BT Smart hub released
- Thread starter arjgrundy
- Start date
It's taken long enough but the interface is now much better:
Interesting. Thanks for sharing!! How are you finding it?
If you want advanced stuff then don't look for it in an ISP-supplied router. They are designed to keep the amount of support calls to a minimum and compete on areas that marketing deem important (whether they are beefy enough for the connections, is the Wi-Fi any good etc.), not for people who like to tweak things.
Associate
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Can you turn the lights off fully on the new router?
Associate
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yep can turn lights off fully, will still turn on for faults.
The problem is when they make it difficult, if not impossible, to turn the thing into a modem only.
Especially when the white modem boxes are on the way out.
I'd like to see an ISP-supported device with a bridge mode to be fair - ISP handles making sure it plays nicely on the network, keeps the firmware up-to-date etc, then that device becomes the demarcation of responsibilities when troubleshooting.
The BT Business Hub will do this, it would be nice if they made the feature available to home users as well.
The BT Business Hub will do this, it would be nice if they made the feature available to home users as well.
The business hub sounds like it has all the features the home hub SHOULD have in the first place.
Otherwise, I have to keep using those white boxes and telling BT on the phone that I won't use their hubs as they suck.
Otherwise, I have to keep using those white boxes and telling BT on the phone that I won't use their hubs as they suck.
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Smart Hub arrived yesterday and seems to be exactly the same size as the HH5 it replaced. They even give you a bag to send your ould router back to them free of charge for recycling, but I think I'll reset mine and get a few £ for it on an auction site.
Initial set-up was fine, though there was on annoying restriction. On the HH5, I had set-up the 2.4 and 5Ghz frequencies with different SSID name and wanted to set-up the Smart Hub with the same SSIDs and passwords to avoid updating all existing devices manually. 2.4 was fine, but for the 5Ghz frequency, the Smart Hub automatically puts a -5 suffix to the name, and there's no way you can get rid of it.
Parental Controls have a bit more fine tuning available. I can now have different profiles for my kids devices for different days of the week (e.g. give them an extra hour at the weekends when they don't have school next morning).
Overall, it seems to handle multiple devices much better than the HH5, as we experienced less slow downs than normal. My desktop computer which is furthest away from the router now gets an extra 5 Mb/s download throughput, but overall signal strength is about the same or slightly better.
Another bonus is that it reports the amount of data downloaded and uploaded by device, so no longer can the kids get away with the excuse of "I'm not downloading anything that would make the internet run slow..." In the 4 hours of normal internet use, our household had downloaded just under 8Gb, the majority of which was accounted for by our two teenagers! Good job we have an unlimited package through BT.
Initial set-up was fine, though there was on annoying restriction. On the HH5, I had set-up the 2.4 and 5Ghz frequencies with different SSID name and wanted to set-up the Smart Hub with the same SSIDs and passwords to avoid updating all existing devices manually. 2.4 was fine, but for the 5Ghz frequency, the Smart Hub automatically puts a -5 suffix to the name, and there's no way you can get rid of it.
Parental Controls have a bit more fine tuning available. I can now have different profiles for my kids devices for different days of the week (e.g. give them an extra hour at the weekends when they don't have school next morning).
Overall, it seems to handle multiple devices much better than the HH5, as we experienced less slow downs than normal. My desktop computer which is furthest away from the router now gets an extra 5 Mb/s download throughput, but overall signal strength is about the same or slightly better.
Another bonus is that it reports the amount of data downloaded and uploaded by device, so no longer can the kids get away with the excuse of "I'm not downloading anything that would make the internet run slow..." In the 4 hours of normal internet use, our household had downloaded just under 8Gb, the majority of which was accounted for by our two teenagers! Good job we have an unlimited package through BT.
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Im getting a HH6 next week sometime, has the USB port on the rear been enabled to accept usb sticks or ex hdd ?
Got mine yesterday too. The WiFi is indeed much better, just as advertised.
The only down side I've found so far is that it still seems to have a problem with Port Forwarding incoming VPN (1723) connections. Their help guide says there should be a VPN option when you select the protocol under Port Forwarding as below...
Yet that isn't an option on mine!
The only down side I've found so far is that it still seems to have a problem with Port Forwarding incoming VPN (1723) connections. Their help guide says there should be a VPN option when you select the protocol under Port Forwarding as below...
Yet that isn't an option on mine!
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No this has its own fibre modem built into it ,you can disconnect your white fibre modem if you get one of these HH6.
Aces. Thanks.
Are people managing to get these free if you are in a BT contract for broadband? I have until Feb 17 and they want me to pay £50 for it, either that or I can increase my costs (got a special offer from BT at the moment of £17 for Infinity 2) and they want to increase that to £28.50 for a free hub.
Are people managing to get these free if you are in a BT contract for broadband? I have until Feb 17 and they want me to pay £50 for it, either that or I can increase my costs (got a special offer from BT at the moment of £17 for Infinity 2) and they want to increase that to £28.50 for a free hub.
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Soldato
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I see some of you have got some good reductions on their BT infinity 2, best they could offer me was £26.50 cheeky buggers, I on hold now to BT again, going to push them a bit harder this time!
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How on earth did some of get your deals on infinity? spoke to cancellation team and they were having none of it!! won't even budge a pound!
I told them about some of the deals people got on here and she straight up didn't believe me!
edit
How on earth did some of get your deals on infinity? spoke to cancellation team and they were having none of it!! won't even budge a pound!
I told them about some of the deals people got on here and she straight up didn't believe me!
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I was at the end of my contract and just phoned up asking what they could do for me, offered me £17 for BB (infinity 2) for 12 months plus the £17 line rental and then £2 for BT sport hd, all that for circa £38 month
I didn't even have to speak to cancellations, the nice girl sorted me out.
I didn't even have to speak to cancellations, the nice girl sorted me out.
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