You don’t have to learn any of this. That’s the entire point of this page.

You don’t have to read the rest of this wiki.

Every other page here teaches you how to choose a gateway, a camera, a switch, a door reader. It’s all true and it’s all useful. But if you’re the sort of person who would rather not spend three evenings learning what a VLAN is, you can hand the whole thing to AVNFi instead. That’s a real option, and for a lot of people it’s the right one.

That’s the offer. The rest of this page is just the detail.

1. The part people ask about first

AVNFi adds no markup to hardware. The equipment on your quote is what the equipment costs: Ubiquiti’s price plus Ubiquiti’s own checkout surcharge, and nothing on top. No margin, no handling fee, no percentage.

AVNFi charges for design, configuration and labour. That’s the whole business.

Which means the person choosing your equipment doesn’t make more money by choosing more equipment. When a design says “you don’t need that, buy the cheaper one”, that costs AVNFi nothing. That’s deliberate. See Pricing for the full breakdown.

2. Three doors

There are three ways to work with AVNFi. They’re a genuine menu, not a ladder. Pick the one that fits how you want to spend your time.

Door 1: Design only

You pay the design fee. You get the plan. You take it and do the rest yourself.

Buy the gear wherever you like, pull your own cable, terminate your own ends, set it up yourself. The design is yours: it’s a real deliverable, not a sales document with a hook in it.

No pressure and no hard feelings. Some people genuinely enjoy this part, and AVNFi isn’t going to try to talk them out of it. If you want to build your own network, you should build your own network. You’ll just be building it from a plan that’s already been checked.

Door 2: Design + remote configuration

You install it. AVNFi configures it.

You do the physical work: mounting, cable, terminating your own ends. When it’s all in and powered up, AVNFi configures the network properly, remotely. Networks, firewall rules, Wi-Fi, cameras, users, the lot.

This is the middle road, and it suits people who are happy with a drill but don’t want to learn a controller.

The door stays open. If you go this route and something changes in a year (you’ve added cameras, you’ve moved a wall, something’s misbehaving), call back. There’s no expiry on the relationship.

Door 3: Design + professional installation

You don’t touch it.

Designed, installed, configured, tested, documented. You get a working system and a walkthrough, and that’s the extent of your involvement.

Done right the first time.

This is the door for the customer who values their time and wants to buy it back. If that’s you, this page is the only one on the wiki you needed.

3. What a design actually includes

A design is a document, and it contains:

  • The plan: what the system is, drawn against your actual building.
  • Device selection: exactly which gateway, which cameras, which switch, which access points. Named, with the reasoning.
  • Placement: where each device goes and why it goes there. Camera angles, access point positions, where the rack lives.
  • Bill of materials: every part, down to the mounts and the cable. Priced.
  • Cable routes: where each run goes, and how long it is.

That’s the deliverable. It’s the same document whichever of the three doors you pick; the only difference is who acts on it.

4. What a professional install includes

  • Cabling: pulled, routed and run properly.
  • Termination: every end done and tested.
  • Mounting: devices physically installed, level, and where the design says.
  • Configuration: the whole system set up: networks, Wi-Fi, firewall, cameras, doors, users.
  • Testing: every device confirmed working before anyone leaves.
  • Labelling: every cable and every port marked, so the next person isn’t guessing.
  • As-built documentation: what was actually installed, where it is, and how it’s configured. Yours to keep.

The labelling and the documentation are the parts people don’t think to ask for and are most grateful for in year three.

5. Remote configuration: how that works

UniFi is remotely configurable, and AVNFi uses that heavily.

The controller lives on your gateway, in your building. Once it’s online, AVNFi can reach it and do the setup without a van. That’s true whether AVNFi installed the hardware or you did.

It’s also how support works afterwards. Something needs changing, a camera needs re-pointing in software, a new person needs door access; that’s a phone call, not a site visit.

6. What it costs

Hardware is at cost. Always. That number is Ubiquiti’s, not AVNFi’s.

Design and labour are quoted per project, because they honestly depend on the building. A four-camera bungalow and a warehouse with a gate are not the same job, and a rate card that pretended otherwise would be lying to one of them.

So: no numbers on this page. Describe the building, describe what you want it to do, and you’ll get a quote with the hardware and the work on separate lines. Nothing blended, nothing buried.

7. Which door is yours

If this sounds like youDoor
“I like this stuff. I just want to know I’ve bought the right thing.”Design only. Take the plan and go.
“I can run cable. I don’t want to learn the software.”Design + remote configuration.
“I don’t want to think about it at all.”Design + professional installation.
“I’m not sure UniFi is even right for me.”Read When UniFi Is the Wrong Answer first. That conversation is free.

None of these is the wrong answer, and nobody gets treated differently for picking a cheaper one. The DIY customer and the full-install customer get the same design and the same honesty. The only thing that changes is who holds the drill.

Related

Describe your building and what you want it to do. That’s the whole starting point. AVNFi will tell you what it takes, and which door makes sense for you.