SmartThings WiFi Mesh Hub: No WiFi w/o Internet?

A friend has the smartthings Wi-Fi mesh router with plume, WV525. He says if the Internet goes out, the Wi-Fi goes off as well.

Is that true? It’s not how most Wi-Fi routers work, you can still have a local Wi-Fi LAN operating even without an Internet connection.

I believe it if it’s true, but I’m just trying to confirm. he has Lutron Caseta switches and we were going to set up HomeKit as a local back up, but if the smartthings Wi-Fi mesh requires the Internet for Wi-Fi, that won’t work.

Thanks!

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And before someone asks, no, this is not because it’s a Wi-Fi mesh.

eero originally required Internet for its Wi-Fi mesh, but they fixed that a couple of years ago.

We support full LAN persistence as of eeroOS v3.9.x. We closed this over 2 years ago. The eero network will continue to provide LAN access if your WAN goes down, even if it’s in bridge mode.

I believe ubiquiti always provided LAN persistence, Although you may need to add a DHCP server. People use those for security camera setups without Internet.

Anyway, the point is that just being Wi-Fi mesh doesn’t mean the Internet is required if all you want is local communication among your own devices. It’s a design decision by the manufacturer.

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I know this was the case when I first bought the hub. It was a head scratcher for sure. I haven’t tested it since then but I certainly can if you’d like.

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Yes the plum app you won’t be able to see on your app. I also have the wifi mesh system and when the wifi goes down I can still see the ssid transmitting but of course no internet.

@JDRoberts, I believe, I read about this issue before here on the forum, but did a search and nothing obvious came up. So I did a search on Reddit and this topic came up with a post referencing the article below.

My opinion, that this sort of network setup is a POS, and who ever designed and approved any network equipment this way was an idiot, no question.

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No internet no wifi , its unconceivable, I have 4 new mesh st routers and when i loss the internet i loss my wifi nothing is being broadcasted all device start looking for something to connect to. I have a old backup router that turns on when the wifi goes down with the same ssid to get my local devices to work—Ya great thx.

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