Spark Launches new Inhome Experience - Spark Smart Modem & Spark Smart Mesh

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark Launches new Inhome Experience - Spark Smart Modem & Spark Smart Mesh

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411 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2414627 8-Feb-2020 13:27

hio77:
BuzzLightyear:

hio77:

BuzzLightyear: Has anyone noticed some flakiness with DHCP since the .14 build. I’ve had to reset my modem a couple of times over the last week due to various devices not getting a dhcp lease. Win 10, MacBook and IPad. When choosing guest network they all seem fine. A reboot of modem seems to resolve but shouldn’t be necessary.

Not something i've heard typically, will speak to the team though.

Appreciated. Will see how next couple of weeks go.

I'm in the process of moving over the next few weeks and likely will be leaving my RB3011 here, so will be using the smart modem and mesh for that time being.

Few internal folk are belting the crap out of these devices on their home connections without issues thus far, but i'd certainly be keen on a log file if it crops up.

Def something fishy going on. Wifi devices started dropping off the network this morning again (unable to get an IP). I have turned off the mesh unit and rebooted the smart modem to see if that keeps things more stable. At this rate have to keep rebooting every 12 - 24 hours. The mesh unit was only added this week and before that it was pretty stable so let’s see how it goes without it.

steve2222

498 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2414648 8-Feb-2020 15:35

hio77:

steve2222:

steve2222:

@hio77 Got mine and it is up and running.

Some initial feedback:

1/ I can't see where it shows you the up time for the Fibre connection, although I can see the menu option for DSL up time.

2/ Pitty it doesn't seem to allow you to label 'unknown' devices (using the unique MAC address). See attached screen grab. All the 'unknown' devices are named in the actual device so not sure why it is not passed back to the modem, but I seem to recall the HG659b allowed you to edit and name them. Makes it easy trying to trace which device is which.

3/ Have not factory reset yet so I still have FON, but I am on v13.

@hio77

^ BUMP ^

Re 1/ & 2/ : are my comments valid or have I missed the menu item in the settings to adjust these?

Cheers

awaiting a response i can supply sorry.

It's quite busy in my area so things are going a little slow on the lower priority stuff :)

@hio77

Now on v.14

Re 1/ I see there is a menu option under WLAN>Access Points>Uptime. Not sure if this menu option was there on early versions? Is this the 'up time' for the fibre connection or is it just the 'up time' for how long the modem has been switched on (powered up)?

Re 2/ Still don't see any option in v.14 to assign a name to connected devices where only the MAC address is known and for some reason the modem does not know the name or type of device connected.

Cheers

snnet

1410 posts

Uber Geek

#2414668 8-Feb-2020 17:35

Does the mesh unit support any form of PoE? with an adapter or otherwise?

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2414669 8-Feb-2020 17:44

steve2222:

Now on v.14

Re 1/ I see there is a menu option under WLAN>Access Points>Uptime. Not sure if this menu option was there on early versions? Is this the 'up time' for the fibre connection or is it just the 'up time' for how long the modem has been switched on (powered up)?

Re 2/ Still don't see any option in v.14 to assign a name to connected devices where only the MAC address is known and for some reason the modem does not know the name or type of device connected.

Cheers

1, this is the AP Uptime, the Connection uptime is on the connection status page (i'll find where that is when i get a chance...)

2, this has not been implemented yet.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2414673 8-Feb-2020 17:48

snnet:

Does the mesh unit support any form of PoE? with an adapter or otherwise?

you could use passive POE and splitters? Probably be better to use an active splitter though so you can do full gbit.

https://www.gowifi.co.nz/activepoe/gaf-12v12w.html

Something like this would be a cheap option, only does 1A rather than the full 12V 1.5A they are rated for though. so you might have to go for a slightly better option..

It's unfortunate it doesn't do POE, but it's really just not the ideal usecase they were picked for - But honestly, the performance for price i'd seriously consider using them as AP's.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

snnet

1410 posts

Uber Geek

#2414729 8-Feb-2020 19:05

hio77:

snnet:

Does the mesh unit support any form of PoE? with an adapter or otherwise?

you could use passive POE and splitters? Probably be better to use an active splitter though so you can do full gbit.

https://www.gowifi.co.nz/activepoe/gaf-12v12w.html

Something like this would be a cheap option, only does 1A rather than the full 12V 1.5A they are rated for though. so you might have to go for a slightly better option..

It's unfortunate it doesn't do POE, but it's really just not the ideal usecase they were picked for - But honestly, the performance for price i'd seriously consider using them as AP's.

Thanks, was thinking of adapting if necessary

For sure I wouldn't want PoE just because I want PoE I just have a situation with a client who only has a cat6 cable to an area they want an AP and was considering telling them to get the smart modem and a mesh but will probably just use a generic AP like grandstream or the like for this one

Thanks though

Itr0nic

94 posts

Master Geek

#2415577 10-Feb-2020 14:26

Currently have the HG659B modem from Spark.

My ever-increasing home network is getting slow, I went on the hunt I found the ( ASUS ROG GT-AX11000 ) little cheaper on Amazon. Still expensive

I do game ( so does someone else in my house ) so not sure if a gaming router is going to do much. But I still want the best performance I can get I am in no way a pro gamer. And I find the network/parental controls good as well.

So should I spend a good amount of money and get a gaming router or just get the Spark Smartmodem.

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snnet

1410 posts

Uber Geek

#2415656 10-Feb-2020 17:20

Itr0nic:

Currently have the HG659B modem from Spark.

My ever-increasing home network is getting slow, I went on the hunt I found the ( ASUS ROG GT-AX11000 ) little cheaper on Amazon. Still expensive

I do game ( so does someone else in my house ) so not sure if a gaming router is going to do much. But I still want the best performance I can get I am in no way a pro gamer. And I find the network/parental controls good as well.

So should I spend a good amount of money and get a gaming router or just get the Spark Smartmodem.

"gaming" routers are not like "gaming pcs"... I'd go for the smart modem if I was in the market for something solid for home

nickbrooker

56 posts

Master Geek

#2415666 10-Feb-2020 18:08

Itr0nic:

Currently have the HG659B modem from Spark.

My ever-increasing home network is getting slow, I went on the hunt I found the ( ASUS ROG GT-AX11000 ) little cheaper on Amazon. Still expensive

I do game ( so does someone else in my house ) so not sure if a gaming router is going to do much. But I still want the best performance I can get I am in no way a pro gamer. And I find the network/parental controls good as well.

So should I spend a good amount of money and get a gaming router or just get the Spark Smartmodem.

I have an RT-AX88 and I would say it's better but for a "free" ISP router, the smart router is really good. It's fast, simple to set up, and seems stable but I only ran for a few days here and there.

The reason I go with the ASUS is the anti virus and anti malware as well as category filtering (not just simple url matching.) The old ASUS (RT-AC66) dropped to about 500Mb when doing this but the AX88 has 4 cores and plenty of RAM and will maintain 950Mb doing all the filtering. I run a couple of services that make a lot of connections (tor intermediate etc not torrenting) and it handles those as well. We have typically 25 to 30 devices and no issue. We also have some AX devices and these show a connection speed of 2Gb so WiFi is less your bottleneck than most routers.

They come with WT Fast but that's only a demo and you can only use it on one device on your LAN so I lost interest in that.

Will it go faster than the Smart Router? Hard to say, would it even be noticeable? Will it do more? Likely yes if you want filtering. Spark have a "safe" DNS service but most kids know how to get around that and malware tends not to use the system DNS servers. It's a good thing to enable but it's one part and you need more layers than just that.

Gordy7

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#2416220 11-Feb-2020 14:31

If I buy a Spark Smart Modem off Trademe will I be able to keep the firmware up to date if I am not a Spark customer?

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2416277 11-Feb-2020 17:12

Gordy7: If I buy a Spark Smart Modem off Trademe will I be able to keep the firmware up to date if I am not a Spark customer?

No. currently update are only pushed out via Spark's TR069 platform, of which is limited to Just spark customers.

I am still keen to have the firmware posted on the site, but there is quite a few things this needs to go through first.

The Bigpipe/Skinny Variant will update on it's own though.

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

CrashAndBurn

668 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2417085 13-Feb-2020 08:58

Is there a way to have a different SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz as I cant seem to find it :( I have this when I was on HG695b.

hio77

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#2417091 13-Feb-2020 09:06

CrashAndBurn:

Is there a way to have a different SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz as I cant seem to find it :( I have this when I was on HG695b.

yes, Toggle the Bandsteering option in the Wifi setting.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

CrashAndBurn

668 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2417233 13-Feb-2020 12:10

hio77:

CrashAndBurn:

Is there a way to have a different SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz as I cant seem to find it :( I have this when I was on HG695b.

yes, Toggle the Bandsteering option in the Wifi setting.

Is that recommended though? Or is the new modem good enough to use the best band for each device connected?

hio77

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#2417288 13-Feb-2020 12:38

CrashAndBurn:

hio77:

CrashAndBurn:

Is there a way to have a different SSID for 2.4 and 5Ghz as I cant seem to find it :( I have this when I was on HG695b.

yes, Toggle the Bandsteering option in the Wifi setting.

Is that recommended though? Or is the new modem good enough to use the best band for each device connected?

In physical testing, I've been very impressed with the bandsteering.

In reviewing the Logs, which detail quite well what it's actually doing under the hood (remembering that most of bandsteering is basically just dropping a connection and not accepting it on one band... ) It does a bloody Brilliant job.

We (the folk that are involved in this modem) Thought out of this that it should almost always be active, that's why the call was made to forcefully activate it for everyone out of the box.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

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