Surf SOHO is now in "legacy" status

[Michael234]

The Surf SOHO is shown as a legacy product here

Legacy Products

Simply put, does this mean Peplink is not making any more Surf SOHOs and when current inventory sells out, that’s that?

[scuba_steve]

So first they drop the Balance One / Core and now the SOHO? I guess they are pretty much saying they are no longer interested in the residential customer.

Paying 250% more than a Balance One Core for a Balance Two, with fewer LAN ports, or paying about the same for a 20x, with fewer LAN and WAN ports, is not doing it for me… nor are the rear-facing ports on both models. I need to start looking around for something else to recommend to residential users.

[Cassy_Mak]

This is Cassy from the Peplink Marketing team.

We are developing a new product for the SOHO market. As you now, we always listen to comments on new product development. If you have any idea on the next generation of Surf SOHO (although we don’t have time yet), please feel free to continue the discussion here.

[Michael234]

Great offer, Cassy, thanks.

[rxh]

This thread: “Faster SOHO”

has suggestions.

https://forum.peplink.com/t/Faster-SOHO/61ee30aa5c4b2a2a4b78d3f9/?u=rxh

[uglyWombat]

Could Peplink please clarify: will firmware updates still be provided for the Surf SOHO MK3 in the future?

[Rick-DC]

Maybe someone from Peplink will respond but I’ll say that I would expect firmware updates for a reasonable length of time. Peplink continues to support a number of products that have been discontinued/superseded. Example: The SOHO HW2, which was the predecessor to the present Mk3, is still supported with current firmware.

[TK_Liew]

Rick is correct. Please refer to the notes here:

[TheTKS]

For some ideas for the next generation of Surf SOHO, see the suggestions I and others made in this post and in the two posts I linked there:

Queue management - fq_codel implementation - Mitigate Bufferbloat

Queue management - fq_codel implementation - Mitigate Bufferbloat Three requests: Fix fq_codel implementation. See below for explanation. Add to the manual how to access the support.cgi page of the interface, and explain the options and what they do. Explain, somewhere, how to use together (or if not to use any at the same time as the others) the options that could help prevent bufferbloat and internet (WAN) drops. This should go into the manual, ideally, but anywhere we can easily fin…

While you’re at it, can you get them into the current generation of Surf SOHO, if not already done?

I will admit, though, that I haven’t checked if all of those requests have been addressed - if they have been, then you can ignore this post. I haven’t checked because I managed to set up the Surf SOHO to workable state and moved on.

TKS

[Mark9]

@Cassy_Mak**:** Looking at the market demands now, and taking into account that people are going to want whatever they purchase to last 3-4 years, my opinion is that the next generation minimum requirements are:

• 1Gbps symmetric (up and down) WAN support
• USB supporting everything the Surf Soho does including an ethernet adapter
• WiFi 6
• WiFi as WAN

I would also like to see:

• fq_codel or Cake support for Bufferbloat at least for lower and medium WAN speeds (would require significant CPU for 1Gbps)
• Supporting the 5.9GHz portion of the 5GHz WiFi band

While the market would love a few 2.5Gbps ports included, I doubt that will be possible in a cost effective Surf SOHO replacement.

[BigAl]

As a residential / small office user, turning into a networking security expert is a challenge. Please consider adding a few features such as

• wizard or other guidance to securely set up common residential networks. For example: what is secure or suitable for children? IoT? Home Office? Guest network?

• detect obviously insecure or unhelpful configuration settings

Looking forward to the new UI features and hardware.

[tcpip95]

Would love to see dual 5 GHz radios so that you can select a 2nd 5 GHz site as backup in the event that the Primary site fails.

[Adam_Brennan]

That gives me some hope. I wonder could Peplink confirm this?

We as a company (b4b Group Ltd) have lost the Surf SOHO as our entry level router, lost the Balance One Core as our goto router for Multi-WAN solotions and we fear the Balance 20X will increase in price soon. As a result, we are having to look at other potential Managed Router Solutions which is the last thing we want to do!

Unfortunately, Peplink don’t have anything at the right price point for our customers at this time.

[PepeLeDrew]

@Cassy_Mak

We are developing a new product for the SOHO market. As you now, we always listen to comments on new product development. If you have any idea on the next generation of Surf SOHO (although we don’t have time yet), please feel free to continue the discussion here.

What I want is a faster SOHO router that has the following features (without having to pay for a subscription or add-on licenses):

1. 1Gbps symmetric (up and down) WAN support
2. WiFi 6 / 802.11ax / 4x4 MU-MIMO (or better)
3. Wi-Fi Mesh capable
4. Wi-Fi-as-WAN
5. Bonjour support
6. mDNS support
7. USB supporting everything the Surf SOHO does (including ethernet adapter)
8. Same other features as existing Surf SOHO MK3
9. A Matter compatible Thread radio would be cool, but not necessary.

[PepeLeDrew]

@Cassy_Mak: Are you able to provide any rough timeline on the release of the new router for the SOHO market (e.g., this month?, next month?, Q4 2023, etc.)? I need to know whether it will be a viable option or whether I should go ahead and start investigating alternatives.

[Cassy_Mak]

As “not yet launched products” belongs to insider information, let’s switch the discussion to a private message. My teammate @Zachary_Chow will follow up with you.

[homelanmgr]

I upgraded my Pepwave Surf SOHO MK3 HW1 to firmware 8.3.0 this week. On page 3 of the 8.3.0 release notes, the Surf SOHO HW2 and Surf SOHO MK3 HW1 are included in the list of models that will NOT be supported by further major firmware updates. It adds: "They will receive Firmware 8.3.x maintenance releases as needed.

I’m a retired IT professional who chose the Surf SOHO for my home network because I wanted the advanced capabilities, greater security, etc., that it offers over the standard consumer-grade products, so I hope Peplink will not be long in rolling out their replacement for home/home office market. My router has “frozen up” a couple times in the last month and had to be rebooted. I’ve never seen this happen in the 3.5 years that I’ve had it, and since I may have to replace it before long, I’m hoping Peplink will announce their replacement model soon.

[Alex]

The B20X would be a pretty good replacement model. Any comments about this?

[alembic]

@Alex, I did exactly that when I switched to a GB fiber connection; I replaced my Surf SOHO MK3 with the B20X even though I would not be using the cellular WAN facilities and its price is probably much more than the upcoming SOHO model. If I knew the new model was being released during Q1, I might have waited. But the migration went smoothly and I’ve been very happy with the B20X.

[Alex]

Thanks Alembic. We think the cellular WAN would be a nice “on-demand WAN” when a more reliable connection is needed at times. Have you ever tried the SpeedFusion Connect mobile App?