When I was switched from BT and installed the EE Smart Hub Plus a year ago, the system for moving over all my previous devices worked perfectly - use the same SSID and password as I'd been using before on my ASUS XT8 mesh network.
With three Smart WIfi Plus extenders the coverage in my house was excellent although I missed the extra functionality of the XT8.
I naively assumed the migration to the WiFi 7 Smart Hub Pro (with 2 Smart Wifi Pro extenders) would be just as easy.
Here's what went wrong
- The Smart Hub Pro imposes new password rules for its main network. So although I could carry over my old SSID, I had to visit all my legacy devices and change passwords. Some have clunky interfaces so this was a pain.
- For the main network the available security settings are WPA3 or WPA3-Personal-Transition, no WPA2. My old devices support WPA2. Many of them won't connect to the new main network using WPA3-Personal-Transition, so I had to use the option to set up a Compatible wifi network.
- I have a Firestick 4k Max. It's not supposed to support WiFi 7 but it did connect to the main 6Ghz. However, performance was painfully slow. You cannot configure it to use a specific frequency (for example 5Ghz) on the main wifi network, so it too has to connect to the Compatible network.
- I have more than 4 wired devices connected to the router so I use a Netgear 8 port gigabit switch. The EE app (and the browser version) seem to be unreliable at reporting on devices attached via the switch.
- The wired connection to my MacBook Pro (via the Netgear Switch and a Kensington Thunderbolt dock) drops occasionally. Manually recycling the power on the dock usually solves the problem.
If I were starting again I would set up the Compatibility wifi network to have the same SSID and password as the outgoing EE Smart Hub Plus. That should have picked up all the old devices.
Then I would move the wifi7 capable devices over to the new SSID one by one.
