I personally wouldn’t cripple a wifi network due to it needing to only accommodate low broadband speed. If you’re doing anything at all more interesting than accessing the internet from a couple of devices then a solid network to allow things to talk to each other is very desirable (I’m thinking along the lines any kind of computer to computer file transfer, network storage, smarthome stuff, sonos/airplay type audio, Sky multiscreen, etc etc….). While some of those things need minimal bandwidth, I’m sure having a dedicated back haul does wonders for latency – which is what will make everything feel “fast”.

A single (dual) pack of the m5 will be more than fine then, you won’t need anything super duper for that speed. 200mbps was an just a number, was more if you have really fast broadband as the mid spec models will hit thier limit at 100-150mbps.

Don’t underestimate the power of these things – your broadband router, if it came free with the broadband, is probably worth a few quid and has to do a lot of jobs and have the hardware for all this in the small box, whereas these mesh devices have one job.

If (and it’s a big if) you need an extra, it’s literally 3 clicks on the app to add an extra node. I’m confident you won’t though.

Wicked, thanks. And the bridge mode thing?

We had rubbish wi-fi, ended up running an outdoor cable around the house and into the dining room to create a wired point for working from home. Then ran a switch to allow both a wifi extender and laptops to run off it. Also used power-line adapters as the tv box needs a wired connection for some reason.

Turns out it’s just the provided router is rubbish (virgin superhub 3).

Got a Netgear Nighthawk a couple of weeks ago as Virgin kindly upgraded us to 500mb broadband and I decided their router couldn’t handle the volume of connected devices.
Turns out I should have done it earlier as the dead-spots in the house are now seeing upwards of 100mb and connectivity is much more stable in general, not to mention having a device which handles modern life better (no need to split wi-fi bands to get stuff to work).

Can get a mesh extender to add to the new router if I need it at any point, but things are going great so far.

Wicked, thanks. And the bridge mode thing?

It’ll be a setting in your routers settings, basically allows the Deco mesh to act as your router and to handle assigning ip addresses plus quality of service, speed limits etc etc.

If you can’t set this it’s not a big deal, you just turn off the WiFi on your router and set the Deco to access point mode rather than router mode.

I just stuck some aluminium foil behind some white cardboard and used that to reflect the wifi field away from where I don’t want it (neighbour/street) and into the house. Does boost the range of the router, although it doesn’t produce the 12dpi gain that the properly designed parabolic reflectors do on my other router set up as a bridge.

^^

Basically you don’t want multiple devices doing the same thing or you’ll get conflicts.

Gotcha, ta. TBH, if the router’s now going to be pretty ‘dumb’, it may give me an excuse to use an older, smaller one that I can tuck away more easily, rather than the massive black slab of plastic that my current providers gave me (assuming i can get the older one set up correctly, can’t be that hard)

many thanks for the responses, i get more confused the more i look into these things

anyway found this this morning
https://shop.bt.com/products/bt-refurbished-mini-whole-home-wi-fi-2-disc-104824-refurb-G5ZK.html?utm_content=RR00&ReferrerID=RR00&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz_u8zty58AIVpoBQBh2KEA85EAQYASABEgKE6fD_BwE

i assume i wont find a better deal, thinking of ordering 4 discs as I assume i can use the second pair as add ons if i need more than two?

thanks

Sorry, me again.

Deco mesh wotsits turned up yesterday, so I’ll be setting them up tonight. I had a look at the settings on the router, is it the DHCP thing I need to switch off to get it into ‘bridge mode’? Or something else?

Ta.

@karnali – that’s exactly the setup my mum has. works fine

Sorry, me again.

Deco mesh wotsits turned up yesterday, so I’ll be setting them up tonight. I had a look at the settings on the router, is it the DHCP thing I need to switch off to get it into ‘bridge mode’? Or something else?

Ta.

No, DHCP is one of the rings that bridge mode (it can be called different things, like modem mode)) turns off along with Nat, and wifi. Turning off DHCP alone won’t work.

Best thing to do is Google your router and that should tell you if it has that option.

Yeah, sorry, should have said, I had a further dig around in the router settings and found the Bridge mode setting.

Lovely. Let us know how you get on and that the signal coverage is like. With the decos in full router mode you gain all the nice things it can do.

Hi just watching this thread with intent, wondering how this went?

We have a 4 bed and i swapped out or BT router with a TP Link Archer, but some rooms the wifi drops off totally and it also drops in the garden. Trying to decide whether to get an AP which will be hard wired by homeplug back to the router. Or Mesh with 2 units.

Mesh does seem the correct way to go, at twice the price of an access point i’m assuming they’re still worth it

Key thing to look out for on Mesh Wi-Fi is a dedicated backhaul between the Mesh AP’s. These help explain it https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/33023-don-t-get-caught-in-the-wireless-mesh https://www.casatech.com/blog/2020/7/19/five-mistakes-to-avoid-when-setting-up-your-mesh-wifi-system

You only need dedicated backhaul if you’re seriously hammering your network. Bt whole home gives you real speeds of around 600mbps, or 8 times faster than the fastest non-fttp broadband connection. If you have fttp or want to waste money on an overkill solution, then triband is needed, otherwise just get a cheap setup and it’ll be identical

We just have 50Mbps FTTP which suits us fine (and I work from home using VPN connecting to servers etc) , sounds like a 2 node mesh setup could be the best option.

at 50mbps are you sure its fttp not fttc? fttp normally costs a bunch to install and is often only used for speeds of 200mbps and up.

Either way, yes, a 2 node mesh might do the trick, or if your place is big enough, 3 nodes may be better. I’d rather have more cheaper nodes, then fewer more expensive ones if coverage is what you’re fixing.

prime day is coming up next week, I expect there’ll be some decent deals on