EE Home hub might just be the worst router I've ever used

[couling]

Mostly posting this to vent my frustration...

I've been in IT a long time. I bought my first wifi router in 2004. It was okay, not great, wifi devices from the early 2000s were not great by modern standards. As time has gone on I stopped buying my own router because the one provided by various ISPs was usually "good enough". But now, 22 years later I recently upgraded to Full Fiber and switched to EE. I think the Fiber connection might be really good. But I can't really tell...

... because this EE Hub is the worst router I've ever experienced. I'm now looking at forking out another £100 because the one provided by EE isn't fit for purpose.

• It has randomly rebooted more than 10 times so far while I'm on the internet in the past two weeks. It's probably rebooted a lot more. 3 of them kicked me out of important work calls.
• Several times it's somehow reset some but not all of its settings resulting in the DHCP server handing out addresses that it wasn't supposed to and causing IP conflicts.
• It has problems routing traffic from the WiFi to wired to some wifi devices.. I've been having connectivity issues from my laptop to a gigabit wired device with pings spiking up to 1,600ms plus some packet loss. Yet this same device has consistent 2ms pings to another wired device. And I can ping the other device with a consistent 8-10ms ping from my laptop, no spikes, no packet loss. Likewise, my laptop can ping google with 11-17ms pings. So this is not my laptop wifi playing up.
• I strongly suspect I'm not getting the value for money out of the fiber connection because the Wifi does just seem slow. Certainly slower than I'd had on other Wifi 6 networks.

In minor, lesser gripes:

• It now forces HTTPs when you go to the admin page, but offers no mechanism to provide a certificate and is hard-coded to use a somewhat useless certificate for bthomehub.home
• The admin password treats short (low entropy) passwords as only a warning, but absolutely prohibits a long (high entropy) password without a number 🙃
• The rare times I need to configure it, UI is extraordinarily slow, slower even that the 8 year old bt home hub I was using previously.

[Pamac]

We have had nothing but problems since we  'upgraded' ,ha ha, to EE fast fibre with Smarthub 6.  We have air source heat pump and solar controlled by WiFi but regularly have problems with connections to WiFi. Very difficult to get technical help, all they want to do is sell you an upgrade. Customer service and satisfaction is rubbish.  In frustration have 'upgraded' again to have extenders, hopefully will work when they arrive but I'm not holding my breath. We didn't have these problems with old BT hub, wish we had never gone to EE. 

[JimM11]

@Pamac That is the trouble with going to a WiFi 6 EE Router like the Smarthub 6 Plus, you need to take a lot more care on the wireless WiFi side operation, Just stick your BT Smarthub2 back on the connection it works just as well as a router if that is the one you had! 

You may also need to consider the position of the Router, if it's the same place as your old BT one then you may not need to! Incase you need all linked below for your next adventure! DO THE Wired Ethernet setup and leave for a 24hr period before moving to the FINAL position!

https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/getting-started/setting-up-smart-wifi
https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/getting-started/setting-up-wifi-extender
https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/fix-problem/fix-problems-with-smart-wifi

[XRaySpeX]

@Pamac : Try setting up Compatible WiFi on the router under Advanced > Wireless Settings & connect your problematic 2.4 GHz devices to that.

[WishInevergotEE]

We have had the same problems since  switching from BT to EE full fibre with smart hub. Anyone considering, don’t do it. You will regret it. We previously could pick up WiFi in every room and even in the garden. With this hopeless EE smart hub it only works consistently in the same room. Even  in the next door room it will only sometimes work. 
I live in a 3 bedroom bungalow with solid walls. I cant imagine how useless this would be in a large traditionally built property. I have read that the problem is the way this new smart hub works. It can’t cope with solid walls. So in other words it’s not fit for purpose. EE did replace the hub but that made no difference and now they are only offering signal boosters at additional monthly fees. I can’t believe in this day and age they are allowed to get away with this. 
I would happily swap back to my supposedly slower BT supply and hub. 

[JimM11]

@WishInevergotEE Got nothing to do with the Full Fibre connection unless your Hub/Router got moved drastically when you went from Copper to Fibre. If it did then moving the hub back with a longer Ethernet cable may work and depending on which EE Hub you have as there are a few, so see the link below, the BT Smarthub2 version if you had that previous may just be way better in your home, 2nd hand ones are easy to get hold off. See the link to the current EE Ones.

https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/getting-started/compare-our-range-of-broadband-hubs

[Chris_B]

@WishInevergotEE  and yet I don’t have an issue with my smart hub 6 that’s in a location that’s not suitable as it’s below a fish tank.  It’s been on this location for just over two years now and no drop outs at all in this time.  So not fit for purpose is definitely not correct.  Oh and I have solid walls and have no issues with WiFi upstairs, it’s only weaker in my back bedroom but that’s understandable because it couldn’t be any further from the router.