is objectively unnecessary, obviously an excuse to charge more, and I love it. This switch is expensive, and the premium cables make it more so, but it made my network feel complete.

I play in two weekly D&D groups and write session reports as narrative prose from the characters’ perspectives. The reports expand on what happened at the table, adding dialog and internal monologue in each character’s voice. This workflow has evolved through several iterations, each one solving a problem the previous version left on the table.

How it started

The first version was simple: play the session, take notes, write the report from memory afterward. This worked when I had time, but a four-hour session generates a lot of material, and between work and life, writing sometimes slipped by a week. By then the details had faded. The bullet-point notes I’d scribbled during play were thin on dialog and light on the small moments that make session reports worth reading.

The Framework Desktop crams workstation-class silicon into a 4.5-liter chassis that barely occupies more desk space than a large book. Mine is the top-end configuration: an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (Strix Halo) with 16 Zen 5 cores, 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units, and 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory soldered to the package. It runs Linux exclusively and handles everything I throw at it as a daily driver. The expansion card system carried over from Framework’s laptops is a better idea on a laptop than a desktop, and the I/O is thinner than I’d like. But the build experience was genuinely enjoyable. The 128GB of unified memory means I can run 70-billion-parameter models that won’t fit on even a high-end discrete GPU—slowly, but they run. The PCIe slot is a baffling design miss, and Linux software support for the Strix Halo platform is still catching up to the hardware. But even with those caveats, this is the most compelling small form factor workstation I’ve used.

The Framework Laptop 16 is the most upgradeable laptop I’ve ever used, and it’s not close. Six expansion card slots give you genuinely flexible I/O. The swappable GPU module is revolutionary for a laptop—nothing else on the market lets you upgrade your graphics without buying a whole new machine. The display is excellent. The keyboard is one of the best I’ve used on a laptop. The build process is more involved than Framework’s Desktop and takes real time, but nothing about it is difficult. Build quality is excellent, the design is solid, and you come away from the assembly understanding exactly how your machine works. That’s worth something. It is also, to be clear, not a portable machine in any meaningful sense. This is a desktop replacement that happens to fold shut.

The Ubiquiti SmartPower RPS is not a UPS, and that single fact made it a purchasing disaster for me. The product description is frustratingly vague about what it actually does, which led to an expensive misunderstanding. The RPS is a redundant power supply—it keeps your UniFi equipment running if the internal power supply module fails, not if the electricity goes out. If you lose power, everything still goes dark. For most home lab users, this solves a failure mode that’s relatively rare and usually fixable by swapping hardware. What you almost certainly want instead is Ubiquiti’s actual UPS line, the UniFi SmartPower USP , or the Mission Critical Switch which integrates battery backup directly into a PoE switch.

The Ubiquiti G4 Dome is a simple, reliable camera that integrates cleanly with UniFi Protect—plug it in, adopt it, watch your footage. The image quality is good, the dome form factor is unobtrusive, and the Protect interface handles everything consistently across all your cameras. It also gets genuine credit for full Linux compatibility, something that set it apart from the proprietary-plugin nightmare I dealt with on a previous camera system. Of my eight units, seven continue working years later without issues. The eighth failed, likely from sustained direct exposure to the Texas afternoon sun—a reminder that camera placement matters, especially in hot climates.