So the question is: just how good is the Huawei B535? And should you buy it or should you look elsewhere for your home broadband needs? Read on to find out. Design The Huawei AI Cube is a seriously impressive device, managing to both match most smart speakers and better most home broadband devices.

Huawei is no stranger to disrupting established markets. It has rapidly ascended the ladder to become one of the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturers, partly through pioneering combinations of components. It was ahead of the game on both triple-lens cameras and reverse wireless charging, for example. If you’re using a 4G or 5G home broadband service such as Three’s HomeFi (Huawei B311), Three’s Huawei B535, Vodafone’s GigaCube or EE’s 4GEE Home, attaching an external antenna to your router can help to improve both the speed and reliability of your internet connection. Figuring out how to establish a Bluetooth link isn’t immediately apparent, though. It’s strange that you can’t hook up your smartphone in this way (for direct music streaming) from the HiLink app, but rather have to ask Alexa to do so. But at least the function is there, contrary to reports you might have read elsewhere. Features Routers are technical devices and things that most of us don’t buy often and don’t know much about. For this reason, we’re going to skip the tech speak and tell you the stuff that you actually want to know, the things about this router that are going to affect you (as opposed to a bunch of specs and numbers).In the vast majority of cases, we’d recommend starting off with an omni-directional antenna. A directional antenna is only worth considering if you’re already tried an omni-directional antenna and are not able to get a good connection with it. Frequency Range A large hotel briefing room full of noisy journalists is far from the ideal place for sound testing and the price won’t be announced until the speaker’s release date at the end of this year.

The following table summarises the key differences between an omni-directional and a directional antenna: Omni-Directional Antenna Don’t be in any doubt: it’s the 4G router element that you’re spending the money on here. If sound quality is a clear priority, we’d recommend that you look elsewhere. Software It's worth noting that Huawei state that the AI Cube is capable of connecting up to 64 devices without compromising the quality of the connection. Group created in the Alexa app, named 'House', my default Alexa device being 'Alexa Master Bedroom'.The Huawei AI Cube has issues, but its looks are perfectly pleasant. It’s 22cm tall, and curved to match other smart speakers. Grey fabric covers its lower part, and there are touch panel buttons on its top allowing you to control volume without using any voice commands. You’ll also find a physical button up here that disables the mic.