If you mount the C-8 such that the antenae are to the left or right of the hub, and point 1 up and the other down, you could still have them in the proper alignment.
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Complete impulse buy (and I already have the shipping notice). It looks like I'll have a spare C7 to sell in a couple of days!
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I am going to buy one and migrate the one C-7 that has the radio's enabled to it. I get really good coverage right now in my house with the hubs in the basement. Most 1st floor devices connect directly to hub and second floor just routes through 1st floor devices. But darn I need to buy a new POE adapter with USB C to connect it to my swtich.
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That is actually not too bad. I checked out buying directly from Hubitat website using the cheapest shipping option to Canada and it came to $235CAN. Besides taking a risk with cheap USPS/CP shipping, you would likely pay another 13% HST on top of the hub price ($204 CAN).
Go Aartech!!! 
An 8x10 picture frame placed over the hub will keep the proverbial cat in the bag.
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As long as it isn't a metal frame 
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Question about the external antennas:
Both appear to be identical. How do they work? Is one dedicated to Z-Wave while the other is for Zigbee. Or does Zigbee and Z-wave use both or either antenna depending on the situation? Or are these antennas for the WiFi/Bluetooth radios only?
I just ask because both antennas seem to be sized for a 2.4Ghz wavelength. An antenna tuned for 900Mhz Z-Wave should be longer than an antenna tuned for 2.4Ghz..
Or keep it as a spare, or run both and split the loads...
They are dual band antennas. That said they are independent of one another (and physically interchangeable). The one closest to the USB-C port is Zigbee, the other is z-wave and the wifi antenna is internal.
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The better range, and then I can relegate my C7 to the detached garage so I can finally use ZWave stuff up there.
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You may find you don't even need to do that. The range improvement with the C8 is pretty dramatic.
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So, the antennas are an improvement on both receive and transmit? The devices aren't changing.
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...if you mount the hub on the wall with the logo facing up is it sideways or is it correct? 
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Correct
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@velvetfoot In addition you can now adjust the power and sensitivity of the zigbee radio. As you increase power you also increase sensitivity and potentially interference so there are trade-offs but it is nice to have the additional flexibility.
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Hub delivered this morning.
Let it acclimate indoors for several hours, since it likely spent a very cold night in the back of a UPS truck.
C-8 hub installed, recovered my config from the cloud backup, made a couple updates to dependent Maker API apps, and we're back in business.
Disabled Zigbee and z-wave on the C-7 before shutting it down.
I'll figure out hub mesh and the other items another day.
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We'll see! I'm 1 day in and my directly connected devices are pretty much the same as they were (34 out of 45 ish) though I realise it's early days.
Currently all RSSI's are much lower however with a number below 10. On the C7 the lowest RSSI value was 18 and the highest above 50 (I posted the results following the last Z Wave firmware update on the C7 as they improved massively at that time).
I'll give it a few days before I seek out an antenna the size of Jodrell Bank!
Edit: lowest RSSI is now 12 - I really should stop looking as it's like watching paint dry
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I believe Z-wave is closer to the USB-C port.
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- The upgrade from C-7 to C-8 went flawlessly. Everything "just works".
- The C-8 gets much better Z-Wave connectivity with my devices:
I used to have "Route Changes" numbered in the hundreds and high RTT values before the upgrade.
Things are beautiful now.
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