Linksys 4+

Had Gigaclear install 600mb Fibre service yesterday and was apprehensive about both the new service and what the router would be like considering I’ve been a long standing loyal BT customer for 20+ yrs! I was very happy with the BT router control page and again was worried about it the new one would be as useable! Well I have to say the router works very well and control by the app is superior to what I have been used to!so easy to navigate extremely intuitive and gives a great deal of detail including parental controls which I set up in minutes. The app and service is a breath of fresh air and in the two days I’ve had this service no faults or drops out as of yet! Thumbs up from me!

When I upgraded the Wi-Fi from an old Apple AirPort 5 GHz Router I thought I would be joining the benefits of modern advancements (AirPort was around 10 years old). While there were some set up bugs around using the Velop MESH system, we persevered and have had it working well throughout the house - The app however, has been its own nightmare. It is far from accurate, with it reporting devices that are either not connected as being connected, or the exact opposite. It is painfully slow, with requested actions either taking an age to confirm, or just not confirming at all and not completing the requested change. It also continues to tell you that the routers have no internet, when you clearly do and are either streaming and/or gaming online - things that would be impossible if you don’t have internet connection. At time of writing, the app hasn’t had an update in 4 months, so I don’t think Linksys are too bothered about helping to keep your network running. Such a shame, as I came to Linksys because I trusted their brand and their privacy claims, but ultimately let down by the app interface. Since there are no alternatives, just going to have to sit it out till things work properly again (if ever), but if you haven’t already invested in a new Linksys setup and just perusing the companion apps before buying; read the reviews here and on Reddit, and have a look at what the competition is doing if managing your devices is important to you.

This is a well laid out and easy to use app that does most of what you might want it to. The only feature I would add is the ability to ensure that a particular device used 2.5 Ghz only rather than 5 Ghz.
Sadly the flaws don't end there. Even when it decides to work the app is SLOW! Unbelievably slow. It might be useful in setting up a new node, but by the time it has loaded on iOS 17 you could have set up five nodes.
When you first login to the app it, not unreasonably, forces a change of password as a way of creating a password. Unfortunately, it continually forgets that it has done this and constantly tells you that you have the wrong password. So you go to the password manager and input as your new password the password that you have been using, the one the app has just told you is wrong: 'sorry,' says the password manager, 'you have to create a new password, you can't reuse your current password!' After ten or twelve times this becomes a little trying.
Now, for the past 24 hours the app has been displaying a spinning circle saying 'logging out', something I haven't asked it to do.
All in all, a promising start but needs far more work!