Ubiquiti Showed Up to NAB With Four Boxes Nobody Was Allowed to Touch
NAB 2026 in Las Vegas is supposed to be a broadcast trade show. Cameras, lights, codecs, color grading. So when Ubiquiti rolled into the Las Vegas Convention Center with a glass case full of unannounced UniFi rackmount gear, the broadcast crowd shrugged and the homelab crowd lost their minds. Four prototypes, no pricing, no firm release window, no spec sheets — just hardware behind plexiglass and a few engineers willing to point at port banks and nod knowingly.
The lineup: the UniFi Dream Machine **Beast**, the Enterprise Fortress Gateway **Core**, the Enterprise **100G** switch, and the Enterprise **S** PoE+++ access switch. If even half of what NAS Compares photographed at the booth makes it to retail, Ubiquiti just shifted the floor on what a prosumer / SMB / serious homelab network actually looks like in 2026.
Let's get into it, because I've already started rearranging my rack in my head.
UDM Beast: The All-in-One That Finally Has a Spine
The Dream Machine line has always had a problem: it's an all-in-one, and all-in-ones compromise. The UDM Pro Max is great, but its 10GbE uplinks feel quaint the second you start moving real video or running NVMe-backed shared storage. The Beast looks like Ubiquiti finally got tired of that ceiling.
The observed port layout is the part that made me put my coffee down:
- **2× 100GbE QSFP28** uplink/SFP cages - **25GbE SFP28** ports for storage / inter-switch links - **10GBASE-T copper** for the standard prosumer crowd - **Dual 3.5" SATA bays** for integrated NVR storage - Full UniFi application stack onboard (Network, Protect, Access, Talk)
A cloud gateway with 100G uplinks and integrated 3.5" drive bays is *the* form factor I've been begging for. Right now if you want UniFi Protect with serious capacity you're either stuffing drives into a UNVR Pro or running a separate UNAS Pro. The Beast collapses gateway, IDS/IPS, switch, NVR, and probably a Talk PBX into one 1U or 2U chassis. That is not a marginal product. That is a category killer for anyone running a 12+ camera deployment.
The "25G Cloud Gateway" framing in the leaked product blurb is also telling. Ubiquiti's current top-of-the-line gateway, the Enterprise Fortress Gateway, tops out around **17.5 Gbps of IDS/IPS throughput**. The Beast is being positioned a tier above that. If it actually delivers 25 Gbps of inline inspection, that's enterprise-class threat detection in a chassis a small business — or a ridiculous homelabber — can actually buy.
Enterprise Fortress Gateway Core: The Real Spine
If the Beast is the prosumer flagship, the **Fortress Gateway Core** is what Ubiquiti shows the people writing actual checks for actual buildings. The Core variant of the EFG looks like a deliberate move into territory Ubiquiti hasn't really fought in: high-throughput L3 routing with **100GbE QSFP28**, a wall of 25G SFP28 ports, and 10G copper for legacy. This is a spine router, not a gateway in the SOHO sense.
The existing EFG already does 17.5 Gbps with full DPI on. The Core's job is to scale that past 25, probably past 40 Gbps inspected, with port density that lets you collapse what used to be a Cisco/Juniper-and-firewall sandwich into one UniFi-managed device. For multi-site campuses, ISP-grade homelabs (yes, those exist, I see you on r/homelab), and SMBs who finally got tired of paying for Meraki licensing, this is the box.
What I want to know: does the Core support BGP and OSPF properly this time, or are we still stuck with UniFi's historically weak dynamic routing story? Because 100GbE without ECMP and proper route reflectors is just expensive copper.
Enterprise 100G: 48× 25G + 6× 100G Leaf-Spine Material
The Enterprise 100G switch is the one that makes me look at my rack and start doing math I cannot afford. The configuration spotted at the booth — **48 ports of 25GbE access, 6 ports of 100GbE uplink** — is a textbook leaf switch in a leaf-spine topology. This is data center hardware, full stop. The fact that Ubiquiti is shipping it under the UniFi banner with the same controller story as my $99 Flex Mini is genuinely wild.
For context: a comparable Arista 7050X3 leaf with similar port counts runs $15,000+. Even if Ubiquiti charges $4,000-$6,000 for this thing — and they will, because the EFG launched at $2,000+ — it puts proper 25G/100G spine architecture in reach of organizations that currently can't justify it. NVMe-over-Fabric homelabs, GPU compute clusters, the kind of self-hosting setup where you've already decided you're never paying AWS another dollar — those are the buyers.
Enterprise S: PoE+++ For The AP Apocalypse
The **Enterprise S** is the access switch counterpart, and the spec that grabbed me is "PoE+++" across a high density of 2.5G and 10G copper ports, with **25G uplinks** to the spine. PoE+++ — IEEE 802.3bt Type 4 — pushes up to **90W per port**. Stack 24 ports of that and you're looking at a switch that needs to deliver well over a kilowatt of pure PoE budget.
Why does that matter? Because Wi-Fi 7 access points are power hogs. The U7 Pro Max and U7 Enterprise both want PoE++ minimum, and the next-gen Wi-Fi 8 APs ASUS and Broadcom were demoing at CES 2026 are going to want even more. Add PoE-powered cameras, door access readers, IP phones, and you run out of power budget on a UniFi Pro Max 24 PoE in about ninety seconds. The Enterprise S is the answer to that — and the 25G uplinks mean your AP layer doesn't bottleneck back to a 10G aggregation switch the moment three clients start streaming.
The Caveat: None of This Is Actually Shipping
Here's where I have to put the brakes on. **None** of these four devices have official spec sheets, pricing, firmware, or release dates. Ubiquiti's own community forum has a thread about "the BEAST" that's basically people staring at booth photos. The NAB showcase was a teaser, not a launch. Ubiquiti has historically had a *creative* relationship with shipping windows — the original EFG was teased for nearly a year before it actually became orderable — so don't sell your existing UDM Pro yet.
My bet: the UDM Beast and Enterprise S are the closest to launch and will probably show up on the store in Q3 2026. The Fortress Gateway Core and Enterprise 100G are bigger, more complex, and probably need another silicon revision before they're customer-ready. Realistic ETA on those: Q1 2027.
What Homelabbers Should Actually Do
If you're running a UDM Pro or UDM SE and the network is fine — *do nothing*. The Beast is not for you. Wait for it to ship, wait for the inevitable v1 firmware bugs to get sorted, then buy a v2. That's the UniFi playbook and it has not changed.
If you've been holding off on a 10G upgrade because you knew 25G was coming — congratulations, your patience is about to pay off. The Enterprise S and the inevitable Pro Max 25G PoE switches mean 25GbE access in the homelab is going to become legitimately affordable in the next 12 months. SFP28 DACs are already under $40. The economics finally work.
If you're still on a Dream Router or a UDR7 and considering an upgrade path — skip the UDM Pro Max. The Beast (or whatever they actually call it at launch) is going to obsolete it fast. Either go cheap and bridge with a UCG Max for now, or hold cash and wait six months.
The rack is about to get heavier. I, for one, welcome our new 100G overlords.
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