BT Whole Home Wi-Fi, Pack Of 3 Discs, Mesh Wi-Fi Seamless, Speedy (AC2600) Connection, Wi-Fi Everywhere In Medium To Large Homes, App Complete Control And 3 Year Warranty

Ok, so I’m one month into using this kit, here’s a breakdown of my findings so far: Setup could be easier, but pretty good in fairness. The only slight issue was adding more disks into the setup, but was still doable with some knowledge or google. Signal quality... is absolutely amazing... I’ve been using a basic Virgin Media Wi-Fi router for years, but two of us WFH has pushed it beyond its abilities. I’ve held off spending the money for months and decided to invest. This is money really well spent, we have a 4 bed house and the signal now spans across all rooms, up the drive and down the garden, so looking forward to some spring and summer days working outside. Not only that, but for months we’ve had connection issues, drop outs, freezing video calls, all of which has just disappeared since installing this kit. The disks are ok to look at and blend into your decor with no major issues, most of this sort of kit looks horrible and this is definitely at the better end of the scale. I’m yet to restart any of the disks and this is a massive surprise. With most other cheaper network extension equipment I’ve owned (and I’ve tried a lot!!!) you find yourself rebooting it once or twice a week. With this kit, I’ve just forgotten it’s there, which is exactly what you want from a home technical solution. Whilst it’s great to put it together in the first place, you don’t want to constantly be tuning it, especially when you’re trying to use it for work. Frankly, for most homes with more than a single occupant and Wi-Fi signal issues, this is worth buying. As I said, I’ve used many other devices in the past and they’ve simply not been robust enough to do what I was looking for. Honestly, in the consumer market, I can’t think of anything that stands up to this at a lower price point - although I do notice there is a mini version of this kit also on Amazon which may be worth a test, it doesn’t come with some of the extra features included here. Id say if you’re having Wi-Fi issues, look no further.

You may have heard a lot of hype about the mesh systems that are around today? A lot mesh starter kits come with a controller and maybe on access point (wifi signal generator). If you have a large house, solid wall or are using this for your business, you'll need to spend your hard earned cash on yet more access points. BT have a clear winner with this low cost solution. Like a Mesh system there are no seperate wifi zones and the one network name (SSID) does the whole house, so you don't have to flick networks as you mooch around your home into poor signal areas. There is a switchable guest network that you can name yourself and only turn it on when you have guests or visitors that would like to use your wifi. That helps with security a lot. You can pause your wifi and once the kids have stopped moaning, it's time for bed or quiet! Have that kiddie-winkies! Parent win! Say goodbye to dead spots. Since purchasing the set of three, I have no areas in my house that doesn't have a full , yes full wifi signal. Got an alexa or google home hub pugs and lamps around the home? If you've found they drop on and off the network then this could be the solution for you. With improved signal stability, you'll find those pesky dropouts where your lamps won't turn on or off will be a thing of the past. It took 20 minutes to set up all three access points (The white disc thingies). Everything you need is in the box. The whole home app for iphone and andriod phones works virtually fool proof. I would have liked to have seen a few things I felt were missing. 1. You can only set your BT access points down using the stand provided. Although they look sleak, if it were possible to screw them to a wall or ceiling, say like a cisco access point, then that would be better. 2. I am lucky enough to have a home where a lot of nework socket outlets were put in during it's refurbishment. I would have loved to have seen a row of four network outlets on the prime disk and be able to use it to manage my other discs via a wired network. Or, even be able to mix and match between wired and wifi piggy backing. That said, they are hard to critise and the pricing point is brilliant. Personally and as an IT guy, I can recomend these.

This works, out of the box, gives excellent performance (so far), and WiFi coverage across the whole home [like it says on the box]. The iOS app also works fine, once you figure out the undocumented trick of ensuring you have not connected to a VPN on your device. If you do, then most (but not all) attempts to use the app fail, and the app claims not to be able to connect to the WiFi network, although it is up and working fine. Before buying this, I spent quite a lot of time figuring out ways of getting WiFi boosted in our two-floor flat in an old Victorian house with an extension that is close to a Faraday cage owing to the steel frame and metal stud internal walls. We have Ethernet cabling to various rooms, and use Virgin Media, Hub 3.0. My starting point was: something that I can plug into an Ethernet port that will extend or bring WiFi to the room concerned. If you try to connect an old router then a) you need to spend time getting your Hub 3.0 into Modem Mode, and b) you may need to spend a while fiddling with IP addresses and installing new firmware ... and then it may not work. See four of five reviews and articles and forums for the sorry tale. Next stop: Powerline with WiFi boosting: very high speed TP-Link devices with mains power "passthrough" (three-pin UK socket in the device enables it to be used as a normal electric socket too were all looking good, with "WiFI synch" (i.e. they all offer the same WiFi network id or SSID and use the same password), until I realized that to buy more than one of the latest, smartest "range extenders" (the devices that go into a room away from the router to provide boosted WiFi) ... I would have to buy more than one "Starter Kit", meaning that I would end up with two base stations (the devices that plug into the router via Ethernet) to get two range extenders. And to get three ... I would need to buy three Starter Kits. I could not believe that a company had product-managed themselves into such a hole, but sure enough, people reported the high price of a working solution for this very reason. And I also noticed that the range extenders are not actually mains power "passthrough". So I thought again. And read more reviews. Which brought me to the BT Whole Home WiFi product. EXTRA PLUSES: things it does that I didn't know about when I bought it. 1. I would expect this, but you never know: I plugged the primary disc into an Ethernet port away from the actual router location (and in a much better place to form the WiFi "mesh" with the other discs) and that all worked just fine. 2. You can plug each disc into an Ethernet port if you have on available. Then each disc "just" acts as a synchronised repeater of a single SSID with a single password, boosts WiFi, operates directly off Ethernet etc. All without touching the Hub 3.0, no switching it into Modem Mode (and losing an Ethernet port) etc etc. 3. There is a web admin interface as well as the iOS/Android apps, and it is very good, clear, easy to use (in fact both are OK once everything is working, see MINUSES below). MINUSES 1. No information in the app, online at BT's generally very good FAQ/knowledge base, or from their technical support department about the VPN problem: that took more Googling. Remember to switch off your phone's VPN to administer the network (and to set it up if that's how you are doing it) and also remember that you can use the Web interface (http://mybtdevice.home) once the primary disc is connected via Ethernet to the router. 2. The app guides you through set up, and two things went wrong: it asked you to test connections before switching on the second and subsequent discs, but when used to test the connection (signal level) in close proximity (a foot away) or at a reasonable distance (a location that actually works for a second disc) is showed a red disc and No Connection, which was a lie. I was wrongly told by BT tech support that you cannot test connections before plugging the second disc in (it will show signal strength when only one disc is working, at a potential location, if the app is reinstalled). 3. The quick start doc available on line (but not in the box, bizarre) says: don't switch on discs until the app says so. If I had followed this advice I'd be writing a different (one-star) review. Once the first disc is up and working (plug into mains, plug via Ethernet cable into router Ethernet port, power on) then WiFi works, devices can be connected etc. Take the second and third discs. Plug them into mains and power on, successively, and they hook up and work too. You don't need the app to make this work. 4. Minor niggle: you can't turn off the LED on only one or two discs: all three or nothing. But at least you can turn it off. 5. If these discs were Power over Ethernet (PoE) then it would be a happy day, but I'm sure that the next generation will be. And if BT are smart they won't make you buy a whole new system to get PoE, they'll let if all work with the old discs. Don't make the TP-Link mistake. The system seems to be really good, and the price, given the alternatives, is not cheap, but not unreasonable. The simplicity of setup (given the info above) is amazing. The admin is really simple and effective. This is a class product!

Like anyone buying this set, its because the WiFi coverage in your house is a bit rubbish. Certainly, that's the case in my house partially because of the area, partially because it's part underground in the side of a slight hill and partially because when I renovated it, I used foil backed plasterboard everywhere for additional insulation. And of course created a big Faraday cage....Doh! Anyway, me being me I like wired connections as far as possible. This is probably due to the fact that on construction ships for offshore work we have to make everything as foolproof and reliable as possible and that means hard wiring. And I figured as each of these WiFi units had a LAN port they must be able to be used with a cable, right? And, well, yes. They are designed so that the first unit is wired in and then you wifi daisy chain them around the house using the BT app on your mobile to determine the best spot to achieve good connection and maximise the distance. However, you can use Cat 5 or 6 - although it does not say so in the manual. Essentially you plug them all into a switch and run LAN cable wherever you want and then plug each one it. It all works perfectly as they are all set to the same login and passwords. Using cable guarantees a good connection and I like that. However, the app does not which may or may not be important to you. When I tried to use the app with all the units wired in, it refused to allow me to name each one and set it up. That isn't a problem per se because just plugging them in and entering the WiFi login details into your device allows you to roam your house using each of the units in range. However, if you want to use the app and use these as intended - and avoid running Cat5 everywhere - then its also simplicity itself. Plug in the first one, follow the app instructions, then do the next in turn. You can name each one as you go and all you need is a power socket close by. The only thing I noted is that the range between these is not huge using WiFi only so if you have a particularly massive house then you might need another couple to cover everywhere. Regardless, these do work really well and give great WiFi everywhere using the same details for simplicity. Now, onto other things. Design is neat and pleasing on the eye with a very good tactile feel and build quality. These do come across as being well made and high end. The weird bit is the fact that on the back there is a hole for hanging these on a wall which, frankly is hard to understand. It would be nice if it could be done, but the stand is integral and can't be taken off and of course the Cat5 cable on the master unit will stick out the back. I could I guess take one apart and remove the stand but I run the risk of damaging it in the process. I may give it a go and see if I can neatly wall mount one and if I can, I'll update this. Overall, a fantastic bit of kit that works brilliantly and well worth the money if you need better coverage.

BT Whole Home WiFi for £189. Summary to save reading the rest: The kit arrives in an excellent package which feels very upmarket so initial impressions was good. It is expensive compared to wifi plugs but it initially looks like money well spent especially at the price I paid rather than the original £299. It has managed to get wifi coverage everywhere in my house on a single SSID and with better performance than before. Would have been a 5 star review except for the mandatory BT app which let's it down in my opinion. ** After submitting the review with 4 stars I decided the BT app did not warrant losing a star so I've put it to 5 stars. Background info: I have BT Infinity2 (unlimited data and upto 70Mbps). When hardwired to the router I get 62Mbps via speedtest regularly. My house is really bad for WiFi. To visualise it, imagine a rectangle split into equal thirds. The BT HomeHub5 sits just inside the left third and wifi in this section is strong. The middle third starts getting patchy and the final third which happens to be where my lounge and bedroom are is usually no reception. I used a Solwise repeater in the middle third to help until now which has been great but when at the furthest point from it in the bedroom it was sometimes hit and miss. Plus we had three different SSIDs in the house. Setup: Opened the great bit of packaging and the feel of each disc was of really good build quality. I had already read that the BT whole home app was required so I had downloaded it already on Android. For me this is the only reason I haven't awarded it 5 stars. The first issue I have with the app is that it requires location services to be on or it just wont start. WTF? Why does it need to know where I am? I know I'm in my house and the devices are connected to the hub in my house and my broadband is in my house. I don't have location turned on as it eats my battery plus I'm paranoid about being stalked ;) So now I have to switch that on, tell google to take a run when it then wants me to allow all and sundry to access my location just so the app will start (and also having to remember to shut it off when I'm finished). That was issue one with the app. After that the setup was easy, plug ethernet cable into the router, plus other end into the first disc, power it on, wait 2 mins until the LED went solid blue and then I had a new SSID which I could connect to using the key that you get on the card that slides from the back of the disc (like with all BT hubs). The app then offers you to add more discs. It says go the spot you would like and click test. It tells you if you are in a good area or not. Once you have a good location for disc two, power it on, wait 2 mins for solid blue, then onto the third disc (same procedure). Once I had all three in location, using the app I changed the SSID to a different name and also changed the admin passwd (on the pull out card). I also clicked check for new firmware and it found some, download and install took a few mins. That was it for setup. You could easily do it in under 30mins but I tried a few locations and made sure I had it looking tidy with cables out of sight, etc so spent a bit longer. Testing: I used the speedtest app on my Sony Android phone for measurements. For reference - My usual results from speedtest show no more than 30Mbps down and 18Mbps up in the house when I have peak performance. The BT app shows you a graphic of devices connected to which disc so I could see where I was connected for my testing. I did various runs from different locations connecting to different discs and my performance generally was higher than I've ever had before with an average of low 40s for download and a peak of 58. uploads were a bit down though never peaking above 16 and sometimes in single figures. Not too worried about this as the majority of wifi traffic in my house is download. The only issue I experienced and it could be just the bedding in phase is that sometimes when I moved around the house and the passing on function of the devices (to the better reception) seemed to take a while so my first attempt at speedtest had network comms error. I will see how real life usage and movement affect the device over the coming days. BT app: i have already mentioned the app is mandatory which is acceptable to me although as they each have an ethernet socket you should really be able to connect a PC direct but most of us have mobiles so whatever. I also said I hate the fact you need location services turned on. My other gripe is that you cannot control the hub settings in particular parental controls. I have this set on the hub to stop my kids being on their phones all night. The only option via the app is the whole wifi off or on which will then affect sky, fire tv, my phone,etc... I think the hub still controls their access but I would like this ability on the app. I can also see devices connected to each disc but cannot do anything such as block them. Conclusion: Although I only set this up in the last 24hours from my initial impression of the hardware, through the ease of setup and resulting in wifi coverage getting the whole house with a single SSID, I am very happy with the outlay of cash. The bonus that the download performance has increased too is the cherry on the cake. I hope I have not reviewed too early and I don't start getting problems but if I do I shall report back. I highly recommend this as a solution if you had issues like mine especially as if it turns out not to work in your case you can simply box it back up and return to Amazon (that was my plan if it failed).

Don't often write reviews but this deserved one. I've been struggling with intermittent wifi and poor range from my TPLink Archer VR800 wi-fi router/modem for over a year (TalkTalk are my ISP), often having to reset the router multiple times daily to restore the wi-fi connection. Hard-wired over ethernet was never a problem and always provided 36MBps, so I eliminated the incoming broadband as the issue. I tried several options to resolve the issue including range extenders (flaky connection, poor wifi speeds) and powerline adaptors (1920s house, so cabling was not up to the job) which were either too complex and/or unreliable. I was starting to burn through hours and hours of my life trying to sort it out and getting increasingly frustrated. A friend mentioned mesh networks to me and after some research, I came across the BT Whole Home product. Reviews seemed good and the price OK so I took a punt. The installation was an absolute breeze and took all of 30 mins from opening the box to being fully set up. You hard-wire one of the discs to your router/modem then the other 2 discs connect wirelessly, using the BT app to determine suitable locations for them around your house. I have one in the lounge, one in the kitchen and another upstairs and I now have 36MBps in every room of the house (same as the incoming line speed) and so far the connection hasn't dropped once. Devices switch connection automatically to the closest disc as you move around the house. You can then disable the wi-fi on your router/modem. I can't recommend this system enough if you have a have poor/intermittent wi-fi and dead-spots throughout your house. It provides full speed broadband in every room and is an idiot-proof, plug & play installation with virtually no configuration required. It's simple and it just works, which is exactly what I wanted. Perfect 10/10. Well done BT.

I didn't know about this product until I made a rare visit to a PC World for something else entirely and saw a large display board. They had no stock and the staff of course, knew nothing at all about them, or the rival TP-Link system they sell. Having tired of listening to somebody read to me from a display box, I went home and looked this up on Amazon of course and decided to give it a try. For me, ease of use is paramount. If it doesn't work out of the box, I tend to give up. Following the instructions was easy, download an app to my phone, plug in a disc to my router and watch what happens next. That's pretty easy. It worked immediately and I then went around the house with another unit and the app. Without plugging the second unit, the app was able to tell me whether the positioning I chose was poor, good or excellent. I chose excellent and plugged the second unit in. It connected like a dream, so I repeated the same thing with my third unit upstairs. That was good, but what happened next was better! I got my son to "forget" the Virgin connection on his phone and also the various repeaters and extenders I had plugged in all over the house (each with its own password). I then asked him to navigate to the BT Whole Home wi-fi and as he did, my app pinged and asked if I wanted to grant him access. As I confirmed this, it automatically entered the password into his phone. There was nothing else to do. Even my technophobe wife managed to connect in the same way! I can't believe how long I've struggled with those plug-in extenders that are so slow, they're almost a waste of time. I've freed up lots of plug sockets and now have full signal throughout the house for the first time ever. As I move around the house, the signal transfers automatically to the best signal seamlessly. It's like discovering new technology all over again. Absolutely brilliant and very fast browsing speeds too.

Prior to installing BT Whole Home Wifi a couple of days ago I had 3 separate wifi access points installed around my house, each operating on separate SSIDs (in order to be able to switch manually to best signal). I am lucky enough to have Ethernet at various locations in my house as I installed Ethernet as we undertook various renovations etc. I have just replaced those separate APs with BT Whole Home. First impressions are that It's brilliant. All mobile wifi devices (notably phones, iPads etc.) migrate automatically to the best wifi signal as the discs manage this process for you. As I have all the discs connected to my ethernet backbone, they automatically route all IP traffic over ethernet rather than Wifi (Ethernet backhaul). In terms of internet access, a device close to the disc is able to get full ISP bandwidth (in my case close to 37mpps download) over wifi. Wifi signal itself is very good. Note that BT discs support higher throughput wifi than Google for example. The real advantage of this kit over Google Wifi (for me at least) is that you can configure this kit to operate with your existing LAN and broadband set up; in my case I have my own router connecting to ISP in order to manage port forwarding/QOS etc so being able to keep that in situ is a bonus. Using the web interface you can configure IP addresses of discs; you cannot do this with Google which requires that you reconfigure your LAN to their settings. This kit works with your existing router whereas Google requires that you replace your ISP router with its device. I have multiple devices with fixed IP addresses and Google kit would require that I reconfigure everything to its address scheme. BT kit simply plugs into existing ethernet (either plug into existing router) or, as in my case, into my ethernet backbone. The last bonus is that this BT kit, comprising 3 discs is massively cheaper than the Google or Netgear equivalent. Anyone that struggles to get decent wifi around the house should take a look at this. Have only had this installed for a couple of days so still early days but so far, I cannot fault it. I will update after a bit more experience of stability etc. A couple of final points: * Initial set up using iPhone app was a dodlle - but ..... * Using the iPhone app, I struggled to get one of the discs to do its firmware upgrade. Do this via web app. * I would assign fixed IP addresses to the discs as this makes accessing the web interface easier. You can manage everything via the web interface though oddly the instructions make no reference to this *All discs can be managed "collectively" - log on to web interface on one disc and others can be managed from there - no need to log on to them individually * I would disable wifi on existing ISP router so you have a single wifi network provided by the discs.