Does anyone have any information on the Smart Connect Home router (smartthings hub + mesh wifi)?
It seems that this one will have BLUETOOTH, Wifi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, etc… and more hardware power that the smartthings hub 2 (understandably as this is also a router).
Is this yet another US only product? (as are the Smartthings enabled 2016 Smart TV sold worldwide)
Does this mean that hub v1 and hub v2 won’t support future features developed for the connect home? (such as the long awaited Bluetooth support; remember the hub2 has Bluetooth on the spec. Same as the 2016 TVs (outside US) this is not implemented! I lost faith, it won’t happen)…
Surely, a lot of the (already limited) development resources of Smartthings will be/are allocated to developing this new product rather than supporting the unfinished, now legacy, products (hub v1 and v2)?
Is this product going to be ever sold? (or is this yet again another false promises / false advertising?). Perhaps in 2020 if I compare with the time between Samsung announcing a product and putting it on the retail shelves?
if this device is real and sold outside the US (with all the features as described), that’s certainly look promising and I am interested!
What to you think of the Connect Home?
Any further info?
I paid 99 for the hub v2, if the migration to new hub is seamless, I don’t see why I would be angry if I want the features only available on the new hub and pay another 100~ish for it.
But I definitely won’t be happy with the USB ports and Bluetooth radio setting there doing nothing. If v2 is end of development without them working I’ll note myself never trust Samsung’s future updates promises again.
Besides which, I don’t like the idea of integrating Hub with Router, that are plenty reason you can think of why this two shouldn’t be playing happily together.
I have a MAJOR worry about this combo item.
Zigbee and Mesh WiFi do not play happily with each other since they tend to run across each other’s bandwidths.
If you check the forums you’ll see lots of articles about motion sensors disconnecting etc. after the installation of mesh networks. The major fix, which I did and it seems to have resolved most of my issues was to move the hub 10’ from the nearest WiFi access point and add additional Zigbee plugs around my home to act as repeaters. If the Zigbee transmitter/receiver and the WiFi mesh router are in the same box they’ll be no way to separate them.
Maybe this means that ST is phasing out Zigbee but I somehow doubt that since, at least for now everything ST branded is still using Zigbee.
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tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
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This is definitely a case of Marketing out-shouting Engineering…
They seem to be selling a 3 pack of “Whole House” routers/hubs. Now I guess if you have a cabin and a vacation home you’d need 3 - if the “whole house” is meaningful. This seems like a very niche use-case.
However, if you put 3 of these in one location would each of them provide hub backup? That would make them worth getting if no other hub hardware has fail over capability.
The other thing would would make this unique is if the combination of the router and hub radios could be reused to prevent interference, etc. Sharing one radio for both modes. Not even sure if that is possible but it seems like there should be something that could be done to prevent it interfering with itself if it is an all in one unit.
The short answer to all of your question is no, that’s just not how they work.
In the three pack, only one of the three is a SmartThings hub. And there’s no sharing of radios between home automation and Wi-Fi.
As far as needing a three pack, this has become more popular with several brands in the last two years specifically for Wi-Fi mesh which is designed to eliminate dead spots even in a home of under 2000 ft.². Eero comes in a three pack, ubiquiti comes in a two or three pack, netgear’s orbi comes in a two pack, Google Wi-Fi comes in a three pack. So that’s pretty standard these days. Again, it’s not about end to end range, it’s about eliminating dead spots.