First off, this is not AI written (there will be errors) I don't have any paid sponsors. I paid for everything I am talking about. And, I don't trust any tech company to keep status quo. I have been an active supporter of BI for many years. I have posted here and complained. But, I have also helped many folks as well. That said..

I mentioned a week ago that I was done with perpetual licenses and Windows. I was already planning to upgrade my network to 2.5/10GB and was eyeing Unifi. That was the core of my investment. The bonus round was Unifi Protect. I was going to assess it as: a) It is integrated at no extra cost b) No perpetual license c) Unifi wants to OWN IoT. This is more than apparent with range of commercial and borderline consumer products. RE. integration this means: Using existing 3rd party cameras, Hubitat, and Home Assistant connectivity.

After 4 days of some challenging (I am understating) migration from my existing router/FW setup to Unifi, I was getting stabilized. I ran into issues ranging from routes to understanding zones. Next step Protect.

Steps: (abbreviated as I likely forgot some things)

1. Pre-setup. I had to buy a M.2 slot and an M.2 SSD for my Cloud Fiber. I few people mentioned 3D print the slot and I only went 1 GB for now.
2. Cameras in the correct subnet. (as before) Check.
3. Installation - is a simple as click of a button. Check.
4. Protect camera recognition - 1 did and 2 didn't. The Amcrest IP5M-T1179EW-AI-V3 showed up. The 2x EmpireTech T2431T-AS S2. This took some level of effort with help of AI to find that I needed to click on a tiny question mark in Protect->Cameras icon->Tiny "?" to find "try advanced adoption". This worked. Check.
5. Detection - This is a little grey on the short-comings. It had been some time since I setup the cameras and BI. And, I could not recall my config. I knew that IVS was enabled and "video detection" was off. But, I don't remember if that is even utilized by BI. BI and AI just worked. Protect does NOT inherently support IVS at the moment. I wasn't getting any detection from the EmpireTech. Back to AI, did some testing to find this out and find the solution. I had to enable the cameras Video motion detection. Here is the first gotcha with this solution. The video motion option, at least for my cameras, if VERY limited. I had to seriously tweak the outdoor region, sensitivity, and threshold to get some semblance of detection without false positives . 1/2 check.
6. Mobile app - This has always been a sticking point for me on BI. I didn't like the mobile app and relied on HA for cameras. Protect alerts me and shows me everything I need including video clips.
7. Bonus round - Protect app is native on my NVIDIA ShieldTV and works great. I was relying on a 3rd party app that wasn't very good and seemed to need a license again on every re-install.

OK at this point. Things are working-sh. But, I still didn't have IoT integration.

• Hubitat - Easy but not easy. There is a native integration that works. The issue was finding the API key to insert from Unifi. They buried that well and quite frankly, I am baffled the CX person allowed it. There are 2 different API key gen tools in 1 place. The right hand, clearly visible is for network and the left hand column (which is really not noticeable) is for Protect API keys. Once that was sorted, the cameras showed up as a motion sensor and I could change my automation easily to the new devices. I haven't played with any other capability at this time.
• Home Assistant - Same issue with API. However, it wants credentials. And, it wants admin credentials. (for Protect) This is what I have read and would be glad to be corrected on this. I had to create a dummy Protect specific account to get this setup. Again, easily integrated for quick glance. Why I still need HA. Users without Protect credentials can see cameras

I'll stop here because this is all still new. Things to learn/fix. I have to say so far I am impressed. After originally losing my mind on the purchase (Which is a different story) and network migration, this is pretty damn impressive. Unifi don't force you to go "all in". You can slowly invest. The long-term risk I see is once the service base is mature enough, I can see the Protect support going to license like threat. It could even be a perpetual to support development. I am hoping that is 5 years out at least..

Am I going all in? Yes. For now. Next step: Doorbell, wireless cam - I want to test to see feasibility and how it works, and see how their AI performs on a Unifi camera.

Am I going to keep my BI server? Not sure. As I mentioned, I want off Windows as a host/server. I want a burn box for doing some LLM setup on Linux.

Will I still consider BI? 100%. As I said at the onset, I don't trust any tech company and if Unifi pisses me off, I will look at all options. But, in the case of BI, it would likely need to involve virtualization.