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Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

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Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#211

Post by chias »

boulos wrote: post #165
chias wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with Google Wifi and Google Home Nest. Also, fun fact, during an internet outage some time ago I learned that your Google Wifi can't even route locally if you don't have a live connection to the internet. That is, my Desktop could not connect to my NAS -- both wired via Ethernet to my Google Wifi network -- because there was no Internet access. This is a "feature", and is working as intended: https://twitter.com…

Disclosure: I used to work for Google and still work for Alphabet. That response is a little confusing: the management app is Internet only, but it doesn't drop all its routing tables or something just because the uplink is gone. Moreover, the regular DHCP and so on will operate just fine while not connected to the internet. I don't know what happened in your case and I totally agree that it's a bad experience for tr…

We had also had a power outage, which I suspect caused it to lose it's routing tables for some reason. Power was out for about a week, internet was out for about three weeks. When power came back, the Google WiFi was essentially a fancy brick with LEDs until the internet came back too.

Luckily I had a ~15 year old Cisco router I could temporarily replace it with.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#212

Post by mook »

vel0city wrote: post #203
ineedasername wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have ~7 year old bog standard wifi router that has more than enough speed to saturate my 200Mbs downlink. Up to 7 or 8 devices online at a time when all family members are home, and there's never a contention issue. I can hog the connection w/ a huge Steam download, and then when they kids start streaming netflix to the TV it's still all shared nicely with me getting a reduced speed as the stream kicks in, everythi…

I'd highly recommend looking at just getting a wired AP to put in the basement and have it ceiling mounted. It really depends on how your house was designed, but it could be relatively easy to drop a cable down from an above floor to the ceiling. You'll get much better performance having a wire carrying the signal than trying to do WiFi mesh setups, especially when you're trying to cover an area that already has terr…

In my experience even Ethernet over powerline is better than using WiFi mesh, since there's still a wire, even if it's noisy. That is, it provided a more stable connection, even if the peak speed is not theoretically as fast.

Your mileage may vary.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#213

Post by pydry »

vel0city wrote: post #210
pydry wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am not in the house or I am asleep it is a waste of energy to heat it. I find it weird that you get indignant at the idea of a little more automation than a timer. >How do you think thermostats worked before the internet? Either wasting money heating an empty home when I went out or I came home to a cold house and then turned on the heating. I remember. I also remember thermostats which didnt understand the conc…

> If I am not in the house or I am asleep it is a waste of energy to heat it. I agree, which is why I use a multi-stage programmable thermostat. Once again, it turns off when I leave, turns back on a bit before I get home, lets it warm/cool a bit while I sleep, and then starts back up around when I wake up. > I find it weird that you get indignant at the idea of a little more automation than a timer. If you're manual…

>Its nice you're happy with your expensive device that's beholden to some cloud server

lol I guess you made a bad guess about what homeassistant does or you simply chose not to read what i wrote.

Either way it's nice that you won the argument against the straw man you argued with.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#214

Post by vel0city »

pydry wrote: post #213
vel0city wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I am not in the house or I am asleep it is a waste of energy to heat it. I agree, which is why I use a multi-stage programmable thermostat. Once again, it turns off when I leave, turns back on a bit before I get home, lets it warm/cool a bit while I sleep, and then starts back up around when I wake up. > I find it weird that you get indignant at the idea of a little more automation than a timer. If you're manual…

>Its nice you're happy with your expensive device that's beholden to some cloud server lol I guess you made a bad guess about what homeassistant does or you simply chose not to read what i wrote. Either way it's nice that you won the argument against the straw man you argued with.

Ah, I missed where you said it was Home Assistant. My mind was mostly thinking about all the Nests and other cloud thermostats people tend to buy these days what with the original article talking about killing the device. Still, you need to do maintenance on your Home Assistant server while my 7 day thermostat requires no upkeep other than changing a AA battery every few years.

It being beholden to a cloud server is only half of my point which is the vast majority of the key functionality you talked about could have been achieved with a far simpler and cheaper device that has absolutely no network connectivity at all. Sure, you wouldn't be able to datamine exactly when your thermostat kicked on or off, but to me pressing a button to tell it you're coming home is less automation than your home just automatically being at the temp you want when you're there. If your schedule fluctuates by several hours every day for when you wake, when you leave, when you come home, and when you sleep I guess it could be useful to reprogram that on the fly remotely but for the vast majority of people a 7 day 4 stage programmable is fine. Not everything in my house needs to have an IP address.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#215

Post by vel0city »

mook wrote: post #212
vel0city wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd highly recommend looking at just getting a wired AP to put in the basement and have it ceiling mounted. It really depends on how your house was designed, but it could be relatively easy to drop a cable down from an above floor to the ceiling. You'll get much better performance having a wire carrying the signal than trying to do WiFi mesh setups, especially when you're trying to cover an area that already has terr…

In my experience even Ethernet over powerline is better than using WiFi mesh, since there's still a wire, even if it's noisy. That is, it provided a more stable connection, even if the peak speed is not theoretically as fast. Your mileage may vary.

Your mileage can definitely vary with Powerline Ethernet adapters. When they work they're amazing, when they stop working it can be rather annoying. Most don't have any real feedback other than a small handful of LEDs on the device. I've had several different models from different vendors over the years using a few of the various revisions of standard and different electrical system setups. They would usually work pretty well for weeks, then suddenly lose their sync for unknown reasons requiring a hard reset. Often this happens right when you're in the middle of watching a movie or playing a game, requiring you to stop what you're doing, unplug both devices, wait a few seconds, plug both back in, and it magically starts working fine again. I've had that experience on all of the units I've used. It has been about 5 years since the last time I used one, I'm sure they've constantly had improvements.

That said though when they work I got pretty much the rated speeds all the time without any intermediate dropouts or other issues. Stupid simple to use, just plug both sides in and suddenly network. This was sometimes even without both units being on the same circuit, but at least one of the legs had a decently short run to the electrical panel.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#216

Post by wtallis »

diamondo25 wrote: post #127
wtallis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment, I would definitely choose an older 802.11ac device with mature open-source drivers over any 802.11ax device. Especially since last I checked, the only affordable 802.11ax routers were limited to 2T2R, so they would be a step backwards in peak throughout for some client devices.

Latency is a thing, and newer networks have lower latency or are affected by other clients being slower (eg MIMO and improved channeling), though other ethernet devices can still have a big effect (eg remote server latency, dns latency, retransmissions).

Latency is exactly why I'd prefer a last-gen radio with open-source drivers. An 802.11ac router with the latest open-source drivers (ath10k and mt76) will give you better real-world latency, because there are open-source developers working to optimize for the metrics that actually improve real-world user experiences rather than seeking the largest achievable throughput numbers on naive speed tests.

802.11ax on its own does nothing to address the problem of wasting too much airtime serving a client at the extreme edge of your AP's range where neither 802.11ax or ac transmission rates will work. That kind of problem must be tackled with better QoS strategies that are not inherently tied to any particular generation of the WiFi standards, but in practice can only be developed and tested for chipsets that are sufficiently hackable

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#217

Post by dmitrygr »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #209
dmitrygr wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That story is not as simple as you make it sound... The team was "android at home" and the year was 2012. This was google's first effort at home automation, and besides $60 lightbulbs you could turn off wirelessly that nobody at the time needed, we had the Q. The main focus for Q was audio. Fancy, high quality audio. It had a very nice amp. It even had very fancy hardware to allow synchronized audio playback without…

Obviously that is an example of incredible corporate dysfunction. But perhaps you would know, because it always blew my mind: Is there any reason the Nexus Q couldn't have been adapted to at least... be a Chromecast? The Nexus Q's function in YouTube and such was directly replaced by the Chromecast function... and I presume processing power wasn't an issue... It feels like if there wasn't an insurmountable incompatib…

Its successor (now android tv) do have this ability. All work on q stopped at that time

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#218

Post by ineedasername »

trhway wrote: post #153
waych wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that, as a product, it's just not built to be sustainable with zero effort. The phone apps end up having to keep up with the underlying android+ios stacks' ever changing details, but even worse are the cloud services that help make the app -> router connection seamless, with the need to keep up with the ever-ongoing churn required to run binaries on Google's servers (aka "in Production"). To give an id…

>the cloud services that help make the app -> router connection seamless an idea - "Cloud free" label for hardware similar to "GMO free" for food

Yes, 3 categories:

--Cloud free

--Cloud required

--Cloud supplemented

The last one would need to be accompanied by a list of features that depend on the cloud.

Expiration dates should also be required. "Guaranteed support for X years from original release date; Y Years from date of final official sale."

I'm not inherently against products that use or require cloud infrastructure to function, but I think consumers should have the information needed to make an informed decision.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#219

Post by ineedasername »

acdha wrote: post #197
ineedasername wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that what is simple for me is that I don't make those judgements based purely on age. If I'm not having noticeable problems with a 6-7 year old router then I'm not going to write off forced obsolescence as "well it was time to upgrade anyway". I already get the full 200Mbs speed that I pay for and 15-20ms ping & low jitter. Upgrading isn't going to do a lot for me. Everyone is able to make their own determina…

I’m not defending Google but almost everyone I know who replaced a 6+ year old router then spends a month saying they should have done that sooner because the differences were noticeable. Given how heavily most people use WiFi now, spending something like $0.50 per day for your entire family seems like far from the most pressing area to economize. The other thing to consider is how the rest of the market compares: a…

far from the most pressing area to economize

$0.50/day seems like a small thing until you're strapped for cash but all of a sudden have to pay $500 all at once to replace your Google mesh network hardware.

That aside, as much as this particular example frustrates me, it's not my primary concern: It's the overall trend of forced obsolescence taking yet another step forward and increasing issue of e-waste.

Mandatory recycling is also problematic. It could mean that products that might have ample community support (e.g., via OpenWRT) would still be illegal, and in general would take away a user's right to support & maintain their purchases. It is also something that would be ripe for regulatory capture.

Separate from those issues is the consumer's ability to make an informed choice: A product with a potential expiration date should be required to market it as such. Google does this with Pixel phones; hopefully after this they will begin doing it with their other products as well, and I think that in general it should be required: MS does this with Windows, plenty of other vendors do it, there's no reason it can't be a universal requirement as part of consumer protection laws.

Re: Google to end support for OnHub routers in 2022

#220

Post by ineedasername »

londons_explore wrote: post #185
ineedasername wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would rooting allow reconfiguration that Google will now be blocking through the Home app?

Yes

Thanks-- That's promising then. An easy tool to root & non-techie friendly GUI would be a great thing here. Heck, they seem like a nice piece of hardware on their spec's, I'd pickup a few on the cheap.
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