Buying a Smart Hub Pro

[Chasloyal]

So we currently have a Smart Hub Plus which is fine to be fair but as we've got a few WiFi 7 compatible devices in the household now I've decided that I'm going to buy a Smart Hub Pro on the grey market as such.

I fully understand EE won't give me any product support with the router were I to need any because I've not got it from them, so my question is about firmware updates.

I'm no expert on such things but I'm guessing our current Smart Hub Plus receives different firmware updates to what the Smart Hub Pro does.

So is anyone able to tell me if the network/servers will pick up our router has changed and so the updates that come through  after that will be for the Pro rather than the Plus once I've hooked it up?

[Ewan15]

@Chasloyal Just to be clear grey market SH40J's (Smart Hub Pro's ) are exactly the same as the ones EE send out. The only difference is the software version or initial firmware, when I compared both boxes.

NB resetting the Router does not cause the current firmware to revert to a prior version.

[Ewan15 · Accepted solution]

@Chasloyal 

"So is anyone able to tell me if the network/servers will pick up our router has changed and so the updates that come through  after that will be for the Pro rather than the Plus once I've hooked it up?"

The answer is yes, EE systems will identify your Pro router and supply the correct firmware updates, despite the EE App saying you have a Smart Hub Plus connected (Which you don't).

There are two things going on here.

1) The actual EE router you have connected, which will receive the correct updates

2) Your EE Account which says you have a Plus Router and makes the EE App display images of it.

The two are not related to each other. Stick with it and you may in time get an offer to upgrade that effectively offsets the annual price increases by way of an EE supplied pro.

[Chasloyal]

Thank you so much geezer, your knowledge has been invaluable 👊🏻

Not had any problems at all, plugged her in and she was up 'n' running within a couple of minutes. Switching over the Ring Doorbell/chimes/spot cams and all our other devices went like a dream. Download speed about he same as the Plus, we're on FF 500, but upload is significantly quicker which seems strange.

One thing I've noticed about the Pro is it runs warm, really warm actually, do you know if that's the case with all of them or might I have a dud here?

[Huggons1]

My pro is still running on r3.8.24-R-1531355-PROD-1.

Have you checked your version to see if you have received the newer R3.8.26-R-1595999-PROD-1 version?

[Chasloyal]

Indeed I have mate... 

 

[Ewan15]

@Chasloyal "One thing I've noticed about the Pro is it runs warm, really warm actually, do you know if that's the case with all of them or might I have a dud here?"

Make sure your router is not in a cupboard, but in a well ventilated area. My router is on my desk and does not run hot, although warm air comes out of the vents at the top. Based on other things you have posted, such as it updating to the latest firmware, I would say it is working as it should.

Hope this helps.

[Chasloyal]

I think it must have been labouring through the firmware update and/or the set-up process in general when I posted that because it's much cooler now.

Being a bit of a gamer I'm rather OCD about stuff like that so it's sat on a small Ottoman that we bought purely to keep our routers ventilated and to be able to ping their radio waves about as unobstructed as possible.

We hardly live in a mansion and our gaff is a new build, so the walls are pretty thin too, but as the ONT is positioned in the front corner of the house the SH Pro, like our previous routers before it, has this perch all to itself....

 

[JimM11]

@Chasloyal Looks like you may also have a pre wired home with that Ethernet socket just in view behind the Router, and good to see you have a mountain of Ethernet connections also!

[Chasloyal]

I have no idea what that phone point is doing in that quad socket because it's a dummy that's never had anything behind it.

When we first moved here it was FTTC and the coppers came in to the kitchen which is round the other side of the house.

Alas when FTTP did become available Open Reach were only prepared to install the ONT at the nearest entry point in to the property which is where you see it in the pic.

The engineer even took the cover off that quad socket to see where the coppers to the phone point were coming from but there weren't none 🙄

[JimM11]

@Chasloyal Unlucky then, some off the new builds have Ethernet socket's all wired up and back to a central location, my sister's new build 2 years old now all wired back to the Utility cupboard, so stuck the EE Router in there, wired all the socket's up to patch cables, and Ethernet now in all her rooms, she just has to plug in wherever she want's and full speed on the Ethernet cable! Just depends on what the builders do!