Wifi Max user review

[Chasloyal]

Sorry about digging up an old thread but I would like a bit of input from those who have the Wi-Fi Max router.

I've just give my notice to BT as they won't let me renew at the price new punters pay even though we've got Halo 3, not worth a rub then.

Never had any issue in 7 years and the Smart Hub 2 has always been solid too but I'm not prepared to be mugged off so I'm walking.

Even EE are offering the price I want to pay and their supplied Smart Hub Plus seems very decent too. EE are still BT under different branding so I just want a clean break from them.

We've got a lot of devices in the house with numerous smart TV's, lots of Ring cameras, bundles of Sonos speakers, games consoles etc so 500 is the right speed and Sky are doing a great deal on it at the minute but am getting bad vibes about this router not being up to it if I was to switch to Sky broadband.

Anyone's experiences, good or bad, with this Max router would be most welcome, thank you in advance.

[jamesn123]

@Chasloyal 

If your expecting the same level of quality as BT then you will likely be disappointed. The past has proved that Sky's offerings are never as polished or at the same performance level as BTs.

[Chasloyal]

Thank you for getting back to me on this and thank you for the candid honesty too.

Having a done a bit more noseying in a couple of other forums and reading various reviews I am beginning to think I may blow this for a game of soldiers and take the EE option begrudgingly.

[John+B1]

I switched to sky and have Q.

You can't have wifi max with Q, as it is not compatible.

They will try and move you to their streaming services to give you wifi max. Don't do it.

[Chasloyal]

I did actually read about that issue from last summer so assumed Sky would have ironed out those creases by now but clearly not, wowsers

Funnily enough when we moved to FTTP Openreach had to whack the connection/ONT wall box right in the front our gaff.

That resulted in the router being right next to the AV unit so I chose to connect the Q Box to the Smart Hub 2 via ethernet rather than WiFi.

I'm guessing that with our own personal set-up it means the Max router would play nicely with the Q Box but I'm veering even more towards EE now just in case it didn't.

It would appear moving our broadband to Sky is fraught with a high risk of aggravation so I will just bite the bullet and take the EE offer.

Thank you so much for the heads up mate, I am most grateful.

[John+B1]

They won't supply a wifi max router with sky Q.

The issue is that the wifi in the sky q box and mini boxes are not wifi 6. The wifi max router is wifi 6, so won't work with any of the current sky q equiptment.  The only equiptment that will work are those from the streaming services.

 I doubt they will update the current Q equiptment as they want to phase it out in time. 

They have only extended the satellite service for 10 years. That tells a story.

[Chasloyal]

Seems a bit of a daft policy because we ain't got any mini boxes and as I said in my previous post, our Sky Q box is hooked up via ethernet rather than WiFi.

The really ironic thing here is that the Smart Hub Plus we'll get if we do go with EE is also WiFi 6 but that's totally irrelevant as regards the Q box because it will be runnning off a wired connection rather than a wireless one.

This push they're doing to get folk off the satellite feed and on to streaming will be of zero interest to me until the technology is there because I have no intention of watching 'live' sport that has a 60 second lag.

[John+B1]

Ii totally agree. You cant record either with the streaming services and keep it local like skyq.

I know you say it's wired ad mine is. However you will I think want the wifi  from the q box as well. Which would not work with the router.

My whole network is wired but I still use the wifi to extend the signal for other devices.

[neillondragan]

Hi there well this is a positive review.  I have the new router and I have converted from Sky Q to Sky Glass/Stream.  It's brilliant... I don't miss Sky Q at all or the recording.... it's hardly any different.  My speeds are really fast.  I get about 780MB over WI FI on my streaming... no need for hard wire. You would only get maximum of 100 MB anyway on ethernet on Sky Glass. The speeds are really fast all through the house. Have had no problems at all.  You don't have to go Sky Glass... you can just get the stream boxes.  I have heard they are working on the time delay and with technology advancing there will be no time delay at all .  Sky Q is old hat now and it is on its way out.  I would expect Sky to stop selling it to new customers within a year and I doubt it will ever work with the new router. Seriously though the new Wi Fi max router does a great job! 

[neillondragan]

Just realised I did post a negative post last year on here....but I think I just hadn't set it up properly or give it a chance.  So yes at first I wasn't that impressed but that changed... so they must have done a software update or something to make it much better! 

[John+B1]

I have also heard the wifi max router does a great job. My mini boxes are wired as is the Q box, they won't work wireless in my house due too the Walls and distance too great.

For those on Q a lot of us love the ability to record locally . Much faster and more convinient.

I tried asking to have a mix of the pucks as they are full 4k whereas the mini box are only 1080.  Sadly that won't work. 

[Chrisee]

---

@Chasloyal wrote:

This push they're doing to get folk off the satellite feed and on to streaming will be of zero interest to me until the technology is there because I have no intention of watching 'live' sport that has a 60 second lag.

---

@Chasloyal off topic for this forum but the technology is already getting there. The current delay on live sport is more like 30 seconds over satellite not 60 and last week Sky announced  that delay will drop by 20 seconds soon, indeed there are two test streams (HD and UHD) running something around 25 seconds ahead of the current Sky Sport Main Event channel streams.  

UK Satellite broadcasting is not expected to last much beyond 2030 as SES have not announced any new satellites for the Astra 2 position. Sky's agreement with them ends in 2028. Nothing solid from Sky but everyone in the industry expects them to switch away from Satellite in that time frame.

[Chrisee]

---

@neillondragan wrote:

Just realised I did post a negative post last year on here....but I think I just hadn't set it up properly or give it a chance.  So yes at first I wasn't that impressed but that changed... so they must have done a software update or something to make it much better! 

---

@neillondragan there have been multiple changes since I wrote my review last year including switching on the higher 5GHz bands and greatly improving stability which was my own beef. I am still using the SR213 Wifi Max hub but not paying for Wifi Max or indeed using the Wifi on the hub for my devices, its on and I use it for testing as I can ensure channel separation with my main Deco Wifi. As a router it is completly stable and frankly I forget its there most if the time.

The app controls now work to edit SSID and passwords, set up port forwarding and setting the DMZ and are far more user friendly than the web interface on the older hubs. The expected issue with the inability to split wifi bands is not a significant issue as temporarily turning off the 5GHz band connecting the device and re-enabling the 5GHz band seems to work for most people.

The biggest gain for users is the Parental Control feature in the Wifi Max bundle where it is simple to control access by device with multiple schedules etc. easily set up and control using the app. If I still had kids at home I woould buy the bundle for thst feature alone.

People with a reasonable level of tech knowledge dont need that degree of hand holding Sky give but for the average customer the simpler interface and improved speed are probably a good buy especially if they have kids.

[Chasloyal]

@John+B1  I am trying to decipher the typos but reading between the lines I think you were saying you had WiFi issues in your gaff, which is something we don't have so I definitely would not need any boosters.

Having Sky Go in our package means that if I really wanted to watch anything upstairs I could do it through the PS4 which works fine through the connection to the Smart Hub 2.

We did have a mini box when we first moved in here 7 years and there was issues with it, Sky even sent us some sort of booster box we had to connect to the router(the BT Smart Hub). Thing is as we didn't get much use of it and because there was also constant agg with it we just cancelled it after a while.

[Chasloyal]

@neillondragan thank you for the fighting the Max's corner as such, I'm glad to see that some folk are happy with it.

I'm not prepared to lose all the recorded content we've got first and foremost so I suppose me lobbing in the time delay could almost have a wee bit of straw man ish vibe to it. Though that said it is still an issue because I get annoyed when I hear neighbours on terrestrial cheering a goal a couple of seconds before I see it on satellite, never mind the much longer streaming delay.

You say Sky Q is old hat and dying out now but folk was saying that about vinyl 30 odd years ago, yet even though technology has progressed huge amounts since there's been a marked resurgence in vinyl sales in recent times.

People's preferences in how they consume content is very fluid constatntly changing so it's nigh on impossible to accurately predict where we'll be at a decade down the line.