New Smart Hub Pro and Smart Wifi with 1.6Gbps - Slow Speeds

[SwanseaWifi7]

Just had the new Smart Hub Pro and Smart Wifi with 1.6Gbps installed. Installer tested the connection and confirmed it was at full speed. 

In practice, speeds are relatively slow and do not meet the guaranteed minium speed of 1.3Gbps. I disabled the slower 2.4Ghz band to make sure devices were only connecting to the faster 5Ghz band. This helped increase speeds a little bit. 

MacBook Pro M1 Max with Wifi 6 (5Ghz) is getting low 600's to high 700's.

iPhone 13 Pro Max with Wifi 6 (5Ghz) is also getting low 600's to high 700's.

Interestingly, Windows 11 PC with ethernet cable into the Smart Wifi extender is getting close to 1Gbps, so basically maxing out that connection.

This means the wireless connection between the Smart Hub Pro and the Smart Wifi extender is at least 1Gbps, so not sure why the wireless connections with my other devices are so much slower - Wifi 6 (5Ghz) is capable of 1.3Gbps after all and only getting half of that in ideal conditions (right next to router, no other devices using bandwidth etc.)

Any suggestions? 

As a side note, I'm getting a Wifi 6E (6Ghz) adapter for my Windows 11 PC (I've not seen any Wifi 7 adapters) so it will be interesting to see if I can achieve 1.6Gbps with that. 

Cheers

[Colesey]

@TuckerUK 

Yep I have that setting set to automatic. But in the hub settings nothing shows connected on the 6Ghz channel and in the WiFi controls on the app it says 5Ghz on connection type.

[TuckerUK]

Gotta be a EE hub setting then, as it’s showing up on my TP Link system through the app. 

 

 

[bobpullen]

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@Colesey wrote:

Update: still can’t seem to get my 15 Pro Max to connect to use 6Ghz. As mentioned earlier I’m still getting close to max speed on 5Ghz which is obviously fine but can’t seem to understand why I can’t get it to connect.

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Did you try any of the other suggestions in my post?

[Colesey]

@bobpullen 

Yes didn’t work unfortunately.

Is there a WiFi app that’ll tell me what band I’m connected to??

[SwanseaWifi7]

It's the hub. I had to turn off the 2.4GHz band because it wasn't smart enough to connect my devices to the faster 5GHz band. It's probably not smart enough to connect your iPhone to the faster 6GHz band either. 

[SwanseaWifi7]

The hub manager > advanced settings > wifi extenders will show your device connections and what band they are connected at. 

[JimM11]

@SwanseaWifi7 Google docs link if you need it for reference.

wifispeeds - Google Sheets

[bobpullen]

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@SwanseaWifi7 wrote:

It's the hub. I had to turn off the 2.4GHz band because it wasn't smart enough to connect my devices to the faster 5GHz band. It's probably not smart enough to connect your iPhone to the faster 6GHz band either. 

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Takes two to tango 😉

What I mean by that, is that a good chunk of (if not most of) the logic resides on the connecting device, it's not all the access point's responsibiliity.

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@Colesey wrote:

Is there a WiFi app that’ll tell me what band I’m connected to??

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iOS is notoriously restrictive in this regard. Most apps that would do this on Android are massively dumbed down on iOS. It is possible to install an iOS profile that gives you more Wi-Fi insight but it's a bit of a hassle. See here.

[Colesey]

@bobpullen 

Bizarrely when I disconnect my phone from WiFi, my phone then shows under 6ghz connected devices in the network device list in the hub settings and then disappears when I connect back to the WiFi and refresh the page.

i also get much higher speeds when I set WiFi 6e mode to off.

[SwanseaWifi7 · Accepted solution]

SOLUTION

After loads of headaches I have finally solved all of the issues. Many thanks to all the contributors that gave me the info to test for solutions. 

Devices capable of 5Ghz were connecting to 2.4GHz by default. Disabled the main 2.4GHz band and enabled the compatibility 2.4GHz band under a separate SSID so that legacy devices could still connect. 5GHz (80MHz) devices are now close to saturating the available bandwidth (1.2Gbps) hovering around 1Gbps most of the time. Great stuff. 

My PC had a Wifi 6E adapter which allowed me to connect to the 6GHz band. However,  it was only giving me speeds of 400Mbps on 6GHz and 5GHz was faster at 1.2Gbps. Furthermore, it turned out it was only capable of 80MHz channel width for 6GHz and therefore limited to a 1201Mbps link speed i.e. theoretically no faster than 5GHz and largely a waste of money in terms of making the most of my 1.6Gbps connection.

I purchased a Wifi 6E adapter with a 160MHz channel width at 6GHz and a link speed of 2402Mbps (enough to saturate my max broadband speed of 1.6Gbps). However, again it was only giving me speeds of 400Mbps on 6GHz and 5GHz was still faster at 1.2Gbps! 

It turns out the Smart Wifi Pro extender was causing some sort of interference or other undiagnosed issues. Switching it off basically solved all of my 6GHz headaches. 

I now get speeds proportional to the signal strength i.e. when the signal is good I register speeds that are quicker than my 5GHz devices around 1.5Gbps and up to 2Gbps in some test (not sure how this is possible if my connection is only 1.6Gbps but will take it). The 6GHz signal does look more fragile than 5GHz, and I get closer to 5GHz speeds when signal drops, but moving the adapter cradle around my desk/room I can find a sweet spot. 

Hopefully this can be put to bed and helps other people in similar situations in the future!