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 🙃

[JimM11]

@ChicChoco Ethernet Cat5e cables in a short distance will well exceed the 1Gb/s spec.  Refresh does force admin password to be reinput (sometimes bit hit/miss). Router takes time for update, always force refresh to make the update happen. Is there still the 20second delay connecting Ethernet/Wireless devices to the router?

How did you test a wi-Fi 7 when you do not even have a device capable of wireless testing?

[Colesey]

@JimM11 “How did you test a wi-Fi 7 when you do not even have a device capable of wireless testing?”

exactly my thoughts Jim!

@ChicChoco I know you say the latency is low on the test but could you do an extended latency test to see if there is any deviation especially when connected over WiFi to the smart WiFi pro. 

[JimM11]

@Colesey And what about the optimal setup positioning of the devices, to many unknown variables. If any one needs or requires, Wi-Fi Analyzer from Matt Hafner has been updated to now include wi-fi 7 in its software profile supporting the 6Ghz band spectrum.  

[jon_1103]

Thanks for feeding back your experience @ChicChoco !

I was interested in the set up and admin side of things, so I'll stick with my set up for the time being.

However, I am interesting to see you've located your Smart WiFi two stories up using wireless back haul and you're getting those speeds. I'm in a town house (3 bed end terrace) and when I had the SH+ and SHW I had to have the SHW in the next room to get the best range, which meant the signal was penetrating just 1 wall at about 20 ft.

How far is the distance roughly on your set up?

[philip-47]

sounds fast, what type of construction is your townhouse, modern concrete floors or older timber flooring, ours is victorian so signals go up and down easier than through the brick walls! 

[bobpullen]

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@ChicChoco wrote:

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).

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Did you disable 2GHz before trying to pair the Smart WiFi (assume Pro, not Plus?) extender? If so, how did you try to connect it? With cable or using WPS. If the latter, then I wonder if disabling 2.4GHz had some sort of impact on WPS 🤔

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@JimM11 wrote:

If any one needs or requires, Wi-Fi Analyzer from Matt Hafner has been updated to now include wi-fi 7 in its software profile supporting the 6Ghz band spectrum.  

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For smartphones, I find Ubiquiti's WiFiman to be pretty solid (also availalbe for 'fruit flavoured' devices 😉) 

[B2001]

@ChicChoco thanks for the early review.

I personally find the thinner ethernet cable more "premium" than the usual thick coax ones. So I guess it's a matter of taste 😀

Cat 5E (in whichever cable shape) will still do well beyond the capability of the 2.5G LAN ports so really not a performance issue anyone should worry about in my view

[JimM11]

@bobpullen Thanks good to know, Matt's is available PC and IOS, so it's a possible apples - apples, android user myself.

[XRaySpeX]

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@ChicChoco wrote:

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)

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You can't test WiFi-7 when you have no WiFi-7 devices to test it with. The SW Pro will drop down to WiFi-6 when talking to your WiFi-6 lappy.

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