Hi - I’m adding a Smartthings hub to my current home setup. I currently have a Verizon FiOS Quantum Gateway router that I plan to continue to use. My question - can I get the Samsung Smartthings wifi mesh hub (instead of just the regular hub) and extend/boost the coverage of my existing wifi seamlessly while also covering the smart capabilities? I plan to start with just one Smartthings wifi hub. In other words, can one Smartthings wifi hub be used to augment the existing FiOS wifi router while acting as smart hub?
I just talked to Samsung Smartthings support and they are telling me that at least one Smartthings wifi mesh hub has to plug into the router. A plain hub (no mesh) can just be connected over wifi but to make the mesh network expansion one of the hubs has to be plugged into the router via ethernet cable.
I have this set up. You still need the Fios Quantum Gateway router and you just connect one of the hubs to the ethernet port of the router. From there I ended up disabling the wifi on the Fios router to only use the mesh wifi from the smartthings wifi router so there wouldn’t be network congestion.
Also the smartthings “router” is not truly a router and doesn’t have things you may need like port forwarding etc. Think of it more as a mesh wifi extender that has some smart controls to the wifi thorugh the Plume app like internet freezes, bandwidth monitoring etc. However I would not solely use this as the main device, there is no firewall either. You may get away with using a modem and then connecting the smartthings router into it via ethernet but I would just keep the Fios gateway router, if you pay equipment fees just stop and pay for the router, it might be worth it rather than never ending monthly fees.