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BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

CANUK63 — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 17:03:37 GMT

I've recently upgraded to Smart Hub 3 and having a problem with the extender mesh disc ( square ones).
I have 4 to replace the 4 old ones ( round) with SH2 but I can't get them to act as extenders.
They all linked fine to the SH3 via a cat5 cable, moved Disc 1 to the next room and remained linked, moved another one (Disc 2) to the next room ( almost line of sight @ 15 feet) and will not connect back up.
Moved Disc 2 back to the first room and it linked up fine....???? Tried it with Disc 3 + 4 with the same result.
All the discs seem to see the HUB as the only source, these discs are suppose to act as extenders.... ??
Any suggestion appreciated as I would like to get rid of all these Cat5 cables running all over the floors linking the room.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 19:51:45 GMT

@CANUK63

Welcome to this user forum for BT Residential phone and broadband customers.

The Smart Hub 3 is a BT Business customer device.

If you are a business user, please could you post on the BT Business forum at http://business.forums.bt.com/

Thanks

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

naylor2006 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 08:32:03 GMT

As far as I know, after looking up some other posts, the BT Complete WIFI Disc (Black) have mixed results daisy chaining with each other, its not 100% confirmed either way but your post seems to suggest they do not along with other people posting the same.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

CANUK63 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 08:35:09 GMT

I thought that might be the case but going through the HELP pages, SH3 - Square Discs - Adding discs you get this video which implies they do act as extenders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lQdgnw1-SU

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

naylor2006 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 08:43:05 GMT

Sorry my apologies, I misread the post, people with Black Round Discs have mixed results daisy chaining and its not confirmed either way.

When I had Wholehome White Discs which would daisy chain, sometimes they would indeed still try to connect back to the master disc even when the nearest partner was clearly providing a better signal. These ISP provided solutions do not come with the relevant customizable settings to allow for you to force a disc to always connect to the one you want it to regardless. Alot of the time this was due to boot order, IE would have to make sure the only disc that was on was the master, then power on the other one one by one. It might be that the signal from the main hub isnt quite weak enough for the square device to actually connect to its partner.

Ultimately if you are a business customer yes you need to post over there where more people have experience with these or if you are a business after all, get a proper WIFI solution.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

CANUK63 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 09:21:11 GMT

Thanks, I went straight from the round white one to the black square one thinking ( hoping) they would be of the same standard..... I'm starting to think the square one will be collecting dust for a while until I think where and how to use them.
I'm a home/office so I don't need the full dog's ..... I guess I'll use this as an excuse to upgrade the network to 2.5G min as I'm constantly shifting around largish video master files ( 50GB-150GB), so the increase of speed would be handy

Any suggestion on a good starting point, a quick google lead me to TP-Link Deco BE65 BE9300, while I would prefer Netgear stuff I'm not too sure if I could justify double the cost.

Ideally 4 extenders to start off with.

Thanks in advance.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 09:51:09 GMT

Maybe try posting on this thread & hope the OP comes back to you.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

CANUK63 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 10:12:36 GMT

Thanks rbz5416, I did see that thread but that thread has been dead since Dec of last year and never did get any answer to it.
BT can only advise on their own equipment which by the looks of it the Black Square extenders really aren't not fit for my purpose and anything "Pro" from BT will be way too much for what I actually require, so Netgear / TP-Link/ Cisco/Linksys etc etc here I come.
I'm still waiting for the "Expert Setup" which was included in the package but have yet to get an answer if that is an engineer in person or just links to "Help videos", so not holding my breath.
So far since posting just this one thread this morning I'm getting a clearer picture of which way I should be moving in.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

naylor2006 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 10:39:26 GMT

I would just go with your own gear, you dont have to go crazy on it, TP-Link do a decent MESH range which you can keep beyond your BT contract for any other ISP.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 10:43:37 GMT

@CANUK63wrote:
Thanks rbz5416, I did see that thread but that thread has been dead since Dec of last year and never did get any answer to it.

It's a sad fact of forums in general that the OP rarely returns to their thread with a solution. Although I suspect in this case that's because there wasn't one. There's another more general enquiry from July but that also went nowhere.

My only mainstream experience with Deco is the M4 & M5. The M4 was rubbish & went straight back. The M5 is a little better but not great. One of the most annoying things is an inability to manually select WiFi channels, although that seems to be common to most mesh system. It would be OK if the auto-channel selection actually worked, rather than defaulting to the most congested channels! From my research only ASUS allow manual selection but they're very pricey.

Rather than spending on 2.5Gb I'd be inclined to run ethernet to the devices that need to move the large files.

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

naylor2006 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 10:45:31 GMT

BT White Wholehome, as much as it had its issues did allow you to manually select WIFI channel, which was good because the 2.4Ghz auto setting seemed to check was was most congested.....then choose that killing my baby monitor.

I didnt realise that those DECO's didnt allow you to change WIFI channel, thats a bit wild....

Re: BT Complete Wifi Disc not acting like extenders

CANUK63 — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:43:39 GMT

Thank you naylor2006 and rbz5416 , I'm getting very close to biting the bullet on the NETGEAR Orbi 770 three pack.
Seems to have everything I might need for the next couple of years.

The 990 series....ouch

PS I will get back to the forum with results. 🙂