EE WiFi 7 router adverts banned for misleading claims

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint that EE's latest series of adverts made misleading claims about the performance of its new WiFi 7 router.

Vodafone and Community Fibre challenged whether EE's WiFi 7 router would increase the speeds of all devices, as the ads claimed, when so few support the new protocol.

While EE had tested WiFi 6 enabled devices, the ASA ruled this wasn't substantial enough evidence for the ads to continue in their current form.

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Misleading adverts

A series of adverts, including on TV, radio, Facebook and a digital poster, for EE's home broadband services, has been banned by the ASA due to 'misleading' claims about its router.

EE's new WiFi 7 enabled Smart Hub Pro featured in the ads, claimed to "make[s] every device work better, even yours".

However, Vodafone and Community Fibre, along with 19 members of the public, challenged whether the ads were misleading as most devices do not yet support WiFi 7.

The social media and digital poster adverts also claimed that "XBOX PLAYS BETTER ON WIFI 7", and "GOOGLE WORKS BETTER ON WIFI 7", with images of the Google Nest Hub, Google Nest Home, and Google Nest Cam.

Despite these claims however, none of these devices support WiFi 7, with the Xbox Series X/S only supporting WiFi 5, while the Google Nest Hub supports WiFi 6.

In their defence, EE had carried out testing comparing how older WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 devices performed with the Smart Hub Pro compared to the WiFi 6 enabled Smart Hub Plus.

EE found these older devices did connect to the newer WiFi 7 enabled Smart Hub Pro at faster speeds, although the testing was limited to just three laptops, which the ASA did not feel was substantial enough.

WiFi 7 router

Launched in September 2024, the EE Smart Hub Pro is one of the only routers supplied by the major broadband providers to support the latest WiFi 7 protocol.

While Vodafone offers a WiFi 6E device, other providers including TalkTalk, Sky, Community Fibre, and Virgin Media only offer WiFi 6 devices so far. Indeed, even BT and Plusnet are still supplying new customers with a WiFi 5 router.

Yet, with WiFi 7 itself only having been released in 2024, very few connecting devices support the new protocol, which means the benefits it can offer are limited. For example, only smartphones released in 2024, like the iPhone 16 series or the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, support WiFi 7 so far.

The latest Xbox Series X/S mentioned in the EE adverts only supports WiFi 5, while the PlayStation 5 and Sky Stream Box only support WiFi 6. The Google Nest Hub also mentioned only supports WiFi 6, while the Google Nest Cam only supports WiFi 5.

Indeed, for most households, the fastest routers may well only need to support up to WiFi 6E, as we look at in this guide to the best routers to increase broadband speeds.

As the ASA has ruled, it's important for customers to understand the technology they're buying and that any claims on performance are fully transparent.