In this post I’m going to outline the steps necessary to upgrade your UniFi network switch. Specifically I’m upgrading from a UniFi Switch 8 60W (US-8-60W) to a UniFi Switch Lite 16 PoE (USW-Lite-16-PoE-EU), but these steps are valid for any home networking upgrade.
My main goal was to increase the number of ports available from 8 to 16 and also increase the number of POE (power over ethernet ports) from 4 to 8.
If you are new to POE let me explain, with POE you can connect a device with ethernet cable without power! In fact, the data and power travels over one cable, which means that you don’t need power at the location of the device, very convenient for IP cameras located on the wall or ceiling.
To upgrade a UniFi switch you will need to take a backup and screenshots of the current setup, plan for any outages, plug in the power and ethernet (uplink port 15 on the Unifi Switch Lite 16 port), adopt the switch via the UniFi controller, upgrade the device if there is one available. Do all of the configuration at your desk, then unplug the old device and reconnect everything back. Then test that all the devices are still working after the swap.
You can find my networking device here:
You can follow my YouTube video to have a look at how the device looks.
Planning
Now go to your UniFi controller and take screenshots / copy & paste information into the sheet.
I have a planning sheet that you can download here for free to follow with the installation.
This will add you to my mailing list where I might send you the odd email, you can unsubscribe at any time!
Think carefully about the device that will no longer be able to access the network during the upgrade, even the computer that you are using to do the migration!
Adoption & Configuration
Connect the switch via an ethernet cable to the Uplink port (in my example port 15) then connect power.
Go to your browser and login into your UniFi controller, I’m using a cloud key Gen2. You should see the device pending adoption.
Adopt the device and then refresh the page
Now, you should see a symbol on the top right hand side of the device, this means that an upgrade is due. Go ahead and do that now, give it a few minutes, do not unplug the device. Now refresh / login back again.
In terms of configuration, it is a good idea to rename the ports based on what devices will be connected to them, you can create VLANs and assign them too.
Upgrade
Once you have everything ready ensure you have a good amount of time and that you are happy with which devices are going offline during the upgrade.
Take a photo of the current situation and then unplug everything and remove the old device. Now put the new device in place, power it and connect an ethernet cable from your router to port 15 (uplink).
Now connect all POE devices to ports 1 to 8 (in any order), because they are auto-sensing ports 802.3af ports they will give the necessary power to the device. Go and test that these device are working now, give it a couple of minutes to boot up properly.
Now connect the non POE devices to ports 9 to 16 (15 excluded), and test that they can access the network.
Keep your old device handy just in case you need it for a while!
I’ll leave you with a playlist with more networking information
