I moved to UniFi Protect for gaming but didn’t notice this perk was included in Linus’ coverage.
I moved to UniFi Protect for gaming but didn’t notice this perk was included in Linus’ coverage.
Hey everyone, a year ago I purchased a Nest Hello doorbell camera for security. It performs well in capturing my front door and driveway. I also wanted to install two more cameras covering the entire front of my house and another one for the backyard. I’m based in Portland, Maine, where internet speeds are typically around 100Mbps download and 10Mbps upload. Recently, I received my two extra Nest cameras, but there were worries about bandwidth needs if we continuously stream video to the cloud. I’m not sure how others handle their connections, but when upload usage spikes—like during photo backups—it becomes noticeable that gaming performance suffers, especially with lag and ping issues. Linus’ video mainly highlighted avoiding subscriptions and camera quality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkjD4xIhfTw), though I don’t mind the $12 monthly fee. What really concerned me was the risk of these cameras consuming too much upload bandwidth, affecting my online gaming experience. Since I play mostly FPS games like Overwatch, stable ping and connection quality are crucial. At medium settings, my single Nest camera used about 400kbps. Adding two more would push it to roughly 1200kbps continuously—even without high-res settings. My internet would have to decide which traffic gets priority during gaming. That’s why I started looking into alternatives and discovered Linus recently set up a unified solution. I upgraded from a Google OnHub router to a Unifi Amplifi Alien, which cut my average ping from 60–65 to around 52–55 for Overwatch. So far, the Unifi brand has been reliable. I’m now moving my entire surveillance system—including the doorbell—to Unifi Protect instead of Nest, using G4 bullet cameras, a doorbell, a Cloud Key Gen2 Plus, and PoE injectors. Setting up Ethernet cables throughout the house will be a challenge, but the main advantage is flexibility: I can expand the system later without worrying about gaming lag or missing video recordings if the connection fails. I’ll miss the Nest delivery alerts, but I doubt Unifi offers that feature.
They provide just enough upload to manage download demands, right? It’s great my ISP offers flexible GB plans. My old provider was similar—only 10 GB up for every 100 down. I think Unifi cameras might control upload times to the cloud, or maybe there’s a local saving option. They won’t drain bandwidth completely, but they’ll still use it. I’m considering a Unifi camera and doorbell since we’re building a house and also have a Nest mini (free with Spotify).
The "CloudKey" keeps videos on your local network, offering round-the-clock recording with high quality. A mobile app provides similar functionality to the Nest app, allowing you to stream recordings to your phone from anywhere, including off-site locations.
You purchased the cloud key... Do you think it works the same way with your Unifi controller on your RaspPi?