I've been persevering with BT home hub 2 and 3 disks for the last year, not been a great experience, not helped I expect by the brick/stone central fireplace in my house.
The thing is so temperamental and takes ages when rebooting could that be my local internet which I expect being semi rural is copper at least to the cabinet if not more, or changing any config (I switched off 5g briefly and the thing just hangs although perhaps that due to the way devices connect).
After getting some BT advice in person on where to position the router and discs things did improve a bit in terms of coverage, but I also have an intermittent problem with Sky Boxes dropping their connection and having to be reset every few weeks which is a pain, so much so that I'm looking at putting in ethernet for that system.
Would be grateful for advice please: is anyone else having a similar experience? Are there much better routers out there (and why are they better?)?
Is it Sky Q that you have?
yes, sorry should have said
Q is awful with non sky bb. Get the app WiFi analyser on your phone. It'll tell you the channels your WiFi is working on, you'll also see a random sky network which is their mesh network. Either change the channel on your router or go into the advanced settings on sky q box (go to settings on menu, but don't go into it, only have it highlighted then press 001 enter on remote) and do the same.
First thing to do is check your broadband speed by plugging computer into the router using a cat cable.
Make sure you are getting the speed you are paying for.
if your not then your Wi-Fi speed will be affected. If you are in a rural area your speed might be low due to distance from telephone exchange if using copper.
Copper is being replaced with full fibre to the house.
if you have low speed and a lot of devices connected to Wi-Fi then you might be getting bandwidth issues (ie but like 3 lane motorway going down to one lane B road)
once you are happy that you have a decent speed to the router then I would look at the Wi-Fi set up. A mesh system is the best that you can have after having a wired Ethernet ports as suggested above.
I recently moved, stuck with Sky who sent me their new style router (also have sky Q x 3). Was very surprised just how good it is, 2700sq ft and perfect wireless connection and speed throughout even in the Garden and garages. Much better than my previous house (much smaller).
I do wonder though. The previous owner had Virgin so when Sky sent out BT Openreach they had to run a new cable back to the box 300 meters+ away. Was a talking point with the neighbours as they had half the pavement up for 3 days and it seems I'm getting better speeds than anyone else (aside form those on Virgin fibre).
I have a lot running, VoIP, raspberry PI and Apple Home, Hue Light controllers x 2 (as have about 60 bulbs/lights), Cat flap! 3x computers, plus phones and iPads etc, 3x TV's that seem to be glued to Netflix streaming, security cameras etc, all running really well.
That said the house is being rewired in a few weeks and I'm getting CAT6 run around to a few rooms whilst they are here, mainly to the TV's and my office to try and relieve some of the Wifi and also to stop the Mrs moaning about all the gear in the hall!.
@razil I'd say if you can just get CAT6 wherever you can, thick walls In an old house is a killer. One of my mates had great success with two Ubiquiti UniFi access point units wired and his house is 4,000+ Sq ft. Also if a Mac try the netspot app.
Part of the issue with Sky Q and non sky broadband is they only connect at 2.4 rather than 5. Is the main Sky Q box hard wired or wifi?
I have to say Sky Q works very well with Sky's new router. If you are sticking with Sky Q and Mini's I'd possibly see if swaping to their Broadband helps as well as as much CAT 6 as you can!
We're fortunate we've got CAT 6 installed around our house so all my Linksys Velop mesh nodes run off that.
We're on BT FTTP (500mb down) and the only way of using the mesh is by using the system in bridge mode, which isnt a problem.
Sky Q never worked for us. We had their engineers out twice and they wanted us to use two of their shitty booster boxes which created another wifi network which was shite and always dropped out and they said there was niothing they could do.
Have posted on here before the solution. Main box in living room is cabled to router, 2 of the 3 miniboxes are linked by ethernet, one piggybacked through one of the Linksys nodes, other (to mum-in-laws bedroom/living room) is on a powerline adapter and it just never drops out now.
I think Sky Q (especially Mini's) has always been problematic (via wifi) unless you have Sky Broadband. Wired seems fine regardless, especially if you switch of the wifi signal from the Mini's.
Wired will always be better, this post has made me switch my rewire plan to having CAT6 to more rooms!
I have 1 Sky Q box plus 2 Sky Q mini boxes all running via wi fi from a Sky Broadband router and { am thankful to say I have not experienced any problems.
Getting Cat6 ports in was a great shout by him. All smart TVs/computers etc plugging straight into walls and not impacting on WiFi - makes such a difference.
Realise that’s a massive job but if you are having electrical work done, consider it.
Haven’t been on here properly in a while, but seen this notification and thought I’d reply!
We always recommend getting cat 6 in most, if not all rooms when rewiring or doing any renovation works, it’s amazing how much more reliable and convenient it can be to have hard wired internet ports dotted around the property, especially when there’s so much internet dependant items now days.
"1. Factory reset the BT SH2 and the BT discs using the tiny pin button on the back of each device
2. Turn off Smart Setup on the SH2 in the admin menu (192.168.1.254).
3. Set the 5ghz channel to 48 on the SH2 in the admin menu.
4. Set the 2.4ghz channel to 11 on the SH2 in the admin menu.
5. Leave the SH2 on Mode 1 in the admin menu - do not change it as some have suggested elsewhere.
6. Connect the BT disc to the SH2 with an ethernet cable to let it sync/setup
7. Disconnect the ethernet cable from BT disc to the SH2 once it has a steady blue light, but not the power to the disc
8. Wait for the BT disc to get a steady blue light again and then turn off and unplug the power
9. Place the BT disc in the required location and plug in and power on waiting for it to get a steady blue light again
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9 for each BT disc that you have
11. Turn off all the BT discs
12. Back in the SH2 admin console, turn off 5ghz
13. Connect your Sky Q Main box to the SH2 via settings, network setup, third party internet provider option
14. Do not change anything in the engineers menu on any of the Sky Q boxes as others have suggested ie leave both 2.4ghz and 5ghz on and the channel as 36/80mhz - you do not even need to go into the engineers menu for this solution
15. Factory reset your Sky Booster (if you have one) and reconnect to Sky Q Main box
16. Factory reset your Sky Q mini and reconnect to the Sky Q main box via the settings, network, sky Q connection, reactivate option
17. Repeat step 16 for each Sky Q Mini
18. On the SH2 in the admin console turn 5ghz back on
19. Turn your BT discs back on
This is what I did at the weekend and have not had a single issue since, after weeks of constantly losing internet connection between the SH2 and the Sky Q main box, plus connectivity issues between the Sky Q minis and the Sky Q main box are not happening anymore. I have a Sky Q 2Tb main box, a Sky Booster, 3 Sky Q minis (one connects directly to the Sky Q main box and the other via the Sky Booster to the Sky Q main box), a BT Smarthub 2 and two of the black BT discs. Nothing is hard wired via ethernet and everything is running over wifi/mesh."
I understand these things more than anything else on this thread. A few months back I was using one of these routers, I lost my grip and I caught my thumb on the cutter. For a split second I thought I had removed a considerable amount of thumb but luckily it was just a considerable amount of nail that was machined away.
I understand these things more than anything else on this thread. A few months back I was using one of these routers, I lost my grip and I caught my thumb on the cutter. For a split second I thought I had removed a considerable amount of thumb but luckily it was just a considerable amount of nail that was machined away.
Did the nail end up with a nice bull nose moulding on it?
I tried a few things but sky boxes still dropping out sometimes.
I decided to look for a better broadband deal, since Sky has a decent offer for about half the price of BT I thought I’d go with them and hope that the sky q boxes behaved better on. Sky network.
the good news is so far the coverage in my house which wasn’t brilliant (even with 4 bt booster disks, ring doorbell which is on the gate not the door really struggling) is now good, and that with just the one router.
I’ve had a little bit of drag oddly enough for this site, but that might be bedding in, or some local issues or even external problems. No full fibre bb here sadly.
The only other issue was my 10 or so smart plug devices , I couldn't keep the old wifi ssid (network name as it had an apostrophe) and not sure they like a new router whatever you do, so will need to reset/reconfigure and add them back into Alexa.
Glad switching to sky helped. if still some spots then really worth considering some wired Access Points.
Although my wifi was fine throughout the house there were patches at either end where speeds dropped (from about 75 down to 35), as I'd had run a load of CAT 6 I added an access point at either end the house (one up one down) and the router roughly in the middle (it's L shaped house), I now get my full available speed everywhere, that's with nearly 70 devices attached.
So if possible to run some cables it's worth considering, I even managed to run some myself into the loft for the upstairs AP.
If you are wiring all the sky boxes you can turn off wifi on them (they have a habit of switching back to Wifi even if an ethernet cable is in the back).
I swear there was a sky q minibox firmware update a few weeks back which knocked out all my miniboxes connected by ethernet. Nothing else had changed. Came home from work to find an irate wife not being able to put the kids in front of Netflix while she tried to cook dinner.
As @Rob7Lee says above, no matter how many times I turned off the wifi on the boxes through the secret menu, they still looked for a poxy wifi signal and refused to connect via ethernet. Eventually got them back running but not without going full on tourettes.
I swear there was a sky q minibox firmware update a few weeks back which knocked out all my miniboxes connected by ethernet. Nothing else had changed. Came home from work to find an irate wife not being able to put the kids in front of Netflix while she tried to cook dinner.
As @Rob7Lee says above, no matter how many times I turned off the wifi on the boxes through the secret menu, they still looked for a poxy wifi signal and refused to connect via ethernet. Eventually got them back running but not without going full on tourettes.
They do have this quirk where they will randomly go back to Wifi. The only way is a network reset with ethernet cable plugged in, you then have to immediately disable wifi on the boxes as soon as an ethernet connection is made if you don't doing it quite quickly they seem to jump back to wifi.
Also ignore what the main box says about connection, mines only even been wired since I moved yet it says it's on wifi (it isn't as I can tell by my router the type of connection). Another quirk/known issue.....
Comments
Should help with connection drop outs.
thanks again
my wifi network is 11 and 44 (5g)
my sky q has both 2.4 and 5g enabled, and 80mhz/ch.36
can't find the particular app you mention, various ones on app store but none that look like above
if your not then your Wi-Fi speed will be affected. If you are in a rural area your speed might be low due to distance from telephone exchange if using copper.
Copper is being replaced with full fibre to the house.
if you have low speed and a lot of devices connected to Wi-Fi then you might be getting bandwidth issues (ie but like 3 lane motorway going down to one lane B road)
once you are happy that you have a decent speed to the router then I would look at the Wi-Fi set up. A mesh system is the best that you can have after having a wired Ethernet ports as suggested above.
I do wonder though. The previous owner had Virgin so when Sky sent out BT Openreach they had to run a new cable back to the box 300 meters+ away. Was a talking point with the neighbours as they had half the pavement up for 3 days and it seems I'm getting better speeds than anyone else (aside form those on Virgin fibre).
I have a lot running, VoIP, raspberry PI and Apple Home, Hue Light controllers x 2 (as have about 60 bulbs/lights), Cat flap! 3x computers, plus phones and iPads etc, 3x TV's that seem to be glued to Netflix streaming, security cameras etc, all running really well.
That said the house is being rewired in a few weeks and I'm getting CAT6 run around to a few rooms whilst they are here, mainly to the TV's and my office to try and relieve some of the Wifi and also to stop the Mrs moaning about all the gear in the hall!.
@razil I'd say if you can just get CAT6 wherever you can, thick walls In an old house is a killer. One of my mates had great success with two Ubiquiti UniFi access point units wired and his house is 4,000+ Sq ft. Also if a Mac try the netspot app.
Part of the issue with Sky Q and non sky broadband is they only connect at 2.4 rather than 5. Is the main Sky Q box hard wired or wifi?
free version of netspot only seems to do speed test
I have to say Sky Q works very well with Sky's new router. If you are sticking with Sky Q and Mini's I'd possibly see if swaping to their Broadband helps as well as as much CAT 6 as you can!
We're on BT FTTP (500mb down) and the only way of using the mesh is by using the system in bridge mode, which isnt a problem.
Sky Q never worked for us. We had their engineers out twice and they wanted us to use two of their shitty booster boxes which created another wifi network which was shite and always dropped out and they said there was niothing they could do.
Have posted on here before the solution. Main box in living room is cabled to router, 2 of the 3 miniboxes are linked by ethernet, one piggybacked through one of the Linksys nodes, other (to mum-in-laws bedroom/living room) is on a powerline adapter and it just never drops out now.
Wired will always be better, this post has made me switch my rewire plan to having CAT6 to more rooms!
2.4g smart, 1, 6, or 11
5g 36, 40, 44, 44 or 48
do I need to buy a new router (this is BTs smart hub 2 I think)
36 and 44 for 5GHz.
https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/Sky-Q-connection-issues-with-BT-Broadband/td-p/3548227
and this advice -
"1. Factory reset the BT SH2 and the BT discs using the tiny pin button on the back of each device
2. Turn off Smart Setup on the SH2 in the admin menu (192.168.1.254).
3. Set the 5ghz channel to 48 on the SH2 in the admin menu.
4. Set the 2.4ghz channel to 11 on the SH2 in the admin menu.
5. Leave the SH2 on Mode 1 in the admin menu - do not change it as some have suggested elsewhere.
6. Connect the BT disc to the SH2 with an ethernet cable to let it sync/setup
7. Disconnect the ethernet cable from BT disc to the SH2 once it has a steady blue light, but not the power to the disc
8. Wait for the BT disc to get a steady blue light again and then turn off and unplug the power
9. Place the BT disc in the required location and plug in and power on waiting for it to get a steady blue light again
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9 for each BT disc that you have
11. Turn off all the BT discs
12. Back in the SH2 admin console, turn off 5ghz
13. Connect your Sky Q Main box to the SH2 via settings, network setup, third party internet provider option
14. Do not change anything in the engineers menu on any of the Sky Q boxes as others have suggested ie leave both 2.4ghz and 5ghz on and the channel as 36/80mhz - you do not even need to go into the engineers menu for this solution
15. Factory reset your Sky Booster (if you have one) and reconnect to Sky Q Main box
16. Factory reset your Sky Q mini and reconnect to the Sky Q main box via the settings, network, sky Q connection, reactivate option
17. Repeat step 16 for each Sky Q Mini
18. On the SH2 in the admin console turn 5ghz back on
19. Turn your BT discs back on
This is what I did at the weekend and have not had a single issue since, after weeks of constantly losing internet connection between the SH2 and the Sky Q main box, plus connectivity issues between the Sky Q minis and the Sky Q main box are not happening anymore. I have a Sky Q 2Tb main box, a Sky Booster, 3 Sky Q minis (one connects directly to the Sky Q main box and the other via the Sky Booster to the Sky Q main box), a BT Smarthub 2 and two of the black BT discs. Nothing is hard wired via ethernet and everything is running over wifi/mesh."
A few months back I was using one of these routers, I lost my grip and I caught my thumb on the cutter. For a split second I thought I had removed a considerable amount of thumb but luckily it was just a considerable amount of nail that was machined away.
I tried a few things but sky boxes still dropping out sometimes.
I decided to look for a better broadband deal, since Sky has a decent offer for about half the price of BT I thought I’d go with them and hope that the sky q boxes behaved better on. Sky network.
the good news is so far the coverage in my house which wasn’t brilliant (even with 4 bt booster disks, ring doorbell which is on the gate not the door really struggling) is now good, and that with just the one router.
The only other issue was my 10 or so smart plug devices , I couldn't keep the old wifi ssid (network name as it had an apostrophe) and not sure they like a new router whatever you do, so will need to reset/reconfigure and add them back into Alexa.
Although my wifi was fine throughout the house there were patches at either end where speeds dropped (from about 75 down to 35), as I'd had run a load of CAT 6 I added an access point at either end the house (one up one down) and the router roughly in the middle (it's L shaped house), I now get my full available speed everywhere, that's with nearly 70 devices attached.
So if possible to run some cables it's worth considering, I even managed to run some myself into the loft for the upstairs AP.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08NSM2GBJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
Run on POE so no separate power needed.
If you are wiring all the sky boxes you can turn off wifi on them (they have a habit of switching back to Wifi even if an ethernet cable is in the back).
As @Rob7Lee says above, no matter how many times I turned off the wifi on the boxes through the secret menu, they still looked for a poxy wifi signal and refused to connect via ethernet. Eventually got them back running but not without going full on tourettes.
Also ignore what the main box says about connection, mines only even been wired since I moved yet it says it's on wifi (it isn't as I can tell by my router the type of connection). Another quirk/known issue.....