Whole Home Wi-Fi 6

[OneManTagTeam]

I woke up this morning to an email from BT advertising their new Whole Home Wi-Fi 6 discs.

I have the Fibre 900 package and changed to a third party router as the Smart Hub 2 wasn’t providing full speeds over Wi-Fi & also the issue of things not working properly using the 2.4ghz signal.

Would these discs really make much of a difference if they still need the Smart Hub 2 to connect to since that’s only Wi-Fi 5? I’d have thought a new hub would’ve been of more use to people rather than the discs?

[User12345]

Emailed too, @OneManTagTeam.

- And are these compatible with the previous version disc - Black (not white)?

- Is there a performance guarantee so I can just pop them back if hype outweighed by underwhelming performance?

- I'd like to see a video walkthrough of the app/UI to see how managing device pausing/multi device auto pausing and device identification is handled

- what is the exact range enhancement against the current Black discs (so % change)? 

Some points:

 - The cost is eye watering (option is an extra 20£ for 20 months onto the bill for 3x); finally a guest network, a disgraceful omission by BT, totally unacceptable from the tech team (current Black discs)

I'm an ex900 down to 500 because 900 performance was slow

Thanks

[Forthay]

@OneManTagTeam this looks like the Wholehome setup where one disc is physically connected next to the router and the router Wi-fi is turned off rather than Complete Wi-fi where none of the disks need to be physically connected and the router Wi-fi stays on to create a single network.

Not sure if the mail contained a discount but it looks expensive for a 3 pack, typically the BT discs plummet in price plus early adopters often have a turbulent time until things settle down,

If you’ve got Wi-fi 6 clients close to a disc they should benefit but for now I’d look elsewhere (Orbi, Asus etc.) or wait till the reviews come in. I’m on Fibre900 too, I also have a Wi-fi 6 network and for the cost I cannot say it’s really been worth it as my UDM and RBK53s are pretty close.

I wonder if this is an indication the next Smarthub is now on its way….:)

[Pagla]

BT don’t have a Wi-fi-router yet, but they claim these discs can be used with any router. It would have been much better if BT had released a wifi6 capable smart hub. Some people are stuck with using smarthub 2 ( people with digital voice) 

[Pagla]

I meant "BT don’t have a Wi-fi 6 router yet"

[Pagla]

Just been on the Phone to BT "Technical help department" who informed me that these should work perfectly with smart Hub 2 and give us WIFI 6 coverage.

Frankly, I am inclined not to believe them as the first question he asked me was what is WIFi 6?

[licquorice]

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence does it!!!

[Forthay]

The good news is these will work with any router including the SH2.
The “bad news” is you’d need to hard wire one of these new discs to the SH2 and turn off the SH2 Wi-fi.

I’d expect a SH with Wi-fi 6 to eventually come along and a complete home package with different Wi-fi 6 discs where none of them need to be connected to the SH at some point probably with a price hike for the “benefits”

[OneManTagTeam]

Has anyone bought these? If so what do you think?

[orientboy2000]

Yes I got 5 disks

Changed from my WH white disks set up thinking i was upgrading 

BUT

Lots of rebooting and red/flashing lights. They stay up some times 5-6 days then reboot 3-4 times a day 

Hoping new software will sort it out 

wish i had stayed with my old WH disks