Earlier today Ubiquiti announced that the long standing EA hardware program would be coming to an end, temporarily it seems. According to an official community post, Ubiquiti has now paused the Early Access Hardware Program and something new will be announced at a later date. For a number of years now, the company has offered customers to purchase early hardware from the EA Store, with the understanding that feedback would be given. However, while this reason wasn’t given, many people have been purchasing EA hardware to sell on eBay and sometimes, actually deploy the hardware in production.
“Since external feedback for upcoming products is still an important part of our development process, we will be reevaluating our approach to pre-release hardware evaluations in order to better align with our quality goals and create improved collaboration between UI and our community. This program will be announced at a later date.”
Ubiquiti
Of course, the EA hardware program was designed to allow Ubiquiti fans to purchase early hardware and help shape future products. Installing EA hardware in production and then complaining about it not working, wasn’t giving Ubiquiti feedback and only causing stress on support staff.
