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Message 1 of 4

Mesh set up - poor and unstable wifi

Hi

I'm needing some help. We have Fibre 2 broadband with a smart hub (1). We found that it wasn't reaching everywhere in the house (4 bed, 3 storey victorian). So like many others, when covid hit We needed to find more stable supplies to be able to work from home.

I did some research and mesh seemed one of the best options for the problems we faced. I spent a lot of money of a TP Link set up, seeing it was a reliable and good value package (3 x M5s). We also liked the extra parental controls it offered, including turning devices off at night.

So we set that up and it worked great. Really happy. We had to get an old white box BT modem as the smart hub wouldn't bridge. And that was fine too. Happy days.

We added smart devices slowly and surely including cameras and sockets, and so have about 25 additional smart devices dotted about.

Since Sep 2021 we've noticed real problems in our WiFi around the house. Me and my partner work from home and there are times through the day I've had to end patient appointments (NHS worker) because of the connection. I contacted BT, we spoke with TP link who were really helpful but nothing seemed to improve. In the end we tried adding a few tp link X20s to the mesh network for additional power. For the first few weeks we were amazed by the improvement, but then it all began to deteriorate again. We've had a very lovely BT engineer out this week who reassured us that our signal in is strong and consistent. But even he was surprised by how poor the WiFi was carrying around the house.

I've spent hundreds of pounds and don't want to throw more money I can't afford at this problem. We need some more help please. I'm not tech savvy and so will need simple explanation please?

Huge thanks in advance!!!

 

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Message 2 of 4

Re: Mesh set up - poor and unstable wifi

@ClairePea123 

You will find that all mesh systems need re-setting after a while. Usually there is an option within the application to do this, without actually losing any user configurations. I have a Tenda Nova mesh, and this is configured to restart once a week, in the early morning.

The reason is because the mesh nodes have internal software routing tables, and these can get quite large. In fact, too many nodes can make the mesh unstable. In fact anything over four nodes can give issues, especially if there is considerable overlap, devices can keep switching between nodes.

Look at the TP Link mesh application, and see if you can find the option to refresh the connections, it may be called a reboot and would need to be done on all nodes.

The power output of each node is controlled within the software of each node, and the master node which is connected to the router.

If you are happy that the modem is not dropping the connection, then it has to be an issue with the mesh.

You can always use the BT Smart Hub 2 instead, and change the TP Link mesh to access point (bridge) mode.

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Message 3 of 4

Re: Mesh set up - poor and unstable wifi

@Keith_Beddoe 

Thanks for this advice.

How would I connect Smart Hub 2 to x20 Mesh? That bit confuses me. All help appreciated.

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Message 4 of 4

Re: Mesh set up - poor and unstable wifi


@ClairePea123 wrote:

@Keith_Beddoe 

Thanks for this advice.

How would I connect Smart Hub 2 to x20 Mesh? That bit confuses me. All help appreciated.


The Smart Hub 2 would connect directly to the phone line without the modem.

One Ethernet port of the Smart Hub 2  would connect to main TP Link node, the one that would normally connect to the modem.

The TP Link mesh would need to switched to access point mode, and the wireless on the Smart Hub 2 turned off.

This refers to the Deco, but I expect the x20 is similar https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/faq/1842/

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/faq/2399/

You may be able to connect the x20 to the home hub Ethernet port without changing the operation mode, but this would cause issues with any application you use that requires remote access to your network, like remote viewing of CCTV cameras.

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