BT whole home wifi - Continuously unstable - Reset every few days

[nickmac1]

I've had a BT Whole Home Wifi for a few years.

At first it was reliable but it has got less and less so. In the past few months, I've had to factory reset twice and these days I have to restart a disk or the network every few days.

The factory resets both took about 3 hours because they have to be repeated multiple times (don't work the first time). Even restarting is not straightforwards - it often requires 5 or 6 attempts. That is particularly frustrating because you just reboot again and again - and even then only 2 out of 3 discs connect.

DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT. Find a more reliable one. If anyone has any suggestions please post them here because I am getting another mesh system.

[Keith_Beddoe]

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@nickmac1 wrote:

I'. If anyone has any suggestions please post them here because I am getting another mesh system.

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@nickmac1 

Welcome to this user forum.

I use this one.

https://www.tendacn.com/uk/product/mw3.html

About £73 for three nodes or £95 for four nodes.

No problems at all, can operate in router or bridge node.

I have four nodes in bridge mode, on a TP link router. (BT Broadband)

It has an auto maintenance setting, that you can use, to refresh the nodes if you wish.

Control is via an app, this is a typical display from my network.

[nickmac1]

Thanks. Do you find it stable?

Also, is it better to operate the mesh in bridge or router mode? I have BTHomeHub which is still active so I could leave that as the DHCP server and just operate the mesh in bridge mode? Or I could disable DHCP on the HomeHub and operate the mesh in router mode?

Thanks

[Keith_Beddoe]

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@nickmac1 wrote:

Thanks. Do you find it stable?

Also, is it better to operate the mesh in bridge or router mode? I have BTHomeHub which is still active so I could leave that as the DHCP server and just operate the mesh in bridge mode? Or I could disable DHCP on the HomeHub and operate the mesh in router mode?

Thanks

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You have to operate it in bridge mode, as you cannot use the home hub as just a modem.

If you used it in router mode, then it would create a separate subnet which is different to the home hub, which may cause issues if you use port forwarding, as you would have double NAT. 

In that mode it has its own DHCP server, and you get all of the full features. I have not tried it in that mode, as I have other devices on my network which I need to communicate with. Its something you could try if you wanted

I do find it quite stable and devices roam from one node to another. If I disable the maintenance option for a long time, say a week or more, then things slow down a bit, and the app can show a node as disconnected, even though devices are still connected to it just fine. I think that is just an issue with the app itself.

That issue is overcome by using the maintenance option, which runs in the early morning, on days you choose. I find that once a week works just fine.

[nickmac1]

OK many thanks