I’ve tried reading up about Mesh systems and the likes but I really can’t fathom it!

We’ve got BT boradband with a BT Smart Hub Type A. The house is old and has some pretty thick stone/brick walls. We’d like to get wifi in the detatched garage and also improved signal in the bedrooms.

What on earth do I need to get to make it work? Do I need to replace the BT Smart Hub? What’s the most idiot-proof way of doing this?

For you probably a BT Disc mesh system for the main house and a cable out to the garage with a router at the end of it with a different SSID on it.

Depends whether you want to run ethernet cables everywhere. As above, one option would be cables from the router to separate access points in hard-to-reach spots like the garage.

If the garage has mains power, then for occasional light use Powerline adaptors aren’t the worst thing.

As I understand it (minimal research), the recent BT Smart Hubs are pretty decent so it’s unlikely that a different router will be an upgrade. I.e. You need either some access points or a new mesh setup.

If you’ve solid walls then the best way is to get a cable guy to run some cat5 around the place for you, and creatively place mesh points.

Worked example: our house is on three stories and appears to have some steels on the first floor which destroys wifi. Master socket and main AP is in the living room (ground floor, left). Good wifi on all the ground floor, and the left side of the house all the way up. Passable in our bedroom (first floor, right) and literally nothing in the study (second floor, right).

A temporary fix was to put the second of our mesh APs in my son’s bedroom (2nd floor, left) as that can see the main AP fine, and extends the signal to the rest of the 2nd floor and gave a better signal into the bulk of the 1st as it avoided the steels.

The long term fix was to pay a cable guy to run some cat5 from the living room behind the guttering to the study (that cost about £100) which means the two APs are joined with a wire. We now have full strength wifi in every room.