My first 24hrs with NetDuma R2 + Issues & Roadmap Ideas

[patnj]

Summary:

Experience so far has been good, but made great with the excellent support and quick responses from the NetDuma team. Working as a software development manager, the most important part is making the customer feel valued and forward progress is made when any issues are raised. Quick responses and timely solutions are critical to customer satisfaction, as is regular news updates, in this case, when new firmwares are to be released. Silence is the worst enemy, however so far, NetDuma has responded to all my post in a very timely fashion which instills confidence in a product, which for me, I did not know existed until a week ago and only stumbled across when looking for a Netgear replacement router.

Please keep up the good work and do not loose this closeness and level of customer support as you grow in size, as this is a big differentiator (on top of DumaOS ) between you and say TP-Link, Asus, Netgear, etc.

Current identified Issues/bugs (for now):

My Rapps:
 - "Ready to Update" tab, display apps for update, but when clicking on an app only "UNINSTALL" is an option. No option to "UPDATE". Also the Version and Last update info for the app is blank.

Adblocker:
 - Enable/Disable specific device needs to be simpler and also needs to work. However, I believe based on my previous forum post, this should be resolved in the next firmware update.

System Information:
- System Info
    - "Uptime" shows GMT time without daylight saving, when it should show the same as "Router Time" based on the "Router Time Zone" selected

 

Roadmap Ideas (for now):

QoS Application Bandwidth
- Add the following Categories
    - MS Teams, Zoom, WebEx, etc.

QoS Traffic Prioritization
- Add "All Devices" as Target that can be selected by a user, so for example, all Netflix traffic can be prioritised for all devices

- Add Disney+, Sky+

- Priorization based on schedule
    - For example;
        - during 9am to 5pm Web, MS Teams, etc. can be prioritised over gaming
        - after 5pm gaming and netflix is prioritised

Ping Heatmap
- Add Xbox Online services

Adblocker
- When clicking on a bubble which shows blocked domains, have the ability to click a specific domain and add to Whitelist, without having to enter it manually

Hybrid VPN
- Add more service providers e.g. CyberGhost, Nord VPN, etc. Its not very straight forward using the "Advance" option for VPN setup

Network Settings
- Ability to scan nearby wifi networks and report back all APs and Channels. This will help in manually selecting the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz channels to avoid interference.

Device Manager
- Ability to filter "Device Table" by Type/Connection Type
- Search by device name. This would be useful when you have many device (I currently have 41 devices - wired/wifi)
- Improve device detection. Currently Sony and Samsung TVs are detected as Computers. Smart home devices, such as Hive, Ring, etc are also detected as computers

System Information
- Network Status
    - Add WAN connection status (connected/disconnected) next to WAN IP

I will follow-up with additional feedback once the R2 has had time to settle in and I have had the chance to experiment with all the features.

[Netduma Fraser]

Thanks for the kind words, I'll respond to each of your points.

Issues

Rapps - We're not currently using this at the moment so it's more getting ready for future updates right now.
Adblocker - Correct, it will be resolved in the next update.
Sys Info - I believe uptime will always stay at that time as it helps with cloud updates etc and diagnosing of issues

Roadmap

QoS application - That would come under Chat & Messaging/VoIP - I think it you start adding individual applications the list could get ridiculously big, sorting by category can then cover a wide range.
QoS Traffic Prio - Good ideas, will add them to roadmap
Ping Heatmap - Your gameplay would be unaffected by knowing the pings to authentication servers - are you more thinking of 'is Xbox live down' kind of thing?
Adblocker - Good idea, will add to roadmap
VPN - We do plan to do this - think we might be revamping the feature in futre
Network Settings - Good idea, will add to roadmap
Device Manager - Do you mean filter as in only show wired or wireless devices for example? Search could be useful but Ctrl + F would be easier as already implement into browser. We are working on improving device detection, as you have so many devices would you be willing to help us improve this?
Network status - It should say whether it is connected/disconnected already

[patnj]

Hi, 

In response;

"QoS application - That would come under Chat & Messaging/VoIP - I think it you start adding individual applications the list could get ridiculously big, sorting by category can then cover a wide range." - do you mean that MS Team, Zoom are already covered under these categories, or you mean they would added to these categories in a future release ?

"Device Manager - Do you mean filter as in only show wired or wireless devices for example? Search could be useful but Ctrl + F would be easier as already implement into browser." - Yes, only show wired or wireless or device type. Fair point on the browser search, but was thinking more of that the list of devices starts reducing in numbers as you start typing into the search box that match, using  a "contains" operator for the search string entered.

"We are working on improving device detection, as you have so many devices would you be willing to help us improve this?" - Yes, how do we go about starting this ?

"Network status - It should say whether it is connected/disconnected already" - please see below image of tile on dashboard

[Netduma Fraser]

Any VoIP/chat & messaging applications are covered under those categories.

Interesting, thanks will add it to the list.

I'll let the team know you're interested in helping us with this and I'll get back to you.

Ahh good idea, will add to the list!

[patnj]

10 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Any VoIP/chat & messaging applications are covered under those categories.

Interesting, thanks will add it to the list.

I'll let the team know you're interested in helping us with this and I'll get back to you.

Ahh good idea, will add to the list!

Forgot to add, the following.....

• Allow additional non-alphanumeric characters in Wifi password to increase security. e.g. "# " character
• On WAN setting, when "Use Upstream DNS", then display the Public IP address and DNS server IP address automatically assigned by the Modem/ISP

[Netduma Fraser]

1 hour ago, patnj said:

Forgot to add, the following.....

• Allow additional non-alphanumeric characters in Wifi password to increase security. e.g. "# " character
• On WAN setting, when "Use Upstream DNS", then display the Public IP address and DNS server IP address automatically assigned by the Modem/ISP

• We've actually done this already, will be in next firmware
• Will add to the roadmap