@Anderson_R,

I can try to put together a list of the features that require all nodes to be up-to-date vs. just the main node to help with this at the very least.

Essentially, the features that are lost are the features that change how the device connects to the network, or how a specific deco node is meant to manage or forward traffic to the main node. Features that deal with your connections after they are 'funneled' to the main node will still exist. This means that features affecting your WAN connection, such as a VPN or MTU, will still be available.

For example. a node without the device isolation feature would forward the "isolated device's" traffic alongside the other traffic, completely undoing the purpose of the features. The Connection preference feature is another that requires all nodes because a node without the feature will not know that the device is not allowed to connect to it - causing both nodes to try and manage the device's connection - causing literal chaos.

Features such as MTU Size, VPN, Smart DHCP, and Static Routes only require the main node to support the feature since these functions simply refine or route traffic from your satellite nodes. (There are a few select exceptions to this, such as the Deco M5 not being able to receive the VPN feature on firmware version 1.7.0)

  @Ebodt,

It's not considered old, just that it falls later in the timeline of developed devices. Hardware revisions are not always large jumps and may simply be a different chipset or a have additional optimizations made to the model.

Our team is working on reaching out to learn more about the priority of the development and what will be coming next. Recently, we have been releasing firmware for a variety of older models, so it's likely that you will see it soon.

  @aytek,

So there should be a label on the boxes that lists both the Model, followed by the Version. It should look similar to the upper portion of the label that is on the bottom of your Deco node. I believe that this is now the standard practice for all Deco releases.

Hardware versions can be changed for a variety of reasons, with smaller changes normally being for optimizations or manufacturing locations. In general, firmware is released either simultaneously or very near to each other. Major changes to hardware are seen with the larger hardware version updates. Minor version upgrades may even be seen depending on where the product will be sold.

And yes, the new Deco updates are aligning their firmware and features. We are already seeing the benefits of this, as the development of new features has increased exponentially. In fact, there will soon be another one of these posts for the latest features coming soon, such as whitelisting and matter support. Prior to the 1.6/1.1 firmware updates, the firmware for Decos were all over the place, with updates being pushed mainly for optimizations or security patches.

  @aytek,

Keep an eye on our main forum - this post was for 1.6 in July. Since then, we have even been preparing for a 1.10 release. There have been quite a few additional releases since this update back in July, along with many more models receiving the feature updates.

It's worth mentioning that depending on your model, it will either take much longer or may not even be possible for the model to support the features in the latest updates. If you have a version that uses the oldest hardware revisions, these will take priority. This is one of the advantages of having many of the features controlled by the main node - as you could upgrade your main node to receive a large proportion of the features while waiting for a potential update.

The V1 did just recently receive an update that looks to prepare for the coming HomeShield features, but the update before that was quite awhile ago.