Replacement WiFi7 for EE Smart Hub Pro and extenders

[tnj]

I have recently had installed the Busiest Home Bundle which is 1.6GB FTTP with a Smart Hub Pro and three WiFi extenders. The problem is that this is supposed to support up to 190 WiFi devices but it will not support more than about 30. EE have investigated and concluded that this is the case and nothing can be done other than new hardware or firmware changes, none of which are likely soon. They have offered to release me from my contract although that is not yet showing on my EE account.

At the moment I am getting by using my old BT SmartHub2 which I have used with up to eighty 2.5G WiFi devices.

However I want a WiFi7 mesh network in my home and I am looking for the best way to achieve this. I could go to another provider for a package, I could wait for EE to have one that works or I could buy a mesh system and use on my EE fibre although I am paying extra for the WiFi7 bundle that does not work.

When I look at buying WiFi7 mesh systems I am confused by some of the differences. If for example I look at Eero they do the Pro7 at £299 per unit and the Max7 at £599 per unit and I will probably need at least three units so this is getting expensive. Similar offerings such as the Netgear WiFi7 Orbi RBE973S costs £1,878 for a three unit bundle and the Asus Zen around £950 for two units. Is there much difference between the offerings some of which cost twice as much per unit? Can these act as standalone without my Smart Hub Pro?

Any thoughts?

[Huggons1]

The Smart hub pro hasn't received a firmware update since February 2025 and according to a source, should be receiving an update in the near future. What the update addresses, is anyone's guess. I have reported a bug to a tech contact within EE, so fingers crossed. 

Strange that the flagship Smart hub pro hasn't been receiving regular updates, given the large amount of updates the Smart hub plus has been receiving.

[tnj]

My hub recently updated from r2.64.6-R-1303886-PROD-1  to r2.64.7-R-1303938-PROD-1 but I could not detect any difference. My extenders have both of the above so two have not upgraded.

[Huggons1]

Firmware update received 7/02/2025
r2.64.7-R-1303938-PROD-1
App version: 2.34.2

This is currently the latest version 

[Timbo45]

@tnj 

How are you seeing that only 30 (or so) devices can be supported?

[tnj]

I have 76 WiFi devices connected to and working as expected on my old BT SmartHub2 and when I try and migrate them either one by one or in bulk to the EE Smart Hub Pro, I get significant problems. Some connect to WiFi but get no internet access some won't connect and others when they do bump off already connected devices. When there are multiple devices connected the hub's web interface does not respond and gives CHOP8-300 (may be mistyped) errors. I have had a BT/EE engineer visit to try and resolve the issue but they could not. The majority of these devices are Tuya based. 

[Dad4905]

I don't know if you got this sorted, but I'm running a lot more than 30 devices on my Smart Hub Pro - currently showing 188 devices, a mix of mostly wifi with about a dozen connecting via Ethernet.

I had issues with some 2.4-only devices until I used the "Compatible wifi" option to create a dedicated 2.4 SSID.

Firmware version r3.8.24-R-1531355-PROD-1  (September 2025)

I'd still be interested in hearing what you replaced it with though, and how it's performing 🙂 

[tnj]

I have not found a good solution yet and have spent the last few days experimenting.

At the moment I am running over 100 devices on my network of which just under 100 are 2.4g WiFi devices. I am running a separate DHCP/DNS server. So yes the Pro Hub will run over 100 devices but the limitation is the number of concurrent 2.4g WiFi devices that can directly connect to it by WiFi. It seems to start having issues at around 30 devices and after that when another device connects to the WiFi, one is either knocked off or the new device connects to WiFi with no internet access.

I can connect all my 2.4g WiFi devices to my old BT SmartHub2 at once so I am still piggybacking this off the Pro Router.

Some of my thoughts about what the issue is have been proved wrong today. All of my 2.4g devices will happily work on 2.4g channels, 1, 6 and 11 and all will work with standard WPA2 security and also work with the WPA3 personal transition which surprised me. It made no difference if I used the standard or compatible 2.4g networks, both seem to have the same limitation.

The WiFi limitation is not per SSID but for the hub as I get the same issue if I put some devices on the standard and some on the compatible, I am still limited to around 30 in total.

I tried turning off the 5 & 6g WiFi bands as it has been suggested that these cause issues but this made no difference.

I have also tried not using extenders in case the issue comes from them but the limitation still occurs on the standalone Hub Pro.

If I run the Pro7 on 2.4g and the BTSmartHub2 on 2.4g at the same time I get WiFi clashes, even if I use different channels, so I currently have the BT on just 2.4g and the EE on 5 & 6g. I have no issues networking devices between the two setups.

I can't say how many devices the EE will support on the 5 &6 WiFi networks as I don't have enough devices to test.

I am not sure if I get any real advantage using both the BT & EE hubs as it is only a few mobile devices that use the enhanced WiFi7 but I want to keep the EE hub and extenders on line in the hope a future firmware update may fix the issue.

[Dad4905]

Ah yeah, that’s a lot more 2.4-only devices than I’m running. 

I hope you find a suitable solution. Possibly an older 2.4- only access point might help? You’d presumably need to run Ethernet to a good location for it. 

[tnj]

What I have noticed from going through my DHCP server logs is every 2.4G WiFi device is connecting via WiFi to the LAN and negotiating with the separate DHCP server and being allocated the correct IP address then disconnecting a few seconds later then repeating the process. They are rarely getting beyond the router to the internet. The router must be throwing the devices off.