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The scenario

Three storeys. Basement, main, upper — plus a garage and some yard worth watching. Roughly six access points to cover it properly, thirteen cameras inside and out, a doorbell, and chimes so someone actually hears it on the third floor.

This is a serious residential build. It’s where two things start to matter that don’t matter on a small house: the recorder’s real capacity, and how far your cables have to run.

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The build

Qty	Item	All-in each	Total
1	UDM-Pro-Max — gateway + camera recorder, 2 drive bays	$926	$926
2	USW-Pro-24-PoE — 24-port PoE switch, 400W each	$1,025	$2,050
2	U7 Pro — ceiling access points	$257	$514
2	U7 Pro Wall — wall-mount access points	$290	$580
1	U7 Lite — small-room access point	$151	$151
1	U7 Pro Outdoor — exterior coverage	$431	$431
11	G6 Turret — 4K cameras	$307	$3,377
2	G6 Dome — 4K vandal-resistant cameras	$431	$862
1	Doorbell Lite — PoE video doorbell	$151	$151
2	PoE Smart Chime	$105	$210
1	UPS-2U — rack UPS (see note)	$431	$431
	Hardware total (indicative CAD, all-in)		$9,683

Not included: drives (2× 3.5″ CMR), rack, cable, mounts, labour. Priced separately.

Note: UPS-2U is Sold Out as of 2026-07-16 with no like-for-like substitute. We’d confirm stock or propose an alternative before quoting.

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Why each choice

UDM-Pro-Max — and why not the UDM-Pro

This is the decision the whole design turns on.

	UDM-Pro ($588)	UDM-Pro-Max ($926)
4K cameras	8	15
Drive bays	1	2
Throughput	3.5 Gbps	5 Gbps
Devices	100+	200+

You have 13 cameras. The UDM-Pro records 8.

Every current UniFi camera is 4K, so the 4K column is the only column that matters. The $338 saving on a UDM-Pro buys a recorder that can’t record five of your cameras. There’s no clever way around it — you’d be adding a $430 UNVR to fix a $338 saving, and running two recorders in one house for no reason.

The second drive bay is the other half of the argument: 13 cameras is a lot of footage, and it means your recordings survive a drive failure.

At 13 of 15 slots, you’re near the top of this gateway. That’s honest, and it’s on the expansion path below.

Two switches — and the reason is cable length, not ports

Here’s the part people get wrong.

26 PoE devices. A single USW-Pro-48-PoE would have the ports and the watts. On paper it’s the obvious answer, and it’s the wrong one.

The driver is cable run length, not port count.

Ethernet’s limit is 100 metres per run — and in a three-storey house, a home-run from a third-floor corner camera down to a basement rack is a genuinely long cable. Not always over 100m, but long enough that you’re spending real money on cable and real hours pulling it, and every metre is a metre of signal degradation and a metre of something to go wrong.

So: two switches, positioned near the devices they power. One in the basement rack, one upstairs. Short runs from each switch to its cameras and APs. One uplink between them.

What that buys:

• Shorter runs — less cable, less labour, better margins on signal.
• Powered ports near the devices — the switch is close to what it feeds.
• Simpler troubleshooting — a floor’s problems are one switch’s problems.
• Fault isolation — a switch failure takes a floor, not a house.

Two 24-port switches ($2,050) versus one 48-port: almost the same money, minus a very large pile of cable and the labour to pull it. On a three-storey house the two-switch answer usually wins on total installed cost, not just on elegance.

This isn’t a rule, it’s a calculation. A compact two-storey home with a central rack is often one switch. Run length decides, every time.

The rest

Six APs, four different models. U7 Pro on ceilings where there’s an attic or joist space. U7 Pro Wall where there isn’t — a wall plate instead of a ceiling cut. U7 Lite ($151) for a small room that needs coverage, not capacity. U7 Pro Outdoor (IP67) for the yard. Buying six identical APs would mean paying for capability in rooms that don’t need it, and fighting the mounting in rooms that can’t take it.

11 Turrets + 2 Domes. The Turret is the default. The Dome is IK10 impact-rated versus the Turret’s IK04 — that’s for anywhere reachable from the ground, where a camera might get hit.

Doorbell + 2 chimes. A doorbell nobody hears on the third floor is a doorbell nobody hears.

UPS. 13 cameras and a two-drive recorder means the gateway shuts down cleanly rather than yanking power off spinning disks. (Graceful Shutdown requires UniFi OS 4.4.3 or newer.)

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Power check

Devices	Draw
11× G6 Turret @ 12.5W	137.5W
2× G6 Dome @ 9.25W	18.5W
2× U7 Pro @ 21W + 2× U7 Pro Wall @ 22W	86W
1× U7 Lite @ 13W + 1× U7 Pro Outdoor @ 21W	34W
Doorbell 8W + 2× chime 3W	14W
Total	~290W

Split across two 400W switches (800W total): about 36% loaded. That’s not waste — that’s the room to add cameras without buying switches.

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What breaks if you undersize

UDM-Pro instead of UDM-Pro-Max. Five cameras don’t record. Covered above. This is the expensive one.

One switch instead of two. You don’t lose function — you lose money, in cable and labour, and you accept long runs from the top floor to the basement. On this house the two-switch build is usually cheaper installed.

A USW-Ultra-210W as the second switch ($307 vs $1,025). Tempting. Two problems: 202W only with its bundled adapter (16W if you feed it from PoE+), and 7 PoE ports — you have 26 devices. It’s a fine third switch for a loft or a garage. It is not a floor switch.

Skipping the outdoor AP. Indoor APs are not weatherproof. The U7 Pro Outdoor is IP67. This isn’t a preference.

One chime. See above. It’s $105.

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The expansion path

Want	Do	Cost
Cameras 14–15	Two slots left on the recorder. Ports and watts are already there.	camera only
Camera 16+	You’re at the UDM-Pro-Max’s 4K ceiling. Add a UNVR ($430) as a second recorder.	$430+
A remote outbuilding	USW-Ultra-210W out there — this is exactly what it’s for.	$307
Controlled doors	Door hub + reader. Note: hubs need PoE++. The USW-Pro-24-PoE has 8 PoE++ ports; the Ultra has none.	see Design 5
Gate or garage	UA-Hub-Gate + opener integration.	see Design 9
10G to a workstation	Both switches have 2× SFP+ uplinks already.	module only
Longer retention	Bigger drives. Both bays are there.	drives only

The ceilings, in the order you’ll hit them: recorder slots (15× 4K) → PoE ports → watts (you’re at 36%). The recorder runs out first, and a UNVR is the answer when it does. Everything else in this build has years of room.

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Prices indicative CAD, all-in, hardware at cost, labour separate. Ubiquiti reprices without notice; lead time ~7–10 days. Verified against ca.store.ui.com and techspecs.ui.com 2026-07-16.