Samsung Connect Home Pro: A mesh networking system with smart home capabilities

Note: This article was first published on 25th March 2018.

Wait, what's mesh networking?

Jeez, where have you been? To put it briefly, it refers to a wireless system where multiple nodes contribute to spread Wi-Fi across an area and using the same Wi-Fi network name (SSID). This is particularly useful in solving the problems of Wi-Fi dead spots in homes. You know what? You should read our mesh networking guide before you continue reading this review to ensure you're familiar with the basics.

Ok, talk me through the basics of the Connect Home Pro.

The Connect Home Pro is Samsung’s first mesh networking system. To help it stand out from the crowd, it is also a smart home hub but more on that later.

How fast is it?

The Connect Home Pro is classified as an AC2600-class dual-band router. It is powered by a 1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm IPQ8065 processor and supports speeds of up to 800Mbps on its 2.4GHz network and 1,733Mbps on its 5GHz network. This is pretty impressive, considering most other dual-band mesh networking systems only supports speeds of up to 867Mbps on their 5GHz network. But of course, this is just its specifications, its real-world performance will be vastly different and we will talk about that later.

There is a non-Pro version?

Yes, Samsung also has a regular Connect Home mesh networking system that is slightly slower. It looks just like the Connect Home Pro but it is classified as an AC1300-class dual-band router. Powering it is a 710MHz quad-core Qualcomm IPQ4019 processor and it supports speeds of up to 400Mbps on its 2.4GHz network and 867Mbps on its 5GHz network. It’s less pricey, so if performance isn’t a big deal, you might want to consider the regular Connect Home instead.

Will it match my furniture?

Unlike traditional routers which typically just sits in one spot in the house, mesh networking systems - by virtue of their purpose and the way they work - have to be positioned around the house, so design becomes even more important.

Thankfully, the design of the Connect Home Pro is unobtrusive. It has an unembellished white styling, and because it is so compact - roughly the size of a large portable external hard drive - it should blend into most homes nicely and easily.

It’s so small, what connections does it offer?

Sadly, not much. It only has two Gigabit Ethernet ports. And unlike some of its competitors whose Ethernet ports can work in both LAN and WAN modes, the Connect Home Pro has one Ethernet port dedicated to WAN and another for LAN. Also, there are no USB ports.

You mentioned the Connect Home Pro is also a smart home hub?

Yes, the Connect Home Pro supports Z-Wave and Zigbee, two widely supported wireless protocols that are used by many smart home and IoT devices. You can add these devices to the Connect Home Pro and create rules to manage them to fit your lifestyle.

Alright, so how easy is it to set up the Connect Home Pro?

Like most modern mesh networking systems, the Connect Home Pro is dead simple to set up. Simply download the Samsung Connect app and power up the Connect Home Pro. You will need to create a Samsung account first using the app, which is a minor annoyance, but once that is done, simply follow the onscreen instructions to setup your mesh network. Once you are done setting up the first router, it will prompt you to enter a network name and password. Thereafter, you can add more nodes and smart devices to the network.

What networking management features are there?

Like most mesh networking systems, the Home Connect Pro has a limited number of management options. You can change your SSID name and password, and you can also set up a separate guest network for visitors. On top of that, you also have Port Forwarding, QoS, and Parental Controls. There’s a lot of things it can’t do that most regular routers can. For instance, you can’t manually manage the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, you also can’t fiddle with security options, and there’s also no way for users to manually or even automatically optimize the Wi-Fi channels.

How do I manage smart devices?

The Samsung Connect app lets you create rules to manage your devices. The rules work in the same way as IFTTT rules. For instance, you could make the lights come on whenever the motion sensors are triggered; or you could send the robotic vacuum cleaner on its cleaning duties every day at a specific time. The possibilities are endless, but the important thing here is that the Connect Home Pro makes it easy to manage all of your smart devices.

What smart devices are there?

Along with the Connect Home and Connect Home Pro, Samsung is also launching a range of SmarThings sensors for different needs and they are:

• Arrival sensor
• Multi-purpose sensor
• Motion sensor
• Water-leak sensor
• Outlet sensor

Obviously, you can use other sensors with the Connect Home Pro but these from Samsung are actually quite nice and reasonably priced.

How does the Samsung Home Connect Pro perform?

The TLDR version: The short story is that the Home Connect Pro performs very decent as a mesh networking system. Overall performance is almost as good as the Linksys Velop and appreciably quicker than the Google Wifi.

For the rest of you who like to pore over graphs, here they are. But first, a quick run through of our test setup.

Test Setup

To test this new breed of mesh networking systems, we've changed our test environment, but our test setup remains relatively unchanged. We have two notebooks, one acting as a host machine and the other as a client device. The router, or in this case, node, acts as a gateway. Since mesh networking systems typically manage channel settings on their own, we will leave it that way. For systems where manual settings are possible, a channel bandwidth of 40MHz is selected where applicable, while 80MHz or more is used for the 5GHz AC band.

The client device is a 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is one of the few client devices in the market to come with a 3x3 Wi-Fi receiver, allowing it to achieve wireless speeds of up to 1,300Mbps.

To evaluate, we will be measuring the time and calculating the speed achieved when transferring a 1GB zip file. We will do multiple tests with different setups and different distances to simulate use around a typical single story flat and in a multi-story home.

Here are the test distances we used and what they represent:

• 2m - Right beside the router
• 5m - In an adjacent room
• 10m - In a room that is farther away
• 15m - To simulate extreme distances (e.g. master bedroom toilet)
• Second story - One floor above
• Third story - Two floors above

Here are the different Samsung Connect Home Pro setups we used:

• A single Samsung Connect Home Pro router
• Two Samsung Connect Home Pro nodes over a single floor
• Three Samsung Connect Home Pro nodes over three floors

To further clarify, in tests where nodes were placed on the second or third floor, the measurement would be taken with the client device about two meters away from the node.

Finally, included in the graphs are results of other mesh networking systems like the Google Wifi, Linksys Velop, and Netgear Orbi.

Single node performance

In this test, we will be looking at the performance of a single Samsung Connect Home Pro router in a single-story (using the different distance markers) and multi-story home. All other competitive mesh networking system results are also that of a single node setup.

The performance of a single Connect Home Pro node is quite decent. Its performance at 2 meters is quite impressive, but the drop-off as we move further and further away is quite severe. Nevertheless, its overall performance was comfortably in the middle of the pack.

Mesh performance at 15 meters

In this test, we placed a second Samsung Connect Home Pro router in between the first node and the 15-meter mark to create a mesh network to get signal to the problematic 15-meter mark. We did the same for other mesh networks to see how their performance would compare.

Mesh performance on 2nd floor

In this test, we placed a second Samsung Connect Home Pro node on the second floor and created a mesh network to expand Wi-Fi coverage on the second floor. We did the same for the other mesh networks to see how their performance would compare.

The Netgear Orbi was the runaway leader here but the Samsung Connect Home Pro wasn’t too shabby either and was comfortably the third fastest mesh networking system. More importantly, at least its performance was consistent and reliable.

Mesh performance on 3rd floor

In this test, we placed a third Samsung Connect Home Pro node on the third floor to expand coverage to three floors. We did the same for other mesh networks to see how their performance would compare.

Again, the Netgear Orbi was the runaway leader thanks to its tri-band configuration and high bandwidth network for backhaul communications. As for the Connect Home Pro, it found itself in third-place once more, but only trailing the Linksys Velop by a very slight margin. Even though the gulf in performance between the Connect Home Pro and the Orbi might seem wide, the speeds achieved by the Connect Home Pro was more than enough for us to smoothly stream 4K content from YouTube.

So how does the Connect Home Pro compare against its rivals?

In terms of performance, the Connect Home Pro is certainly competitive. It’s not quite as fast as the Netgear Orbi and Linksys Velop (both of which are tri-band systems), but it is quicker than both the Google Wifi and TP-Link Deco M5, which are comparable dual-band systems. Perhaps most importantly, it does a good job of expanding Wi-Fi coverage and I can see it being helpful in ridding homes of Wi-Fi dead spots.  

As for features, the Connect Home Pro has the upper hand because of its smart home capabilities. If you are thinking of making your home “smart,” the Connect Home Pro could be an elegant solution to tying all your devices up together and making them work together coherently.

Where the Connect Home Pro falters is in its price. It is sold separately with no bundles and each router costs S$298. This makes it one of the priciest mesh networking systems. For a pack of three, you are looking at S$894. In comparison, the Linksys Velop in a pack of three is S$689, whereas a pack of three TP-Link Deco M5s’ is S$399. The Google Wifi might only be available to Starhub customers but it’s worth mentioning that depending on the plan you get, you would only end up paying either S$360 or S$480 for a pack of three Google Wifi. Only the Orbi is more expensive, but only just at S$949, but it has the benefit of being super fast.

In closing, you should really only consider the Connect Home Pro if you find its smart home capabilities to be useful. Otherwise, there are more affordable and equally good alternatives.

What alternatives should I consider?

If you are thinking of signing on to Starhub, the Google Wifi is a good option. It is only slightly slower but it has the benefit of being super easy to setup and being more affordable. The TP-Link Deco M5 is also worth considering. It might be the slowest mesh networking system, but it is just S$399. For readers who are concerned about performance, the Netgear Orbi is unbeatable when it comes to sheer transfer speeds.

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