BT Whole Home WiFi - Connect two discs via Ethernet?

[Super7]

First post - please be gentle.... I have searched the Community, but coudln't find an answer to my specific question

I've had the original BT Whole Home Wifi for some time, and the system works perfectly - so much better than my old Powerline setup. Four discs providing great coverage.

We've just had a new Garden Room built, and as part of the electrical work I put in an Ethernet cable from the lounge as I want to be able to hard wire some stuff in there. 

I bought a pair of refurbished discs from the BT Shop (one as a spare, as they were the same price as one new disc), and had intended to put one in the Garden Room, hardwired via an unmanaged switch in the lounge to provide a good strong signal in the Garden Room. I'm not sure this is actually supported though? It appears that you can hardwire additional discs from the router, but can't hardwire discs together - is this correct? 

I've added a diagram of my setup. Primary disc hardwired (solid black line) to router, then via wifi mesh (dotted yellow lines) to the other existing discs. The one in the lounge is connected to an unmanaged switch, and I want to hardwire via this and the new cable to a new disc in the Garden Room. Hardwiring back from Garden Room to the router is a no go due to overall house / garden layout.

Will this work? I haven't tried it, as I don't want to open the box if I find I need to return the new Discs.

Any thoughts please? Much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

See https://www.bt.com/help/user-guides/bt-whole-home-wi-fi-faqs---set-up-and-installation

[Super7]

Thanks, I'd already seen that article and it was what made me doubt I could do what I want to...

The first paragraph reads:

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If you're using Whole Home Wi-Fi or Mini Whole Home Wi-Fi, you can. If you wish, you can locate a disc a long distance from your hub (router) - for example, in an outbuilding - and have an Ethernet cable connection back to your hub (router). Just plug in the cable in the disc’s RJ45 socket and it'll join your Whole Home Wi-Fi network.

---

So this applies to my discs. What isn't clear is whether the only way of hardwiring two discs within a single mesh is via the router or not.  The paragraph relating to the Premium system says connecting two discs directly is the only way for that system, so is clear.

Can you also connect two of the 'non-Premium' discs together directly? That is what I'm trying to ascertain.

[Anonymous]

Read on to the bit about Premium Whole Home.

"If you wish to connect more discs by Ethernet, you'll need to connect them to the Ethernet port on another disc. "

I get that there are small technical differences between the two products but I would expect it to work, I don't see that you can damage anything by trying

[Darren_B · Accepted solution]

Hi Super7,

Unfortunately the Original WHW discs don't support this method of daisy chaining by Ethernet.  The disc would need to be connected back directly to the router - which I appreciate is not always an option.

Does the Garden Room connect by Wi-Fi back to the Lounge at all, or is it too far?

Darren_B

[Super7]

Thanks Darren - That was the clarity I was looking for, so really appreciate the reply.

The nearest Disc to the Garden Room is the one in the bedroom at the back of the house. This gave us much better mesh coverage in the garden, but is a bit marginal in the room itself. 

At the moment, I've got a cheap TP-Link Router in the Garden Room connected to the Ethernet cable which links back to the Lounge Disc. I initially put this router in 'Access Point' mode with the same SSID as my BT mesh, which totally killed the mesh network! Changing this back to router mode with a different SSID made it work and gives me wifi speeds the same as the mesh, but clearly you lose the ease of use we've got used to with the BT Discs.

I was hoping that adding a (wired) Disc in the Garden Room would give me what I wanted, but you've clarified that it won't work, so thanks for that.

I guess I'll return the additional Discs, unless anyone can suggest anything else.

[Super7]

I've got a returns RMA number for the new Discs I bought - thanks again for the confirmation

[InTheBox]

Hi Darren.
Sorry to jump in on this post I’ve been searching around the forum & this would be the closest one I have found regarding my question.
I have full fibre halo 3+ with a smart hub 2 & 4 black disks. My smart hub 2 has 3 Ethernet ports so my set up is this.
I have 2 of them connected directly to the HH2 via Ethernet in ports 1 & 2 the 3rd & 4th which are sited upstairs through an unmanaged switch from which comes from the hh2 port 3.
The issue I have I can only get 1 of the disks connected to the switch to allow connections the other shows in the app has 0 connections if I set that one up again it works fine but then the other shows 0 connections. The lights say they are connected both have solid blue lights.
I have to use Ethernet connections as the walls are quite thick & the stud walls are insulated with cellotex which I have been told interferes with WiFi signals.
I’m guessing that you can’t have 2 of the black wifi disks connected to the same switch?
Thank you in advance.