How to Separate SSIDs on the SR213/White Max Hub

[FLC]

Disclaimer

The following is based on my own experience with my own Hub. As always, proceed at your own risk. I accept no responsibility if you end up with a white plastic “brick”! Although that is extremely unlikely as the factory reset should always get you back home. Bear in mind that factory resetting will delete any other changes you’ve made, such as port forwarding, so these will need to be re-applied.

It is generally believed that it’s impossible to split the SSIDs on the SR213/White Max Hub. But that only seems to be the case once the Hub had been registered against your account/app. It seems to be possible in the following way.

• Disconnect the broadband cable.
• Factory reset the Hub by holding the WPS button on the side until the LED flashes green. This may take a good 20s or so.
• Release the WPS button & wait for the Hub to start. The LED will go from amber to red because the broadband connection is missing, that’s fine.
• Connect to the Hub with either an ethernet cable or by WiFi. Ethernet is preferable to maintain the connection while making changes. If you use WiFi, you may have to reconnect to the new SSID after changing it.
• Access the web interface at 192.168.0.1. Your browser will likely default to http://192.168.0.1/sky_self_heal_index.jst, which is the Hub complaining that there’s no connection. Just delete everything after 192.168.0.1 & hit enter. You should then be presented with the login page.
• Login with username: admin & the password is the WiFi password on the bottom of the Hub, as you’ve factory reset.
• From the left-hand menus select Connection > WiFi.
• You can now click on Edit for each band & change the SSID. I would recommend simply adding  _5 to the 5GHz band only. So the SSID becomes SSID_5, making it obvious which is the 5GHz. Save the setting at the bottom of the page, reconnect the broadband cable & you’re done.

Now when the Hub is again associated with your account, the app will assume control & lock the WiFi settings. But the changes you’ve made should persist, giving you the required split SSIDs.

Disclaimer 2
I have no idea how this may affect any attached Pods as I don't have them. So if you have those, be prepared for failure which may necessitate another factory reset.

If you attempt this, please post your results. Hopefully it may go some way towards solving issues with pesky devices that don't play nicely with a shared SSID.

[Anonymous]

Any changes to the SSID input into the router GUI are usually not retained and will eventually revert back to the details held in the MySky app.

[TimmyBGood]

@FLC 

I'd perhaps cation that unplanned workarounds have a nasty habit of being negated by subsequent firmware updates: the ability to use multiple Bluetooth remotes with Sky Q, for example.

[FLC]

@Anonymous 

My changes have survived for the three weeks I've been connected. Do you have experience of trying this?

@TimmyBGood
Of course, no one can predict the future. But this may help some of the many posts I've seen complaining of not being able to connect printers or other devices. Once a device is connected, it should stay connected, as long as the default 2.4GHz is left at the default.

[Anonymous]

I haven't tried it no, it's just my understanding of the system works. If it's worked for you then I guess it's worked, although I thought you'd installed a hub 4?

I would imagine something else would be broken in the process as well, such as pod connectivity.

[FLC]

@Anonymous 

The SR203 was a short-lived experiment. I may go back to that at some point when I can leave it connected for a few days to see it it updates.

I have covered the potential issue with Pods.

[Anonymous]

@FLC Can you confirm if the Sky Max hub is visible in the broadband tab of product settings in your MySky app?

[FLC]

It does, yes. That seems to be the trigger that disables the settings in the web interface. When I first set it up I was still able to make channel changes several hours later. But once it appeared in the app the next day, everything was locked down.