Wi-Fi home setup is a mess, some help would be appreciated.
What sort of house and size? My old cottage had 36" stone walls and was over 25 mtrs long but just 2 devices (routers connected via ethernet) sited towards both ends of the building, did the entire building and even out to the external standalone conservatory. I'm just wondering if you're getting a lot of clashing of WiFi signals (i.e. possibly using the same channels) with so many WiFi devices in the mix.
While the house I have now is much smaller I still use the same 2 routers. I have actually got them on their own SSID's (both 2.4 & 5.0Ghz channels) so I can guarantee which router whatever device is in use will connect to. The mobile devices have access to both routers. First I'd check out what channels are in use (and even signal strength) before paying out yet more money. Download a WiFI analyser to your mobile /pc to check.
My new ISP supplied a Fritzbox modem / router and the other I use is a TP link C9. Both just do the job required and very reliable.
@idonno Thanks very much for your reply.
We live in a 2 floor, 4 bedroom detached house. Built in 1992 of brick outside, and -Plasterboard walls inside. The dimensions of the house are approx 50ft square.
I had also thought about too many products connecting to the Wi-Fi at the same time (excuse my ignorance, can you have too many products connected?) If you include the tv and Q boxes (which were on Wi-Fi) we have/had 14 devices connected, including mobile devices, Hive hub, Alexa etc.
What I have done since getting my new Home hub1 from Plusnet, is split my Wi-Fi signal. Not because I knew what I was doing, but because I’d seen lots of people on this forum say that it helped them.
On the 5Ghz channel, I have also chosen a channel that the Wi-Fi analyser told me was one of the better ones (according to the analyser, there are now 6 products attached, and the channel is showing as one of the worst!!). Not that I know what the Wi-Fi analyser actually says. As of this morning, I am having difficulty getting 2 of my mobile devices to connect to 5g at all (this ipad is telling me my password is incorrect, which it isn’t)
I’ve never thought about having more that 1 router. What is the benefit of that versus, say, a Wi-Fi extender plugged into a socket or one of those mesh systems?
Is it also better to have the sky products wired, as I know they’re meant/designed to be wireless.
regards, Dave
Use ethernet cable wherever possible - its the cheapest and fastest solution. Try to avoid wifi boosters etc wherever possible.
You can have too many wifi devices since they share the same signal - things like mobiles don't really count since they only use wifi intermittently.
Since ethernet cable is usually 1,000Mbits it's possible to share lots of ethernet connected devices without any problems.
@Bernard-Shakey wrote:We live in a 2 floor, 4 bedroom detached house. Built in 1992 of brick outside, and -Plasterboard walls inside. The dimensions of the house are approx 50ft square.
If you include the tv and Q boxes (which were on Wi-Fi) we have/had 14 devices connected, including mobile devices, Hive hub, Alexa etc.
What I have done since getting my new Home hub1 from Plusnet, is split my Wi-Fi signal. Not because I knew what I was doing, but because I’d seen lots of people on this forum say that it helped them.
On the 5Ghz channel, I have also chosen a channel that the Wi-Fi analyser told me was one of the better ones (according to the analyser, there are now 6 products attached, and the channel is showing as one of the worst!!). Not that I know what the Wi-Fi analyser actually says. As of this morning, I am having difficulty getting 2 of my mobile devices to connect to 5g at all (this ipad is telling me my password is incorrect, which it isn’t)
I’ve never thought about having more that 1 router. What is the benefit of that versus, say, a Wi-Fi extender plugged into a socket or one of those mesh systems?
I wouldn't have said your house is anything special , construction wise, although plasterboard sometimes comes with foil backing for vapour control. That might make WiFi signals more unreliable.
As @VileReynard mentions, ethernet wired connections are probably the best way to go, if you have the choice, although I've only got 2 devices connected that way. The other 18 devices are all wifi. I don't think having 18 devices on WiFi is anything unusual nowadays. I tend to put devices that need a fast connection on to the 5.0Ghz band and they can only use 802.11ac. If they cannot use that standard that they get put onto the 2.4Ghz band. And the equipment talks to the nearest router. It seems to work fairly well. No complaints from anybody about not being able to download at a sensible rate or being unable to connect. And we are very heavy users.
When you say you have split the bands on the Hub 1, I assume you have also given them individual named SSID's?
But as mentioned before the 2 routers are connected via ethernet cabling. The Fritzbox is the one connected to the outside world, whereas the TP link C9 talks direct to the Fritzbox via that cable. I did look at mesh systems but they seem to overly expensive for what I needed, although the perceived benefits might be more important to some. As for using 2 routers? They were to hand and just needed setting up.
I'd also be inclined to download something like Speedcheck onto a mobile and go around the house checking the real time download and upload speeds. For instance, while I can use the mobile via WiFi out in the garden at 15metres and still be up at 73Mb/s download, at around 18 metres that tails off somewhat rapid down to 5Mb/s.
