Not so Wifi Pro

[Soultrader67]

First off the Smart Hub Pro with Wifi 7, is rock solid and fast.

But here's the rub: for the poor souls who believe the extenders supplied with the Smart Hub Pro will provide coverage around anything other than a small, terraced, or semi-detached house, they will not.

If there is a line of sight or they are adjacent through a wooden floor, then you have a chance. If you live in an unusually shaped house with block or stone walls, the signal dies very quickly, and you'll find the app and web interface are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. If you can backhaul with Ethernet, you have a slim chance of establishing a decent mesh. I tried for ten days to make mine hold the signal by adjusting the position, but the extenders couldn't cope and refused to daisy chain.

So, I returned the extenders to EE, plugged in my seven-year-old Orbi mesh, set it to pass-through mode, and whoosh—it works.

At the furthest point of my house, I get between 300 and 400mb—half of the available speed—but it's a solid connection and more than enough for my needs.

[JimM11]

@Soultrader67 It's a needs must and one has to do whatever it takes to get the system working, wi-fi 7 is good and fast until it hits the brick wall, know what i mean!!!

[bobpullen]

Likely something to do with the wireless backhaul configuration of the Pro versus the Orbi. I'd guess the Orbi is using 5GHz (possibly a combination of 2.4GHz and 5GHz), whereas the Pro is exclusively 6GHz.

The higher the frequency, the faster things can go, but the more susceptible the signal is to obstructions.

In contrast, I don't live in a small terraced or semi-detached house (it's a mid-sized 4 bedroom detached) and a single extender sees decent coverage/speed throughout the house and into the garden. It's built using favourable materials mind you so I've no stone to contend with. I probably don't even need the extender to be honest.

[XRaySpeX]

Yes, I manage with no extenders in a 4-bed detached 🙂 & only on WiFi5.