Hub1 first impressions

[#1]

Just thought I would share my impressions of my new Hub1, having upgraded to fibre and retired my ancient Netgear ADSL modem.

Firstly I should point out that a lot of my woes have been caused by my having an IP based CCTV system which requires that several devices attached to my router have fixed IP addresses. 

1) The switch in default IP address range from 192.168.0.1 > 192.168.0.254 to 192.168.1.64 > 191.168.1.253 caused me a massive pain. It took me several restarts and factory resets to get the pi address range set correctly AND still be able to access the router. I had to reset the router IP to 192.168.0.1 (same as my old Netgear router) to be able to access it. I am sure this is basic networking stuff, but why use a different gateway address and ip range?

2) The router is incredibly slow to reboot. Also, a "factory reset" seems not to immediately apply the factory settings. After changing the default gateway address and then doing a factory reset, I spent several minutes trying to access my router on the default IP of 192.168.1.254 before it finally accepted a connection. In fact the first two times I pressed the factory rest button it did absolutely nothing at all.

3) The bug whereby the "Devices" page does not sow all the attached devices made the above issue even more difficult to troubleshoot as I could not tell which devices the hub could see and which it could not. From browsing these forums I can see that several other users have reported this bug. Plusnet: PLEASE sort this out! Its so basic!

4) The hardware gets HOT! I mean its easily the hottest thing in my network cupboard by a long way. Is anyone else finding this?

[#2]

There are pages on the internet that compare the various BT Hubs, i note you are using Hub 1, would a change to Hub 6 solve any of these problems ?

If so Hub 6 are cheap as chips on ebay.

[#3]

@Digsy 

The first thing to note is that your shiny new Hub One is effectively an obsolete BT Home Hub 5A with slightly modified firmware. As @gleneagles has pointed out a Smarthub 6 is a better device.

When resetting any of the BT hubs you need to keep the reset switch closed for about 25 seconds before it will actually go into their reboot routine. you just have to be patient and watch the lights. The other thing you may not be aware of is that your account name and password are reset so the router has to go to Plusnet's servers and go all through the set up procedure from scratch, hence the delay.

Different router manufacturers use different internal IP address ranges, there is no internationally agreed standard. From memory my old Asus router lived by default at 192.168.1.1.

[#4]

Thanks for the replies, both.

Yes, I was aware that the PN Hub1 is a re-purposed BT hub. I wasn't sure how out of date it was. Having said that, if the firmware is new for PN then they should at least fix the "connected devices" bug.

I guess the IP range thing is only really an issue if (like me) you have several devices that need to have static LAN IPs. The hub discovered all my other wired devices without any issue. In fact the hub required practically no setup at all which I guess is great for everyday users. I was at least expecting to have to put a username and password in but as you mention it seems to get these automatically. I'm not sure if I like this "feature" or not. Presumably I am being identified by something preset inside the hub, or from my phone number. Either way, it feels like a bit of a security risk to me. I also feel a bit like PN have a back door into my system should they wish to exploit it.

Any comments on the heat issue? I know yesterday was the hottest day of the year, but even so its still pretty toasty. Much hotter than I'd expect.

My new fibre connection hasn't actually been activated yet. When that happens, if all is OK  I think I might fork out on a third party hub.

[#5]

I wouldn't worry about Plusnet having a back door into your router. Let's face it, all your traffic goes through Plusnet's servers so they have a front door that's effectively wide open.

How hot is 'toasty'. All such devices get warm.

[#6]

I don't actually have a thermometer at home to measure it with, but lets just say that subjectively I was very surprised at how hot the entire surface hot the case got. I know all these devices seem to dump a lot of heat, and I have got no shortage of gadgets around the house, but the hub is significantly hotter to the touch than anything else in the cupboard where I keep my servers and network switch. 

Sorry - can't be any more definite than unless I borrow a suitable thermometer.