Xfinity Router Admin

[Allyance]

Today I went to check my settings and reboot my Xfinity router and got a new message saying I must have the Xfinity App to manage the router. I have doing this from my desktop for the last 12 years with Comcast/Xfinity by putting my gateway IP in my browser and logging in with the Admin ID. I can no longer access the settings from my iMac, so went to down load the app, and guess what, it is only for iOS. Must use iPhone to manage the router. Outrageous, forced to use a cell phone to manage a network??? I see by the comments a lot of people are upset by this. I would like some suggestions please for alternative wi-fi router with a professional admin interface. I have been doing networking for 25 years and I have never seen anything like this.

 

[Allyance]

I don't like to give up easily, I went into the App on my iPhone and looked at the "Advanced Settings" and started to check all my settings, after scrolling down I that there was an "Admin Tool".

Low and behold, by setting the purple slider to the right and clicking Save, I now have my normal Admin control back.
Here is the screen you get without the tool:

No mention of the "Admin Tool", and since it is part of iOS app, how are people suppose to find it and get it?
What do people do if don't use cell phones? How do they find the tool?

 

[Bigwaff]

Today I went to check my settings and reboot my Xfinity router and got a new message saying I must have the Xfinity App to manage the router. I have doing this from my desktop for the last 12 years with Comcast/Xfinity by putting my gateway IP in my browser and logging in with the Admin ID.

You've been renting a Comcast/Xfinity router for 12 years ???

 

[Mrbobb]

After acquiring my very first Ubiquiti AP, it directed me to set it up via IOS App, fine except the App complains my iPhone is too OLD! the chutzpah of some people I thought. The duopoly of hardware and software vendors to force the consumer to buy stuff. Fortunately I figure out eventually I can configure the device with a Windows app talking to my Windows based Uni Controller.

Good thing forums exist for answers.

 

[Fishrrman]

waff asked:
"You've been renting a Comcast/Xfinity router for 12 years ???"

I had xfinity for 5 years, and rented the residential gateway the entire time. I would have considered buying one, BUT... I had a VOIP desktop phone setup at home (I don't own any smartphones), and my understanding is that if you had VOIP service, you couldn't buy and use your own gateway.

Having said that...
I now have Frontier fiber. A very clean setup.
HOWEVER...
Frontier (as a matter of course) would install with an eero mesh setup as standard equipment (at least they were doing that when I got my installation).
BUT...
To manage the eero, one must have either a smartphone or tablet running iOS or Android. eero cannot be managed from a web browser.
As I said, I don't own a smartphone.
And the only tablet I have is an older Android, and it wouldn't download the eero app (said my version of Android was too old -- and I've upgraded it "as far as it will go").

So...
I specifically asked the installer guy for the older router -- an Arris model that can still be managed from a web browser. That's what I'm using today. It works well enough, and has a "full complement" of RJ45 ports on the back for my ethernet connections (the eero doesn't).

 

[Allyance]

The simple fix to this is enable the Admin Tool by default and warn people to disable it after configuring network, wireless and users.

 

[Allyance]

You've been renting a Comcast/Xfinity router for 12 years ???

Not the entire time, had my own modem and router for awhile. After I up graded TV and cable box to 4K, I opted to get their latest wireless router. Where I live, there is no other decent choice for fast internet and 4K TV. I lost use of my 4K DVR took several trips to Xfinity store to get it straighten out. Without really saying so, Comcast has eliminated the 4K DVR. All recordings are stored on Comcast cloud servers. After 12 days without a TV box, they finally gave me a plain 4K unit. Perfect, everything back to normal. I lived with streaming on my Apple TV for the Olympics, I could not live with the hassles and lack of program guides any longer. I see articles about "cutting the cable", I wouldn't give up the cable's speed for the internet and try and use streaming for TV.