Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This approach would be such a good idea if well executed, but this device is unfortunately not. There are the known drawbacks one can determine from reading any of the reviews, e.g.. no web GUI (only Android/iOS apps so if you want to control or set up the router from your laptop you're out of luck). But the main feature I was looking for was wireless range. Everything else didn't matter. But on that score, it does not appear to deliver anything special. I used Wifi Explorer, a deep wifi inspection tool, with my Macbook Pro and its builtin 802.11ac radio. I have gig fiber at home, and I can do a standard SpeedTest through the modem's native 802.11ac network measuring 800Mbps. But the fiber terminates in the basement, and I want to distribute a fast signal over 3 floors. I therefore have Cat6 backhauls to the fiber modem's builtin gig switch, and I attached the OnHub to one of these. I turned off all other wifi APs. The OnHub switches between 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks on the same SSID. That much is fine, it appears to be a simple switching algo that boots off the 5GHz link if it falls below a certain threshold, and re-establishes it if becomes strong enough (the latter is what inter-AP roaming setups can't do). Innovative, but that also means it'll want to be the only AP with that SSID because the 2.4GHz signal will take over rather than allowing it to roam onto different 5GHz AP on that same SSID. That wasn't my test case though - I just wanted to see its wireless radio performance. I placed the OnHub on a central wooden coffee table. The signal was no stronger than other standard access points I tried in this same location, as measured using Wifi Explorer on my MacBook at various distances. Of course, whether it switches onto a 2.4GHz and 5GHz network, you're still subject to the limitations of those bands with their regulatory maximums. If move away from it, it'll go to 2.4GHz, and far enough away the 2.4GHz signal will disappear. It happens at pretty much the same distance as other APs (I tried Apple Airport Extreme and Asus RT-AC66U alternatives). Its wireless receiver did not appear to be any more sensitive, measured by uplink throughput and latency. One issue to be aware of: the OnHub native speed testing feature in the app is flawed. It's supposed to test your WAN speed to the OnHub, and then your local wifi link speed, but the WAN speed consistently under-reported achievable speeds compared to SpeedTest or my fiber ISP's native local-link test facility. Maybe it's congested on the google side, but its speeds were inconsistent and this part of their test does not depend on anything wireless. Testing with my laptop right next to the OnHub (verifying that it was on a strong ac link), hitting my ISP's local speed tester so that I wasn't going through an ISP-peering choke point, I always got better speeds than OnHub WAN side reported. Right next to the OnHub, with a 63 dB ac signal, I got a respectable 665 Mbps down, 451 Mbps up. Not quite wire speed nor as fast as the fiber modem's built-in radio, but not bad, so that verified that the test setup was valid. Then, using OnHub's app for testing speed, it reported 80 Mbps down, 230 Mbps up for WAN speed (so no wifi involved) - which didn't make much sense. That traffic must be transiting through an internet backbone chokepoint. Obviously something amiss there, not a great config for a google-managed speed measurement facility. But that's beside the point - I wanted to measure Wifi performance. And that's where it missed. When I moved to another room, the same local fiber speed test showed precipitously decline. One floor away it was below 30 Mbps, likely because it switches to 2.4GHz quickly and only uses 20MHz channel, unlike most other current 2.4GHz routers with 802.11n that can bind two channels together for a 40MHz band. But even then - my other APs can easily shoot an 80 MHz band of 5 GHz signal through one floor and maintain throughput of >100Mbps. Not the OnHub. And you can't tell it to stay on a 5 GHz ac mode. It wants to go to its 2.4GHz band and then assign you to 20 MHz on radio band there, so that's by nature going to be very limiting (plus, subject to interference from other devices like microwave ovens and home phones on the crowded 2.4GHz band). Overall I find this to be somewhat like an Apple Airport Extreme (and they're not that wonderful either in terms of throughput). It's pretty, but then so are the Apple devices. Its severely limited control options - even moreso than Airport Extremes - curtails one's ability to use it with other APs, and it's not strong enough to serve my house on its own with a good high speed signal throughout. Interestingly, the MacBook's signal strength indicator often showed "4 bars" but the actual signal measured poorly, and the data throughput told the same sad story. I tested many ways and many times. I am therefore back to using the approach of ethernet backhauls and several APs on the same subnet controlled by the basement router. For $200 I could get two basic but ugly 802.11ac routers, turn them into AP mode and hide them beneath things, and it would give a more consistent signal distribution. That still seems to be the only way to get good speeds throughout the house. The product planning seems to be modeled after Apple Airport Extremes - simple, limited, pretty, with performance being a secondary consideration. Maybe a good market for some users, but Apple is a strong competitor there. What the market still doesn't offer is something that has outstanding performance, is completely user configurable and web GUI controllable, yet has a "simplicity mode", and looks pretty enough so one can place it out in the open. These issues may be fixable with new firmware, but unless / until that happens, it's a beta product at a premium price point. Early adopters, fanboys and gadget suckers will probably pay, but that's not going to last long. Maybe by the time that market is exhausted, this device will have some reasonable firmware, or a hardware version 2. I don't mind paying $200 for good kit, but then it has to be truly better. Unless this device offers verifiably superior wireless performance, the other issues are mere footnotes. Simplicity and prettiness is good, but Apple has that market pretty much locked down. Returning it tomorrow, with regret.