Ubiquiti pushed UniFi Protect 7.3 (application version 7.3.70) at the start of October, and the blog post explaining it went up a few days later. Three of the changes actually matter to the people we install for: longer recording history on the drive you already own, remote cameras that can record back to a central NVR, and faster access to old footage from the main dashboard.
Here is the plain-language version, plus what we would and would not rush into.
Longer history without buying a bigger drive
The headline change is tiered retention. You pick how long you want footage kept at full quality, and Protect automatically keeps older footage at a lower quality instead of deleting it. Ubiquiti's release notes credit Super Encoding across the camera fleet with up to 50% better storage efficiency.
In practice that means a system that currently holds about three weeks might hold a month and a half, with the most recent stretch untouched and the older stretch softer.
The catch is the word "softer". Lower-quality footage is still useful for answering "was anyone in the yard on the 14th", and much less useful for reading a plate or recognizing a face you have never seen before. So the full-quality window needs to be long enough to cover how long it realistically takes you to notice something and pull the clip. For a house, a week or two is usually fine. For a shop or a rental cottage where nobody looks until a tenant complains, we push that window out further, often the full 30 days, and let 7.3 stretch the archive behind it.
If you have never worked out what your system actually holds, our guide to NVR storage math is the place to start. Run those numbers first, then decide whether 7.3 solves your problem or whether you still need a bigger drive.
Remote cameras can record to the NVR you already have
The second change is Teleport for remote cameras. Until now, a camera at a second property generally meant a second console at that property: another gateway or NVR, another thing to maintain, another box in a cupboard. With 7.3, a camera at a remote site can record directly to the Cloud Gateway or NVR you already run at the main site.
For our area this is the interesting one. A lot of our customers have a house in town and something else they care about: a shop, a barn, a trailer at the lake, a second storefront. Being able to put one or two cameras on a remote property and have them land in the same timeline as everything else is a real saving, both in hardware and in the number of systems that need updating.
Two things to check before you get excited. First, upload speed at the remote site. Camera footage travels upstream, and upstream is exactly what rural internet is worst at. A site on fixed wireless or a slow DSL line may only comfortably carry one camera, not four. Second, the remote site still needs a reliable connection, because when the link drops the footage stops arriving. We size this per site rather than guessing, and we will tell you honestly when a local recorder is still the better answer.
If you are already running two separate systems, our post on one UniFi dashboard for two locations covers how the pieces fit together.
Time Machine on the dashboard
Protect 7.3 also brings Time Machine to the video wall, so you can scrub backwards from the live view instead of leaving it and opening the archive. Small change, but it is the one people notice day to day, because reviewing yesterday afternoon now takes one click instead of four. The same idea arrived in UniFi Network a release earlier.
There is also a redesigned sensor manager, with drag-and-drop for assigning known people to identifications, and a new Shopify app for retail sites.
Should you update right away?
No. Not on day one.
We hold our managed clients back on major Protect releases for a couple of weeks and watch the community threads first, because the versions that follow a .70 release usually fix something. Cameras and door access are the last places you want to find a bug yourself. Our approach to this is written up in how we handle UniFi updates, and it is part of what UniFi managed services covers: we run the update outside your hours, check every camera comes back, and roll back if it does not. Home Care is $49 a month, and business Care plans start at $325 a month.
If you manage your own system, at least take a backup, update when you have an hour spare, and check each camera streams and records afterwards.
What we would recommend
If your complaint about your cameras is "it only keeps two weeks", update to 7.3 and set a tiered retention policy before you spend anything on hardware. There is a decent chance that fixes it for free.
If you have been putting off cameras at the shop or the barn because a second recorder felt like overkill, this release changes the math, and it is worth a conversation. We would look at the upload speed there first.
And if your system has grown by accident over several years, a network and camera audit is $495 and gets you a written picture of what you have, what it holds, and what is worth changing. We serve Norfolk, Oxford, Brant and Haldimand counties plus the Hamilton to Oakville side; see areas we cover for details. Visits past our Norfolk home zone carry a visit minimum of $395 (31 to 60 minutes out) or $595 (over an hour out), and the day's work counts toward it. Everything is quoted in writing before we start.
Happy to look at your setup and tell you whether 7.3 helps. Get in touch.
Sources
- Introducing Protect 7.3, Ubiquiti blog
- UniFi Protect Application 7.3.70 release notes
- Ubiquiti: What's New
Cabling, networks, cameras, access control, smart homes, hosting and software for homes and small business across Southwestern Ontario. Twenty-plus years in the trade, and we still answer the phone.