I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering this, but what do we think the fate of the mesh WiFi product is going to be?
Updates are few and far between, if occurring at all still. Performance seems to be degrading (hubs don’t seem to reconnect automatically on boot) and with the V3 being hot potatoed off to Aeotec…things look questionable.
Anyone else dumping this with the quickness? I have quite a few of these set up in rentals and with the volatility were seeing with hardware support, I don’t feel comfortable having this stuff in use anymore.
I’ve disliked this device since it came out - why would you put a zigbee radio in the same chassis as a mediocre (at best) WiFi AP radio when Zigbee and Wifi are KNOWN TO interfere with each other. Additionally, the mean expected lifetime of IoT hubs is at LEAST double that of your average WiFi router? I mean, OK I get teh streamlined single consumer friendly box and all, but honestly, I hope it dies a firey death.
Er, I mean - If it works for you great, keep it I wouldn’t be dumping them, you’re not in any real danger of lack of support. But, that said, I certainly wouldn’t be buying new ones unless it was my only alternative either…
Fortunately, I do not require any ZigBee functionality but that is a valid critique of the product for sure.
I think there is some danger in riding it out with the ST WiFi, simply due to the device’s dependence on cloud services to function. If the ST cloud is down, it knocks the Plume side of the device out too. Horrible design. You have to rely on two different entities to be in running order for your device to work.
I fell victim to the idea of a simple 2-in-1 device. At the time, it seemed like a great idea. And to be fair (Letterkenny fans rejoice) the hubs do work 97% of the time…but when they aren’t working it’s a nightmare to deal with since you have little to no control of it.
This was something that a competitor (now owned by a black-eye pea) also did with their first gen hub when it was released in 2014. There were explicit instructions to keep the hub far away from your WiFi router.