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Comment by adriancooney | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting. From looking at the specs, it looks like they're packaging a server and marketing it as a router. The configuration app is a very nice touch, routers have always a pain to configure. I'd love to stick this in my apartment (even though I can only receive a maximum of 10mb/s).

As a side note, I'm surprised this isn't marketed alongside the Nest branch. It really has the look and feel of Nest products with the LEDs and the speaker aesthetic. Also surprised this isn't an "Alphabet" product.

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"As a side note, I'm surprised this isn't marketed alongside the Nest branch. It really has the look and feel of Nest products with the LEDs and the speaker aesthetic. Also surprised this isn't an "Alphabet" product."

It pretty much is... it's their way of sneaking the 'home automation' core/aggregation box into people's homes masked as a wireless router (for now).

I'm sure the capability you mention will come heading into the future. The only question will be : execution/security and will a competitor come up w/ a more secure/well executed product which won't serve as a data vacuum hose to google.

This kind of product launch on the heels of their massive alphabet re-org with no understanding where it came from (division wise) or what its goal is leads me to question whether the re-org is really going to move google beyond its former execution flaws ...

There are decent solutions to this already. INSTEON works great. It's got dual-band connectivity (wired and wireless) and you can either use a cloud hub if you want, or control it locally with a computer.

I can't tell you how many Insteon switches I've replaced in anger because they start flashing, stop responding to button presses, start beeping - one didn't even stop when I pulled the air gap switch. I'm well versed in their tech and in electrical systems, and everything was installed correctly, in some cases with fresh neutral wires pulled through direct from the neutral buss bar in the service panel, just to avoid potential crosstalk/current leakage, since they communicate over wires as well as via two way radio (newer spec switches).

I know it's anecdotal, but the Insteon forums are filled with similar stories. I was a very early adopter and have been through several generations of devices, and I'm committed to using another platform when I start replacing the remaining Insteon switches that will inevitably die.

I wouldn't recommend Insteon to anyone. X-10 was more reliable in my house. I'm evaluating Zigbee options now.

I have heard these stories (and am wary), but I have yet to have a single INSTEON device fail on me so far. X-10 was completely unusable for me.

I just bought a Zigbee Winkhub because I was looking into something to play around with to remotely control lights. I also wanted something that I could hack and run my own code on. The Winkhub is relatively easy to hack. I've only been using mine for about a week now but am very happy with it. I've only tested mine with lights so far.

Well they bought Revolv a while back (via Nest), mostly for the team. Come to think of it, I think they were working with Go too.

Revolv Hub supported devices:

http://support.revolv.com/knowledgebase/articles/329116

> home automation' core/aggregation box

Deeper than that, even. It seems like this is intended as a local-network cloudlet[1] substrate.

Launch an app on your phone that needs a companion frontend server instance to talk to? One gets launched "in the cloud"—specifically, in a virtual cloud owned by the app author. But where is that instance, physically? Usually a provider like AWS... but with a cloudlet peering arrangement, that instance could instead end up running on your router. (Not as crazy as it sounds if your app has an N:M frontend-backend server topology.)

[1] https://github.com/cmusatyalab/elijah-cloudlet

I've been toying with terminology to deal with the idea of a decentralized p2p cloud. Calling it a 'virtual cloud' seems off, and 'fog' has been co-opted by other kinds of tech. Any thoughts on what would be a good terminology for this?

Mist

“The Shade”

* It’s a play on the word “shard”.

* It suggests privacy and protection.

* It suggests something that is nearby, as opposed to “the cloud” that is far away.

…

Unfortunately, the word is probably too susceptible to negative connotation.

I thought fog was being used to describe this kind of thing. Where else is fog computing used, differently?

Given that it has ZigBee, Bluetooth 4.0 I think it's meant to be a hub. It also mentions Weave which would work well together with Nest: https://nest.com/support/article/How-does-Nest-Protect-conne...

What about Thread?

Thread uses the same hardware and radio protocols as Zigbee but a different software layer on the top.

Which means this could easily get Thread support as one of the "software updates" to come out.

The FAQ on the specs page mentions Thread support.

Thread and Zigbee both work on 802.15.4, which it supports.

Come to think of it, that's why Google is so behind Thread - they want a mesh networking protocol that's not exclusively local, but can connect each one of the embedded systems directly to the Internet with their own IPv6 address. Although, the protocol does support using a "gateway", too, but I have a feeling that won't be made the priority for most Thread-enabled devices.

> The configuration app is a very nice touch, routers have always a pain to configure.

Basically this boils down to:

The average home router which has basic to no settings (many even lack channel selection) but usage is poor to suboptimal. I had a Netgear router which had broken internal static routing - and netgear's response was to buy a different router (even though you could set it inside the router...).

Buying a higher power router or installing DD-WRT, Tomato or any of the other firmwares - now you have 1000 configuration items but you don't know which ones to tweak to give you good performance.

I believe most people fall into the middle - they want something that's easy to use with good performance but with the ability to adjust the 1000 configuration items if they wanted to.

> I believe most people fall into the middle - they want something that's easy to use with good performance but with the ability to adjust the 1000 configuration items if they wanted to.

I think most people want something that just works. (Most HN readers might want something where they can adjust 1000 configuration settings, but most people I think would never want to.)

> Also surprised this isn't an "Alphabet" product.

Alphabet has been announced, but AFAIK the actual corporate transition hasn't yet occurred.

Not to mention Alphabet is a holding company and won't have any products. It will all be done through the subsidiary companies (e.g. the new Google).

> I'm surprised this isn't marketed alongside the Nest branch.

I'm surprised that it isn't a Nest branded product that the Nest division ultimately controls. Looking at Google's history, I wouldn't be surprised if the Nest division came out with their own wifi router as well.

I'm hoping that this doesn't turn into another Google TV release where the product is barely beta.

It's comparable to the other top home commercial routers out there, like the Airport Extreme or Linksys 1900AC.

What specs are you talking about specifically? It doesn't look like a server at all.

https://on.google.com/hub/#specs

The detailed specs page shows a 1.4 GHz Dual Core processor and a 1GB of DDR3 RAM. Thats a little ridiculous for a router

Not really. The Linksys WRT1900AC has a 1.2ghz dual core CPU as well.

At some point you need a general purpose CPU to run everything and it's not hard to just throw an ARM SoC at it which is going to be in the 1-1.5ghz range and dual core because that's just what low-end is now.

The Linksys: http://www.linksys.com/us/p/P-WRT1900AC/

Agreed, the specs between the WRT1900AC and the OnHub are strikingly similar. Even the advertised smart features.

Plus at least 4GB of storage.

It's a Dual Core ARM, it's expected for a good gigabit router.

I'd imagine it's basically off-the-shelf mobile hardware.

The CPU is inline with top of the line routers these days (e.g. Asus RT-AC87U is a 1Ghz dual core). 1+Ghz dual core CPUs are really cheap these days.

The RAM is about 4x what other routers are packing but the cost difference between a 1Gbit chip and 4Gbit chip is a few dollars. Prices have been plummeting this year and 8Gbit chips replaced 4Gbit as the new hotness. Not to mention DDR4 rolling out so there might just be dumping going on that makes adding 1GB of RAM a non issue.

There's a specs link at the top of the page, but I'm also not sure what parent poster means. Just confused, I think.

The specifications are on a par with low-end consumer-grade NAS products, and it has a USB 3 port, but nothing on the site says anything about providing storage or other services, except for router-type and supporting configuration services (I suppose "keep an eye on your network" is a bit of an extra).

"Plenty of room, OnHub has 4GB of storage space, so there’s plenty of room for auto-updates and the latest software features" is hardly selling a server. All it claims to be is a fancy router.

> routers have always a pain to configure

Eh? You must buy some shitty routers, no offense.

Compared to the rest of the market, paying $200 for a router isn't competitive. It just is not worth it given Google's "eh-we-will-do-it-and-stop-if-people-complain/sue" mindset.

----

To Melvin, since I'm submitting to fast:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013ALA9LA?ref=spks_0_0_2170510902&...

> OnHub Wireless Router from Google and TP-LINK > by TP-LINK

1) You complain about the quality of TP-LINK products and think the solution is....another TP-LINK product, likely measured in the same way.

2) Honestly, I cannot think of a consumer AP that would actually perform to your expectations [apartment complex with 30+ competitors, saturating all the channels] that would be priced at $300, let alone $200. I can tell you right now, this Google AP won't do it either. Its "up to 1900mbps" for a reason. Trust me. Buying this won't be a magical solution to your problems if you real world gigabit speeds.

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To the folks complaining about "magical routers":

A) Buy something from Ubiquiti Networks.

B) Buy something you can flash with WRT firmware.

In both cases, as long as you understand the hardware specs, you'll get something better than the norm. In Ubiquiti's case, I'm 99% sure it will outperform a Google branded TP-Link AP unless Google is heavily subsidizing and QAing everything.

Really? I paid more for that for my last one. ASUS RT-AC68U when it just came out...

I have a 1 Gbps fiber connection at my apartment. I spent a good hour doing research and finally bought this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BUSDVBQ. It had 4.5 stars at the time and was the highest rated router that Amazon carried. I bought it, plugged it in and ran speedtest on it. Max speed I could get was 250mb/s. Not bad but not the gb/s that was getting advertised. Additional, over time, it would always slow down to 10-50mb/s. I called TP-Link and they said this was likely the best it'll do and the advertised speeds are in an interference free lab environment.

If OnHub fixes that second problem as they claim to, that would be more than enough reason for me to spend the $200. If they can get higher than 250mb/s speed by optimizing around the congestion, $200 will be well worth the spend.

I was in the same situation as you. Same Router too.

I could actually get close to 1 Gbps with the stock firmware. But it was unstable, requiring a reset every other day. I used an open source firmware, but it didn't contain the NAT offload module, so I would not be able to get over 200-250 Mbps. (This was is all wired, not wireless).

Since I had a wifi access point, I ended up switching to an Ubiquity Edgemax router and haven't had any problems since.

Not really a fan of TP-Link.

Here's the thing about TP-Link: They're a "good enough" manufactur. Meaning if you care about something, don't buy a TP-Link, but if you don't care that much and just need it to basically work "good enough" (e.g. WiFi for your mom's house) then they're fine.

I got a cheap TP-Link repeater. It works fine, nothing special, no bells or whistles. But for the price it was a good buy.

TP-Link are hardly a manufacturer of "good enough" products. Their $100 Archer C7 router is the top recommendation on TheWirecutter for over a year.[0] Their $75 Archer C5 is also the top rated AC1200 router in every single category on SmallNetBuilder.[1] It beats out more expensive models from all the bigger name manufacturers.

[0] http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/

[1] http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/router/result/1...

I've got the same router and I'm getting close to 900Mbps. Maybe your client device doesn't support 5Ghz?

I'm very happy considering the price and openwrt support.

Wifi or ethernet? My client device is the latest MacBook Pro. It supports 5Ghz.

So what's your magical router? Does it have options actually make sense? And a help that is, like, helpful?

I'm talking about things such as "Enable XPRESS whatever". Help: "Turns XPRESS whatever on or off". And then you find out that no matter what the feature was supposed to do, theoretically, in practice it makes the router slow and unstable. Or, at worst, crashes it. No brand is immune. Many (non-enterprise) routers will advertise QoS features, but you find that you are better off without them.

That goes for almost all brands that are not classed as "Enterprise" - and even some that are.

Have you ever tried an AVM Router? Amazing things, several of their Fritz!Box lineup are actually better specs-wise than this Google router (and don’t come from a company with rather questionable update and privacy record)

Have you tried running either a *wrt variant, or, if you don't like poking firmware, any of Ubiquiti's offerings?

> Trust me.

I don't trust people who say "Trust me." :)

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 needs because it has these 3 features. 1,2,3. It's much harder to argue with flat statements of fact as opposed to the salesmanship trick of, i would lie to most people but i like you so i'm going to tell you a secret.

Or, you know, don't. If it's not a problem for you don't waste time on it, but that's the underlying effect.

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.

My point: you're a random stranger saying to another random stranger "trust me" without justifying your request to trust you. Why should I trust you?

Your reply: After I've convinced them that I know enough to fix the problem (by either demonstrating my expertise/qualifications/experience or getting someone else to vouch for me), they believe me.

Well duh! If you demonstrate why they should trust you, they'll trust you. They won't just randomly pay you money to fix shit if they don't trust you.

Given I suggested a free solution it doesn't really require much trust.

But hey, go keep trusting the people who already screwed you.

You're going off the deep end now.

I'm uncertain how a factual statement is going off the deep end but okay.

1) You want to fix a shitty TP-Link product with another TP-Link product.

2) How is that not that?

Trustworthy people don't need to tell others to trust them.

How do DrayTek products rank these days? When I was on ADSL they were excellent, and their UK-tuned firmware outperformed Linksys & Netgear.

Now I'm on fibre I'm using the Draytek purely as an access point, and BT's modem to connect. The Draytek'll need replacing soon.

I only recommend what I've used personally. :/

DrayTek sucks as a router, those things need to be rebooted all the time. Use an EdgeRouter.

No experience with Draytek's routers, but I've been happy with their ADSL/VDSL modems (Vigor 120/130). They have some really nice features, like PPPoA -> PPPoE passthrough.

We're using a few of their modems in bridge mode and then everything works fine. It's just the routing they can't do.

I've never had problems with my Router. I do however have problems with Google ChromeCast vanishing from other devices -- which according to Google is a problem with the router (although for me the problem mostly occurs when the ChromeCast decides to use the same WiFi channel for its internal WLAN as the WiFi it's registered on).

I also have occasional problems with Linux devices being picky and flaky -- sometimes not connecting at all (repeating the "connecting..." phase ad nauseam) and sometimes just dropping the connection until I restart the device.

I find it dubious that these problems would be fixed by a Google branded router.

I have a Ubiquiti AC access point at home and the only thing I could see the OnHub doing better is the auto-sensing other networks and working around them. I'm not sure how that would work yet since changing channels would kick everyone off wifi for a second but the Ubiquiti "auto" channel is only changed/detected at boot (probably for the reason I just mentioned).

I think the best way to judge this product is as a hub for a smart home. The fact that it is an easy to wifi router is incidental (in spite of the fact that is all the marketing is talking about). It seems pretty clear, "onHub" is suppose to be a hub for a bunch of "on" branded smart home devices.

I've written some more fleshed out thoughts here: https://medium.com/@mrwilliamchang/onhub-is-not-a-router-foc...

To understand why certain products, which are seemingly unrelated to Google's core competency, have stayed with Google and haven't moved on to Alphabet, or why Google created a product such as OnHub and not Nest, you have to realize why all of these product are under Google - to track all the data that goes through them under the same generic/unified "privacy" policy, and then feed it into its advertising system.

That's why OnHub is a Google product.

And that's exactly why it won't be getting put in my home.

This was a primary motivation for Google+ as well - a single unified login under one unified privacy policy.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it's actually just a branding thing, and has been in the works for much longer than anyone involved knew that Alphabet was going to happen.

The team that built this is part of the same company as Google Fiber (disclaimer: for which I work), which is in fact no longer part of Google Inc.

Well, if they wanted to track data through this, though, they either have to make it under the Google brand, or can’t sell it in Europe.

> but it's actually just a branding thing

I've heard it's mostly a liability thing. When projects like the self-driving car were directly under Google, Google's assets were fair game in any lawsuit over that technology. With the current setup, liability is siloed in each legal entity which gives the cash cow, Google, more protection.

More here: http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/13/9149431/alphabet-google-co...

I wasn't commenting on why the Alphabet thing happened (I've heard all sorts of explanations but nothing official except what's been said publicly, and I don't personally have any insight). I was talking about why things in Access & Energy are still getting the "Google" label, e.g. "Google Fiber" or "OnHub by Google".

For clarity:

Here is the help page on the topic of data collection and privacy: https://support.google.com/onhub/answer/6246642?hl=en&ref_to.... And see also, how to set a whole bunch of privacy settings: https://support.google.com/onhub/answer/6279845?vid=1-635755.... Disclaimer: I work on the project. I am not a spokesperson or legal or marketing, or anything like that.

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