Replacing Sky Q hub/router with something better

[ChimpMaster]

Interesting thoughts guys, thanks.

My fibre speed is just shy of 67mbps on hard wired connections and on 5GHz wireless. It drops to around 20mbps on 2.4Ghz.

I've made a few changes recently and it seems far more stable. As mentioned in previous posts, I have a Sky Q router and 3 TP Link EAP225 APs which can act like a mesh. These are hard-wired to the Sky Q router via a POE switch.

I have given all APs unique SSIDs and the router has its own (different) SSID. I then went in and gave each of these its own wireless channel to operate from. So there is no crossover of channels on each of the 3 APs and the router, and each AP is uniquely named.

I then walked around the house and assigned my smart plugs and lights to the AP closest to it. I did the same for the Sky Q boxes and other 'fixed' devices. This spread the load across all the APs. I have very few devices now connected to the main router directly.

People walking around the house will have all 4 SSIDs configured on their phones/laptops, so will automatically connect to the strongest available signal.

This set-up has been running very well over the past 10 days or so. I don't think it's ideal because at some point the 64 device limit will be a problem again, but for now it appears to be stable.

[d000hg]

Interesting thoughts guys, thanks.
People walking around the house will have all 4 SSIDs configured on their phones/laptops, so will automatically connect to the strongest available signal.

This is the area I've had problems and ended up using mesh. It may be things have improved but I recall Android had a specific bug where it wouldn't switch if it still had a connection (someone even showed me the code). Modern phones seem much better at this - they'll 'fill in the gaps' using 4G as well.

We were always finding we had to keep turning WiFi on and off on our phones/tablets as we changed rooms but if it's working, your setup does sound good for fixed devices. It's a fair point that most of your smart-plugs and TVs don't need to be jumping between mesh nodes.
One thing that really irritates me with the BT hub mesh thingies is you cannot tell a specific device to lock/prefer a given disc. You can go in and see which disc each device is connected to and sometimes things mess up - I think if a disc has a brief blip devices 'jump ship' and then don't return. Being able to have a mesh but override for individual devices would be a great idea IMHO.

[DoctorStrangelove]

I miss the days when tellies took ages to warm up coz they had valves in them, rather than taking ages to boot up coz they've got microcontrollers in them.

[d000hg]

I miss the days when tellies took ages to warm up coz they had valves in them, rather than taking ages to boot up coz they've got microcontrollers in them.

Or telling you "you have to accept the updated terms to watch the TV"

[MonkeysUncle]

Hi all
Sorry to raise an old thread but looking at a mesh network.

With Virgin but my deal is about to come to an end and price is going to shoot up. Looking at switching.
One of the benefits of being with Virgin and O2 was free wifi pods which created a mesh. If I stay with Virgin these become a subscription cost

So looking at switching to another provider. Now that I have full fibre in my area I can get speeds as good as Virgin (circia 500) at half the price.
But i need a mesh network

Any recommendations on mesh networks?
I was looking at the TP-LInk Deco S4.

[Snooky]

Hi all
Sorry to raise an old thread but looking at a mesh network.

With Virgin but my deal is about to come to an end and price is going to shoot up. Looking at switching.
One of the benefits of being with Virgin and O2 was free wifi pods which created a mesh. If I stay with Virgin these become a subscription cost

So looking at switching to another provider. Now that I have full fibre in my area I can get speeds as good as Virgin (circia 500) at half the price.
But i need a mesh network

Any recommendations on mesh networks?
I was looking at the TP-LInk Deco S4.

I'm with Virgin and use a TP-Link mesh system, but with M5s rather than S4s. They're very similar (see https://www.tp-link.com/uk/compare/?...C35616%2C35611).

It's worked well. Really easy to set up, a bit of trial and error placing the units to get them all talking to each other efficiently and also providing good coverage. They offer a decent app to control it all. The only thing I noticed is that I needed more units than they suggested to cover my property. It's a 5-bed with mostly block internal walls, they suggest 3 units, I've ended up with 5 to make sure I have strong Wifi right through. Probably could have got away with 4 but there was a deal on Amazon.

I initially tried a Google Mesh system but it would only work if I put the router in modem mode (not a big problem but TP-Link doesn't need that) and then it was very flaky - units constantly becoming unresponsive etc. By comparison TP-Link is brilliant.

Re: leaving Virgin, I let their prices creep up without doing anything about it, mainly through inertia, until their most recent attempt to increase them made me do something. So I rang them and said I was planning on leaving, the customer service people offered the best they could but it wasn't enough so I asked them to cancel the contract. Assuming you're not still tied into a longer contract, that puts you on a 30-day notice period before it all comes to an end. Within a couple of days one of their UK-based retention people was on the phone and I managed to haggle them down to less than 50% of the current price, and immune from the increase they'd told me was going to happen. I now pay £30pcm for M125 and Talk Anytime calls. I wanted to keep Virgin because it's been virtually bulletproof in all the years I've had it, all the way back to when it was NTL/Telewest. So if you're happy with Virgin apart from their price, it might be a good idea not to sign up to something else immediately when you cancel, let them have a week to come back to you and offer you a much better deal.

[wattaj]

Re: leaving Virgin, I let their prices creep up without doing anything about it, mainly through inertia, until their most recent attempt to increase them made me do something. So I rang them and said I was planning on leaving, the customer service people offered the best they could but it wasn't enough so I asked them to cancel the contract. Assuming you're not still tied into a longer contract, that puts you on a 30-day notice period before it all comes to an end. Within a couple of days one of their UK-based retention people was on the phone and I managed to haggle them down to less than 50% of the current price, and immune from the increase they'd told me was going to happen. I now pay £30pcm for M125 and Talk Anytime calls.

I have just done something similar. I now have M125 @ £20pcm, but no calls as I don't need a land line. It was a bit of a phaff which was why I eventually went down the "cancellation" route, but I did get a free streaming box out of it as well.



-- Edit --
I was also given a Hub4, but it's been a bit tulip, so I'm going to go back to my Hub3 when I have some time.

[MonkeysUncle]

Thanks for the replies, the S4 and M4 look pretty much identical on the spec sheet. I will have a look at both.

Re virgin, when I spoke to them today the best deal was £64/month for my current M350 or £60/month for M500 + £5/month per Wifi Pod (I have 2)

I will go down the cancellation route and see if they come back with anything better.