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BT Home Hub 5 is NOT worth the hassle.


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Old 07-12-2013, 12:25
mpmc17
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Hi folks.

I rang up BT last week to complain about the price increases and was offered a new Home Hub 5 and a package downgrade to Infinity 1 (was infinity 2 but we can only get 23mbps). This post is mainly about my experience (A.K.A a rant) with the Home Hub (which I've dubbed the homeslug).

I'd previously used the Hub 3 with the Openreach modem but got so frustrated with it I dumped it in about 2 weeks and replaced it with a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND running Gargoyle OpenWRT based firmware. This had been running without issue for quite a while.

I'd read many reviews on-line about how great the Hub 5 was and thought they must have worked out all the bugs I'd experienced with the Hub 3.. WRONG!

So after connecting everything up I wanted to set-up router assigned static IP addresses for all my devices something that's rather simple to do on most routers, but even before I got a chance to do this I had to go through an interactive advertisement.

I say advertisement but what it really is, is BT's "Smart set-up" wizard that each device has to go through on first connection to the hub. But to me it's just another way for BT to plug other products. Products that to be honest aren't worth bothering with as you can get much better for free.

You may think that this isn't a big deal but when you're running headless machines this is a nightmare, I got alerts from services on these machines warning me that they couldn't access any web services because of this "Smart set-up". The "Smart set-up" that detected these machines/connections as mobile devices :/. I did however manage to disable this annoying feature and all was well in the end, Extremely annoying though!

After all that I was finally able to start setting up the static IP addresses via the hub or so I thought. No matter what I tried the hub would not let me set the address I wanted as it kept telling me there was an IP conflict, I checked each device to make sure that none of my devices had requested the IP address even pinged the IP addresses and checked the dhcp table on the home hub. It did however work once I'd set the address I wanted on the machine and then rebooted the hub.

I'd experienced this on the hub 3 as well, it seems like something BT can't or won't fix.

To BT's credit the home hub did keep the connection live although it kept dropping active connections. I run an IRC bouncer and kept getting messages every few minutes that the connection had been dropped.

I've since gone back to the Openreach modem and the TL-WR1043ND and everything is back to normal.

It seems to me BT are more interested in adding features rather than working on bugs. I honestly think the hardware supplied by BT could be great if they'd just sort out the software.

There is also a USB port on the hub that is near useless as it can only be used for hard drives. The TL-WR1043ND has a USB port too but that can be used for anything, I currently have connected a printer and it works great out of the box.

Yes it is because it's running Gargoyle/OpenWRT but if the OSS community can do it why can't BT? Wait.. don't answer that! I already know the answer.. Cost and training their staff for when people ring up and complain that their device doesn't work on the hub.
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Sorry for the long post folks I needed to get that off my chest
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Old 08-12-2013, 10:13
TraceT
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Rotherham, S.Yorks UK
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You don't have to use the Smart Set up. It can be disabled the first time you see it. There is a check box somewhere on the first screen to turn it off. It's what I did and have had no problems. It's been solid since day one for me which has now been just over 3 wks. I have over 20 devices now connected through it.
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Old 08-12-2013, 10:48
mpmc17
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You don't have to use the Smart Set up. It can be disabled the first time you see it. There is a check box somewhere on the first screen to turn it off. It's what I did and have had no problems. It's been solid since day one for me which has now been just over 3 wks. I have over 20 devices now connected through it.
That is exactly what I did but the other machines still complained because they connected first.

There is no reason whatsoever for BT to have designed Smart Set-up this way, Like I said in my OP it is just an advertisement for BT's other products. Most people if they wanted such services would head on over to the BT website and get them there. But I guess Jungo were told by BT to include it as it gives them a chance to get more money out of customers by offering extra services.
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Old 09-12-2013, 10:18
The Sack
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first thing i turned off as well.

If you are still having IP conflicts turn everything off including the HH5 then all back on one by one starting with the HH5
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Old 10-12-2013, 14:40
Madsocks
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I had the Home Hub 3 and then they brought the Home Hub 4 out saying it was the best one yet, better connection, better at keeping connection, always finds the best wi-fi available.

It's that good at finding the best wi-fi available that I don't actually use the wi-fi because I get a better connection from using an ethernet cable. When I use wi-fi, my download speed drops loads (not that it was high enough to begin with!! Thanks a lot BT!).

Basically, Home Hub 4 - usual s***e from BT. Doesn't surprise me the the 5 is the same.
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