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OnHub

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Re: OnHub

#331

Post by fweespeech »

jfoutz wrote: post #303
fweespeech wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure. No one ever believes me until I've been paid to fix it. I'm used to it.

It's less about your skills, and more about your presentation. "Honestly" and "Trust me" smack of salesmanship. It's a weird effect. Engineers try to be more persuasive by picking up, intentionally or not, vocabulary used for persuasion. Unfortunately, there is a lot of nuance that's hard to control. Tighten up your writing, and perhaps speech, so you simply state the facts as you see them. This router will meet your…

Thanks for the advice.

I think the underlying problem is my incentive is for people to disbelieve me the first time I tell them something. I don't really care if they believe me since after I am proven right I get more to fix the problem. [e.g. The last time, I got ~$6k] :/

So I'm not really motivated to fix it, y'know?

I probably should fix it since I'd be a better person for it but my financial incentive isn't aligned with fixing it.

Re: OnHub

#332

Post by kuschku »

ejdyksen wrote: post #259
impish19 wrote: post #51

So what does this device primarily do that I need right now? Just throttling internet for certain devices and prioritizing others? I'm not even entirely sure what 'uses smart software to find the best WiFi connection' means. What's the value prop here given the device costs $200? It's not like it can better your internet somehow.

It has a 3rd radio that monitors the channels you aren't currently using to see if any of them are better. The first two radios in the device can't switch without dropping connections, so they can't go hunting for new channels once the AP is turned on. My Airport Extreme chooses channels automatically at boot time, then never again. This is fine for my house though, because my neighbors are reasonably far away. At wo…

Which is a standard feature in a lot of other routers, too, like the Fritz!Box 7490. http://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/fritzbox-7490/

Google is doing nothing special here.

Re: OnHub

#333

Post by busterarm »

wnevets wrote: post #294
busterarm wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like phones locked on old versions of Android once Google moves on to new ones?

Smartphones have a very different upgrade cycle than a SOHO router. Customers have been trained to upgrade their phone every two years by the cell phone carriers.

Given the substantial drop-off in build quality that I've seen over the years since the first G routers until maybe _very_ recently, I'm not so sure about this statement.

I've got v1-4 WRT54Gs that are still going strong while I've seen several dozen newer routers shit themselves over the years.

Also, why do we NEED to upgrade phones every 2 years?

Re: OnHub

#334

Post by RexRollman »

astrocyte wrote: post #321

My biggest issue with this is that Google wants to inject a piece of hardware into my home that acts as the gateway to my data. A device through which all : > Incoming data runs through > Internal data runs through > Outgoing data runs through And then wants to be vague about what data they will be pumping to their back-end for analytics/data mining. I have had a long standing proposal for home automation and I'm cur…

I totally agree with you. I am as likely to buy this as I am to buy a router made by Facebook.

Re: OnHub

#335

Post by otis_inf »

endtime wrote: post #215
andrewla wrote: post #184

From [1] Get started Welcome! To set up your OnHub, you’ll also need: Google account Android or iOS device Broadband connection Google account? That seems like an unnecessary requirement for a router. [1] https://on.google.com/hub/support/#get-started

(Disclaimer: I work for the same former-division-of-Google-and-now-Alphabet-subsidiary that built this, though I don't work on OnHub.) I think you need an account for cloud-based configuration, credential sharing, etc. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I think it makes sense as a product. I highly doubt they added a Google account requirement to improve ad targeting.

> I highly doubt they added a Google account requirement to improve ad targeting.

Ad delivery networks, and google is one of the biggest, have one core business: delivering ads. Everything is setup to make that as big and as solid as possible. Whatever it takes (and we all know how far ad delivery networks will go: almost infinitely far).

Now they ship a piece of hardware, require signing up with an account, and it's not for prolonging / helping their core business? If you believe that, I have a piece of land I want to sell to you, special price.

Re: OnHub

#336

Post by RexRollman »

andrewla wrote: post #184

From [1] Get started Welcome! To set up your OnHub, you’ll also need: Google account Android or iOS device Broadband connection Google account? That seems like an unnecessary requirement for a router. [1] https://on.google.com/hub/support/#get-started

It's computer fascism and people are stupid enough to sign up for it.

Re: OnHub

#337

Post by izacus »

fraXis wrote: post #245
tomkinstinch wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their FAQ suggests increasing coverage by having one unit act as the router (doing NAT), and having others act as (bridged) access points: https://support.google.com/onhub/answer/6275097?vid=1-635755...

This method seems really cumbersome compared to the Airport Extreme and their wireless bridging method.

Ehm... that's pretty much the exact same method you use on Airport Extreme if you care about speeds (one being the NAT machine, others APs connected with cables).

If you're doing the wireless bridge you're trading off a lot of wireless bandwidth (and added noise) just to get data from one Airport to another. Far from an optimal setup.

Re: OnHub

#338

Post by speechduh »

misterbwong wrote: post #207

Am I the only one thinking this is Google's stealth echo competitor? It has all the right pieces. It's constantly connected to internet and power, zigbee/bluetooth/wifi, speaker, decent (enough) CPU, front end app. I'm sure they already have an API built into the back end. All they would need to do would be to build a gateway API for developers and add a mic.

Far field speech recognition is _really_ hard. You can't just throw any random set of mic / speaker into a tube and expect it to work. The echo is almost exclusively mic / speaker, in a very specific configuration. There's no way the product they're shipping will be able to do far field speech recognition (much less while playing music).

Re: OnHub

#339

Post by patrickyeon »

otis_inf wrote: post #335
endtime wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I work for the same former-division-of-Google-and-now-Alphabet-subsidiary that built this, though I don't work on OnHub.) I think you need an account for cloud-based configuration, credential sharing, etc. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I think it makes sense as a product. I highly doubt they added a Google account requirement to improve ad targeting.

> I highly doubt they added a Google account requirement to improve ad targeting. Ad delivery networks, and google is one of the biggest, have one core business: delivering ads. Everything is setup to make that as big and as solid as possible. Whatever it takes (and we all know how far ad delivery networks will go: almost infinitely far). Now they ship a piece of hardware, require signing up with an account, and it's…

I'm not going to say you're wrong, but Google has an interest in maximizing the number of people who have consistent, reliable, enjoyable internet experiences. If this hardware does not collect data to help them target ads (and that may very well be the case), but causes more eyeballs to spend more time online where they will find Google-hosted ads, it helps their core business AND the customer.

Re: OnHub

#340

Post by ejdyksen »

kuschku wrote: post #332
ejdyksen wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a 3rd radio that monitors the channels you aren't currently using to see if any of them are better. The first two radios in the device can't switch without dropping connections, so they can't go hunting for new channels once the AP is turned on. My Airport Extreme chooses channels automatically at boot time, then never again. This is fine for my house though, because my neighbors are reasonably far away. At wo…

Which is a standard feature in a lot of other routers, too, like the Fritz!Box 7490. http://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/fritzbox-7490/ Google is doing nothing special here.

I don't see anything on the spec sheets for the Fritz!Box 7490 that show it has more than 2 radios, like most dual band APs out there today.

Google's spec sheet [1] specifically has 3 radios:

http://i.imgur.com/x7CMktb.png

The first two radios do MIMO 3x3, and the third radio just has 1 antenna (since it isn't serving client traffic).

While this isn't completely new, it's definitely not common, especially for a consumer-grade AP/router.

[1]: https://on.google.com/hub/#specs

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