Smart Hub Pro: Hands On - The good, the bad and the ugly

[ChicChoco]

Hi all

Just going to summarise my early findings after receiving the new Smart Hub Pro and Smart WiFi Pro kit today. It’s been an awkward and frustrating journey and I’m sure some user error along the way… But I might now finally be seeing the brilliance of it. It’s here to stay but could be so much better.

Placement:

Smart Hub Pro - Front door entrance

Smart WiFi Plus - Two stories up (Town House)

The good:

After finally getting both devices running and doing some tests, my WiFi 6 speeds are much better than on the SH+ with my iPhone 14 Pro Max and Rog Ally (WiFi 6E) which for the first time hit 930mbps over WiFi with this new kit.

Now for the magic, I tested WiFi 7. I don’t currently have a native WiFi 7 device so my test case was using a laptop via Ethernet cable into the Smart WiFi Pro (as this is a WiFi 7 device right, so I thought let’s test the raw speed available over the mesh) and to be fair it’s quite a distance from the Hub. 10ms ping. 940mbps/110mbps - on fibre essentials 900. It maxed the connection over the wireless bridge with minimal latency. This is brilliant stuff and now my priority is WiFi 7 card upgrades. Not losing any speed what so ever, so impressed!

The admin panel now includes DDNS which is a welcome addition.

The kit is well designed and build quality is good, again the packaging is eco-friendly and well presented.

The bad:

It’s disappointing that the included Ethernet cables are still 5e and are actually thinner [wire] than the included cables with the SH+ (26awg on the SH+ vs 28awg on the Pro). I feel as it’s a premium product it should come with a decent network cable (at least the same thicker wire from the SH+ generation or a cat 6). Feels like a cost saving measure that just ruins the overall setup, the cable is noticeably thinner in your hand.

The admin / advanced web settings is still heavily locked down and provides little customisation for more advanced users. Would really like to be able to set custom DNS servers, and have a better UI which is quicker. If you refresh the page in advanced settings it asks for the admin password everytime which is frustrating, don’t even think this happened with the SH+? Just needs to save a cookie / auth properly. It would be nice as the setup is app-first, for the web advanced settings to be more technical like other third party consumer grade network devices.

The ugly:

The app setup process and UI is poor. It fails and has bugs which are obvious. As a software developer by day, the QA is shocking.

1) Smart WiFi Pro pairing process failed 2-3 times requiring resetting the device. App just froze saying pairing can take 7 minutes but often would say “we couldn’t pair your device”.

2) This may be user error but I disabled 2ghz band on the main wifi opting to use the compatible network for 2ghz only. This then breaks the Smart WiFi Plus from connecting (the above point was after I realised this point was also causing issues).

3) Smart Hub WiFi reports as “no signal” in the EE app but the device light is aqua and if I click into it, I can see clients connected (and my 940mbps speed test via Ethernet through the device that has no signal).

4) Web advanced settings - My network is missing connected devices, in fact, my Rog ally that connects via 6ghz isn’t even listed as connected here, not sure if this affects all 6ghz devices?

5) Smart Hub Pro update process - after pairing the hub in the app it said updating firmware, this may take up to 10 minutes. It was stuck on this screen for ages (45+ mins) and nothing happened, technical log reports no updates were applied.

6) Web advanced settings - broadband - the “connection status” shows as connnected despite the wan cable being unplugged and the front light flashing orange. This is a bug with the SH+ too; and I don’t understand how something like that can be missed?

Summary

Fantastic bit of kit delivering great speeds over WiFi 7 plus 2.5g wan/lan ports for 1.6g tier users but getting it setup is a bit clunky right now in the app today the least. Now I’ve seen that result over WiFi 7, for me, it’s well worth the price (as £10 extra) and definitely adds value to the more expensive 1.6g packages. It really just needs a UI polish up to be great.

Will post some photos next but auto marked as spam so waiting for mods to review 🙃

[jlholmes]

Does the Smart WiFi Pro support Ethernet backhaul to the Smart Hub Pro router? It seems like it does but none of the official documentation appears to state that.

[JimM11]

@jlholmes If it does not then it's not worth having, would be very surprised if such a new device did not, mesh from the + was also not documented well, but user tested and let the forum know that it did work fine, hope that someone who has does the same with the pro version also. Not much out a present. Should be looking at exceptional speed's back as 2.5Gb/s nics in them all.

[jon_1103]

@jlholmesI tried to find out this information but had no luck. You would 'expect' it to support wired back haul as well but being as EE are pushing WiFi 7 and  most consumers use WiFi I wouldn't be surprised if it supports WiFi back haul only.

The only technical specs I've found was listed on here:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/09/ee-uk-makes-new-wi-fi-7-smart-hub-pro-broadband-router...

I wonder if this part is referring to the back haul only being WiFi:

Complete (Mesh) Wi-Fi Support
Yes (Smart WiFi Pro)

[Ewan15]

It is easy to test as the extender has two ethernet ports. Switch off the wifi on the router and connect the router to the extender using an ethernet cable and connect a device using the second ethernet port to the extender. If you can get on the net then the backhaul works over Ethernet

[JimM11]

@Ewan15 You are not really testing for mesh wired backhaul as you are suggesting with your method. you are testing the ethernet is connected, but it would be as it is physical, you need the smart wireless mesh to be outside of the EE Router cross over point but as you suggested switching it off is good, then test a wireless connection to the smart wireless device, the path to the router is then through the wired backhaul. 

[Ewan15]

It looks like the Pro is not available to existing customers. Now they have finally fixed my account my upgrade option is limited to the extender add on, despite being on 900mbps broadband it appears the Pro router is only being offered to new customers as a £10 addition or as part of the 1.6GBps deal

[JimM11]

@Ewan15 Not surprised that EE are doing so, but its still a bargain at £240, you will not get a wifi7 router and extender anywhere currently for that kind of money, interest free for 24 months, and you never know you could get to keep them!!!!

[cliffy37]

@Ewan15  - Existing customer here on the 1.6Gbps package and had a text yesterday to say mine would be despatched in teh next few days, a number of us all had the same text yesterday

[cliffy37]

Just seen teh windows 11 24h2 is now available to download, anyone with a PC or Laptop with WiFi 7 cards installed should download this and make sure drivers are up to date if they want WiFi 7 speeds on it

[jon_1103]

@JimM11 According to EE’s website you’d be charged £110 & £75 for not returning their equipment:

In total that’s £425 over the 24 months.
For £480 you can purchase a WiFi 7 triple pack mesh network which would offer more features than EE offerings, and most likely these will be cheaper soon on Prime day, granted the outlay isn’t something most people would prefer to pay, but these devices aren’t as great value as you state.

Just my opinion of course 😉