I need help - these BT WiFi Disks are shocking

[worb68]

I need help please - I cant take much more of this poor wifi in my house but only at certain times mostly weekends.

We have the BT Smart Hub 2 with 3 of the BT wifi disks.  Can work for a couple of weeks then hell starts and the wifi drops everywhere for long periods.  Wifi tests wont even connect - mostly tends to be at weekends - we restart the router and the disks but still there.  Spoken to BT numerous times, had engineers out and they just say its weird and have to live with it.  Oh and the BT engineer that comes advises to go to Amazon and get some Eero's to replace the disks.

Still under contract so cannot leave yet, connection to house is fine apparently.  We also have Sky Q with the mini boxes which the engineer always says could cause issues but verifies the settings are correct to work with BT.

Weve done a channel scan and move the HUB to a different channel away from where most of the traffic is around here but we still get issues.  Im sick of the kids shouting at me lol.

What can I do please - Eero or other kit - settings wrong, throw it all away! 

HELP!  Thank you.

[imjolly]

When you changed WiFi channels you need to make sure hub does not use channel 36 on 5ghas that is used by SKYQ  SELECT 44 OR 48

[worb68]

It was on 36 - now on 48, the engineer changed that.  Ive been checking that regularly that it sticks.

What else can I check and validate?

What other options do I have?

[Les-Gibson]

You don't say which type of disk you have so I'm going to assume they are Complete Wi-Fi disks (the black ones).

Have you checked for the optimum placement of the disks using the BT app?

[worb68]

Sorry yes it is the black ones (we have 3 of them).  And I have done the placement with the app and discussed / confirmed with the engineer.

[Les-Gibson]

What about the construction of your house, is it an older house with solid walls or a modern house with partition walls?

[worb68]

1930's - Semi detached with solid walls

[Keith_Beddoe]

@worb68 

Those repeating wireless disks are going to really struggle in that situation, so you may need to look for another solution. Ideally Ethernet cabling with individual wireless access points in each room, but this would involve a lot of work.

A third party wireless mesh system like the TP-Link Deco range may perform better under those conditions, as they can access all wireless channels, and pick the ones with least interference.. Three nodes are normally more than adequate. You would turn wireless off on the home hub, as these can operate in access point mode.

Depending on your broadband speed, The Deco E4 (up to 100Mbs) or Deco M4 (up to 1000Mbs)

I use the Deco E4 on a slow ADSL connection, but I can also connect it to a fast 4G connection if needed.

[worb68]

Ok thank you - I’ll have a look at them. Are there other options as well? 

[rbz5416]

If congestion really is the issue then I wouldn't recommend the M4. It's extremely limited & has no manual control of WiFi channels & relies on auto-selection. Although to be fair that applies to many mesh systems. You also can't split the SSIDs so would have no control over which band devices connect to. I had a set briefly & found the 2.4GHz channel selection poor & the 5GHz appears to have no auto-selection. According to TP-Link's own staff the 5GHz is fixed on channel 36, the last thing you want with Sky Q.

The M5 is a little better in that you can create a separate 2.4GHz IoT network & the firmware also allows you to set a preferred band & node for a device to connect to. Still no manual control of WiFi channels though & again my 5GHz band is stuck firmly on channel 36, This conflicts with my neighbours but fortunately their signal is low. I just use two in a 70s semi with solid walls.

Have you downloaded a WiFi analyser to check for yourself what''s going on with competing channels?