Google OnHub Announced & Reviewed

[thiggins]

SNB's article, dfdfdfd, may be a bit off the mark regarding support: "There is no help via phone, email, chat or smoke signal from Google itself. Only fellow frustrated users like yourself, complaining into the void and hoping some kind soul will answer."

• Customer support will be available 24/7 starting Aug 31. Check back for details!

Good to see that. I'll believe it when it goes live and stays live after the initial install frenzy dies down. I've updated the article.

 

[RMerlin]

It's Gentoo, so yep, will be fairly open... GPL makes it so...

more info on this device here...

http://linuxgizmos.com/googles-wifi-router-runs-linux-offers-home-automation-hooks/

Won't prevent them from having closed source wireless driver, httpd backend cgi, etc...

Gentoo is an odd choice there, considering most tend to look at Debian for embedded devices. I didn't even know the Gentoo project was still actively maintained.

 

[Sg45]

No question about that. Which is what makes it both powerful and scary for those of us who surrender too much information to Google already.

Agree both are more than found in other AC1900 routers today. The CPU is found in the latest QCA-based AC2600 class routers, so again, more powerful than found in AC1900 class competitors.

I believe that the purpose of the 4GB of flash is to store usage statistics about bandwidth utilization and feed it to the smartphone apps (through the cloud) when users want to know info about their home network usage. They haven't said anything about this but at $200 and if it's replacing your existing router, the least you would want to know is how much data you have used for the month, etc. (not to mention content mgt., etc.)

With this Flash memory approach, they can store the info locally and say they are not storing your data in the cloud. Of course it all has to pass through the cloud to get to your app. (editorial comment: I believe the fears about google using the device as a trojan horse to data mine people's home network traffic is unfounded and over blown. There are so many other ways they can get similar information already through web traffic. * Editorial comment complete *)

 

[L&LD]

thanks for sharing , this caught my eye
Operating temperature — 0 to 40°C - unlike our asus ovens

Operating temperature refers to ambient, not the temperature of the device / chipset itself.

 

[mrw1986]

There's a difference only if you have a 100Mbps or greater internet connection.

Which does matter for a number of people. Additionally, a 10/100 LAN connection vs a Gigabit connection is vastly slower for LAN file transfers, etc. I, along with many people I know routinely transfer large files over LAN and Gigabit makes a MASSIVE difference.

 

[sfx2000]

Gentoo is an odd choice there, considering most tend to look at Debian for embedded devices. I didn't even know the Gentoo project was still actively maintained.

I agree it's an interesting choice - Gentoo is still active, but they really are focused on a different group of users than Debian (and variants) or RedHat (and derivatives)...

If I recall correctly - they're a "rolling" release type of distribution, and portage makes things easier to deploy updates for the different packages... which might explain why they went with a 1GB RAM/4GB flash config.

Being that OnHub, as a platform, is targeting IoT, having Gentoo (or similar) might be useful compared to an embedded distro like the *WRT's...

 

[IAAI]

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Source : http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/26/9211513/a-look-inside-googles-new-onhub-wireless-router

 

[System Error Message]

Many phones that used the same chip also had 1GB of ram. That router has a bigger heatsink than my phone which has a quad core qualcomm chip. I hope they manage to use the other 2 processors in it as well for routing and hardware acceleration such as the GPU and the hexagon CPU.
One of the few stock (unchanged from qualcomm) ARM based products to have 2 gigabit ethernet ports directly connected to the CPU.

 

[sfx2000]

Many phones that used the same chip also had 1GB of ram. That router has a bigger heatsink than my phone which has a quad core qualcomm chip. I hope they manage to use the other 2 processors in it as well for routing and hardware acceleration such as the GPU and the hexagon CPU.
One of the few stock (unchanged from qualcomm) ARM based products to have 2 gigabit ethernet ports directly connected to the CPU.

The IPQ8064 is a dual-core Qualcomm Krait platform - no GPU or Hexagon DSP in there... however, it does have an AES/3DES/SHA accelerator block, which might help apps like OpenVPN...

That being said - for an ARMv7 core, Krait is pretty impressive - well beyond Cortex-A9 in capability and performance...

Here's a slide on the IPQ...

 

[sfx2000]

And FWIW - my guess is that this is largely designed by Qualcomm/Atheros to Google's specs - TP-Link is just making the thing...

 

[loadbang]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/31/google-onhub-review/

Engadget had their hands on one too.

 

[loadbang]

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Source : http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/26/9211513/a-look-inside-googles-new-onhub-wireless-router

Who knew you could make a router that is like a Mac Pro.

 

[System Error Message]

And FWIW - my guess is that this is largely designed by Qualcomm/Atheros to Google's specs - TP-Link is just making the thing...

it wasnt designed specifically for google but its one of qualcomm's internet CPUs. Its been around for quite a while and google was smart enough to go with it instead of broadcom's dual core ARM A9 that cant do wire speed gigabit NAT without some accelerator. power consumption considering its an unmodified CPU it should use less power than broadcom's implementation since the phones with qualcomm kraits typically do better in power consumption than stock ARM A9 but many phone manufacturers that use qualcomm dont develop the power saving bit of their firmware properly. i have a samsung galaxy s4 that many claim to have really bad battery life but using CM firmware gave me up to 10 days standby, 5 days normal use without wifi or data and 2-3 days if i use internet.

 

[RamGuy]

Hardware seems interesting, but I'm willing to bet that the software is limited to such a degree that it becomes rather frustrating to use for "prosumers". Neither TheVerge or Engadget's "reviews" seems to do any deep-dive within the firmware/software of the OneHub, as you'd expect.

How on earth is Google able to market this as a product that will eliminate buffering? Unless you have shirt poor router there isn't really much this OneHub router can do in terms of eliminating buffering? It all relies on your Internet connection and bandwidth and your connection towards the content servers more than anything else? Unless Google acts like most people are using 7 year old+ cheap routers, with limited 2.4GHz 802.11g wireless with poor coverage, horrendous routing performance and without any QoS to handle bandwidth at all.



EDIT:

According to most "reviews" it seems like the initial setup process is identical to that of the Apple AirPort Express/Extreme/Time Capsule, but instead of being able to only use an app (AirPort Utility) on Windows, Mac OS X or iOS you are limited to only Android and iOS with OneHub.

This app-based setup and configuration is a smart move, it's much simpler and intuitive for non-technical consumers, there is no denying that.

But compared to the AirPort Utility approach on the Apple AirPort routers, it seems like the OneHub does not feature any customization options other than changing wireless SSID and password whatsoever? So it's actually very limited in features and customization, even compared to the just as easy to configure options from Apple?


I'm looking forward to a more in-depth review, currently it does seem like a rather stupid sell for a very high price. But we have no real idea what Google is planning with the Zigbee integration etc..

 

[System Error Message]

edit: price wise i think its currently more expensive but im hoping the price will go down. The issue is that in the UK they just replace the $ with £.

 

[Chirag Sanghavi]

It looks like it is
http://www.droid-life.com/2015/07/0...-and-2-4ghz-wifi-bluetooth-le-model-name-gg1/

May be GG1 is = Google Gateway 1?

 

[wlossw]

The ars technica review is quoting disappointing network speeds.... like way slower than other AC1900 class routers, but they only compared it to the asus...

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...art-home-trojan-horse-is-a-200-leap-of-faith/

 

[jramskov]

There's a difference only if you have a 100Mbps or greater internet connection.

There are still people not storing all data in the cloud

It is clearly meant as a hub for their "smart home" stuff, but I don't want Google to monitor my internet connection, my lan and neither do I want my entire home on the internet. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[System Error Message]

this to me is looking like a nice AP, and when coupled with a router like routerOS or pfsense you can block the monitoring.

 

[loadbang]

It's already outdated, the google logo on the bottom is old.

It's also useless for the majority of customers, missing a VDSL/ADSL2+ modem.