SmartHub Rundown

SmartHub rundown to date.

SMARTHUB VS HG635

2.4GHZ - HG635 WINS
5GHZ - SMARHUB WINS

I can stream 1080P netflix on a PS4 using 2.4Ghz just fine with HG635 - signal shows at 74%.
I could not even see the Smart Hub WiFi network using the PS4. I had to take the PS4 downstairs, connect, then carry it back upstairs. Signal shows at 48%. I cannot stream anything.

5Ghz. At long distance on SmartHub, RSSI -81 I get full 53Mbps.
At the same distance HG635 drops to around 25Mbps and RSSI of -86.

SMARHUB VS HOMEHUB 5B
AT 2.4GHZ - THE SAME
AT 5GHZ - SMART HUB WINS

2.4Ghz - the SmartHub struggles to reach all the same areas as the HH5B. PS4 still cannot see the network on both HH5B and SmartHub. It should be noted HG635 connects just fine and streams 1080P quality.

I expected the signal to at least match the HG635 at 2.4Ghz given the 635 is 2 years old now. So I was disappointed.

5Ghz - SmartHub is considerably better all around the home. At long distance smarthub has -81 RSSI and throughput of 53Mbps. HH5B has RSSI of -85 and a throughput measured at 7Mbps.

SMARTHUB OVERALL

GUI is abysmal, the most laggy thing I have ever used. It often does not load.

2.4Ghz wireless can only be set to channel 1, 6 and 11 or SMART selection. This is brilliant as it means users are not setting bad channels. Well done BT.

5Ghz can only use Non-DFS channels, I think this is a bad move, it means we cannot use say channel 100 where often throughput is better and often times RADAR is not an issue.

Some more advanced features, such as the "Band steering" in my testing do not appear to work. Just set two different SSIDs.

SSID Selection - If you split bands the SmartHub forces the 5Ghz SSID to end in "-5" - this means if you had your old SSID named xxxxx-5G as I did, you can no longer set it. Your SSID would have to be xxxx-5.

Say my SSID was BTHub5-2GH7-5G before, it must now be BTHub5-2GH7-5 and it refuses to allow you to type anything after the 5.

Smart Setup - in my experience it appears to be broken, not loading correct on any device despite multiple reboots. It kept forcing my devices to the smart hub IP, but then not loading, meaning internet did not work. I just turned it off.

My Setup

I have a 2.4Ghz WiFi extender boosting the 2.4Ghz network. This gives PS4 enough bandwidth to stream etc.

Weirdly the smarthub device has relatively poor 2.4Ghz performance, but stellar 5Ghz performance. For example my RSSI on 2.4Ghz at the far corner of the house (4 walls from router) is -85, but at 5Ghz it is -77, so in my house weirdly the 5Ghz out performs the 2.4Ghz.

Overall disappointing that the HG635 worked fine without the repeater in place. I hoped it would match this device. That said, seems a decent box, and staggering 5Ghz from the looks of it.

EDIT: There is a very real and noticeable improvement in the 2.4Ghz signal if you disable Smart Channel selection. It is defaulting to channel 1 using smart channel selection, RSSI of -86 in my weak spot. Manually fixing it to channel 1 (same channel chosen by smart selection), get RSSI of -77. Tested turning it on and off multiple times, same each time. Seems an odd one to me.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 12-Jul-16 19:42:32)

Mine has the fastest 2.4Ghz performance i have seen on a router i have owned, sat here at the PC it is as fast as the 5GHz side and walking out of my garden and onto the road outside i can still get nearly 30Mbit and thats through 3 brick walls and 25 meters.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14683... i think that is impressive for 2.4GHz using a single channel (8 meters 1 brick wall distance) The 2.4GHz is showing RSSI of -62 and the 5GHz is showing RSSI of -70

2.4Ghz wireless band is currently affected by some issues which in my case and a few other see the band completely dropping every few minutes...

Most devices can cope with this but do then use more energy to keep the connection up... mobile devices for instance where taking a right beating on their batteries because of the constant disconnection and re connection to the network but that's been fixed since separating the bands.

I agree the 5G network is much better than it used to be, probably one of the best 5Ghz signals I've had since having my old TP-Link setup in United States mode (Higher power output on wireless)

My web interface issues seem to have gone away, though I don't know how... I just assume its settled down now since it was resetting itself and crashing every few hours before.

As an update to this one year on.

I did have to get the device changed due to the green light of death.

BT soon disabled band steering as it didn't work initially anyway.

The router reboots every 14 days on a schedule otherwise it is flawless and rock solid.

I can genuinely say I have never been as impressed with an ISP supplied home router. The GUI is no longer laggy since firmware updates and I have had pretty much zero issues. I have thrown 30+ devices connected over wifi at it without any noticeable slowdowns and I stream HD TV daily via a BTTV box.

In my new flat I don't use the old range extender at all. My general view is the Hub6 is pretty flawless.

Good to here positive review after a while, however I can't compare as I gave up on Hub 6 after 3 replacements and all getting green light issue.

I've also since moved so back with Virgin Media using SH2ac and as always I find no problems with this kit.... seems everyone has different experiences with all kit... probably environment based and maybe even country location...

I think I had issues with routers a lot due to congested band 1 5ghz and seemed unable to use any higher channels due to Gatwick Airport...

Where I am based now the Super Hubs are able to utilise channels above 100 which are less congested...

Unfortunatly BT along with many other ISP's don't have these bands authorised for use on their devices... which is a shame.

Agreed the green light issue is a major problem.

Often times before it does it, the router will keep dropping wifi and in some instances reboot over and over ruining a lines profile before eventually giving up ghost. I'm not sure I've had 2 or 1 replacement TBH, might have been a hub 5 replaced previously.

Fingers crossed my replacement does not also get this issue. Luckily they get one to you next day delivery.

I gave up on my Smart Hub due to IPv6 was broken and BTCare had no clue when it would be working other than they are looking into the issue.

As to do with the 14 day reboot, mine was rebooting once a month, it was a nice Modem/Router, I cannot fault that, but there was too many small issues with it, GUI Glitches, especially in the Home Network section, IPv6 was broke at the time, GUI was very sluggish, and it was locked down way too tight for my liking.

Hell it would of been nice for them to add in an option to allow ICMP requests and responses.

So I brought a Fritz!Box 4040 where I was told by AVM that it would handle my Infinity 4 connection, which is did for the first X days where it would then start dropping packets every 6 hours, so I guess it couldn't handle my connection, it did have IPv6 working great though.

Sadly due to it arrived with an EU 2 pin mains adapter and not the normal 3 pin one, I then asked if they sell them, this was when I was told no and that it was a new product of theirs and wasn't really made for use in the UK, which kind of sucked.

So I then brought a Linksys WRT 3200 ACM all seems fine apart from the stock firmware doesn't seems to work with BT's IPv6, it says it supports it, but its not working.

I was thinking of flashing the Linksys with the opensource firmware which "should" support BT's IPv6, just too worried in bricking the thing LOL.

I was thinking in dropping all the routers and setting up a PPPoE Client on a 1U Rack Server I have sitting here doing just DHCP stuff which has a 3GHz to 4GHz (cannot remember) CPU, but that's down the line.

*** update ***
BTW, what firmware is the Smart Hub using now days ?

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Fri 09-Jun-17 22:48:13)

I have SG4B10002244.

There were some IPv6 issues a few months ago but they have settled now.

GUI is ok for my usage nowadays.

If you want to setup a BQM it is fairly easy to place a device in the DMZ. I had my BTTV box in DMZ and that allowed me to get a BQM just fine.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I have SG4B10002244.

There were some IPv6 issues a few months ago but they have settled now.

GUI is ok for my usage nowadays.

If you want to setup a BQM it is fairly easy to place a device in the DMZ. I had my BTTV box in DMZ and that allowed me to get a BQM just fine.

I think that was the firmware version mine had, which was updated December 2016 some time.

That's doable, I "could" design and make a network development board that only responds to ICMP packets, that might work.

I will take a look into that.

Paul