Samsung Connect Home mesh Wi-Fi falls short in usability
Smart Home
[MUSIC]
The Samsung Connect Home is a Wi-Fi Mesh System that's also a SmartThings hub.
It's available as a 3-Pack for $380, or a single unit as $170.
It's AC1300 rating, captures speed at 400 MBPS on 2.4GHZ, and 867 MBPS on 5GHZ.
Upgrading to the Samsung Connect Home Pro doubles those speeds and cost about $250 per unit.
If you want maximum coverage, you can connect up to five units, for one home, at a time.
The biggest headache I encountered during testing, was the Samsung Connect App.
which is the only way to set it up.
It had a very hard time recognizing the units so be ready to completely close and restart the app as well as have a pin or paper clip ready to hit the tiny reset button on the back of each unit that isn't connected While the app has it's limitations, Samsung just announced that it will be consolidating all of it's apps into one.
So you'll soon be able to control a majority of your Samsung products from a single app.
For testing, I put two units on the first floor and one in the basement.
The main hub, which was wired to the modem, showed speeds of just over 500 megabits per second at 10 feet away.
The second unit, also located on the first floor, was about half that speed, and the basement unit, where the WiFi signal's generally poor, was a surprising 140 Megabits per second.
With the pro unit as the main hub, I saw speeds of over 600 Megabits per second at close range.
As a smart things hub, the Samsung Connect Home worked great.
The app synced up with the smart devices much easier than with the router.
And it has an automations feature so you can do stuff like turning out a light when you open a door.
You'll save money to by not having to buy a separate hub for your smart devices.
Overall I would only recommend the Samsung connect home for someone who wants to upgrade their outdated router and have a hub for their Samsung smart devices.
