BT Whole Home Wi-Fi, Pack of 3 Discs, Mesh Wi-Fi
BT Whole Home Wi-Fi, Pack of 3 Discs, Mesh Wi-Fi for seamless, speedy (AC2600) connection, Wi-Fi everywhere in medium to large homes, App for complete control and 3 year warranty
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Dual-band AC1200 | Dual-band AC2600 | Tri-band AX3700 |
| Perfect for | Families or households that want all their devices connected to a strong, fast wi-fi signal in every room. | Busy families or households that want to download and stream films on any device, in any room. Boosts super fast wi-fi to every corner of the home. | Bigger families or households with multiple users streaming content or gaming at the same time. The best solution for maintaining faster, stronger wi-fi in every room. |
| Level of app controls | Medium | High | Full |
| Works with all UK broadband providers? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No. of ports | 1 WAN/LAN Gigabit Ethernet port | 1 WAN/LAN Gigabit Ethernet port | 2 WAN/LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports |
| Weight: | 1.7 kg |
| Dimensions: | 16.5 x 7.7 x 16.5 cm; 1.7 Kilograms |
| Brand: | BT |
| Model: | 88269 |
| Colour: | White |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | BT |
| Dimensions: | 16.5 x 7.7 x 16.5 cm; 1.7 Kilograms |
We have a large house built of granite on 3 floors. With the discs you get excellent seamless connection throughout the house. Would recommend. 120 well spent.
Very good product. No more wifi blackspots in the house. The app is very good too.
Easy to set up, works seamlessly with devices. Dead spot in the house eliminated. Overall very pleased. Not wholly convinced by delivery options and prices, though – to keep cost down I needed to collect from a locker.
Had this for many years now with no complaints. Once you get the disks positioned optimally, it’s solid and even provides a useable signal in the garden.
We are getting fibre to the premises shortly, so I was looking for a possible update. To my surprise, several reviewers still rate this as a best buy product. So I will see how it handles 25x the previous speed! As a bonus, because the BT system stores all the WiFi connections, it will just be a simple case of connecting them to the new router and disabling it’s inbuilt WiFi.
Amazon only offer 2 years guarantee however BT the manufacturer offer 3 years. So when one of mine went wrong just after 2 years Amazon wouldn’t help me.
This BT disc system was very simple to set up, you download the free App and it guides you through step-by-step including helping you choose where to locate the discs. I could not have got it wrong if I tried.
Within minutes, I had Wifi/Internet speeds of >100mps in every room. It is a “mesh” network, so you only need to link your device to once disc and the system automatically connects you to the best signal from different discs as you move through the building.
The discs are sleek and quite discreet. The App seems user-friendly, you can change various settings and apply time limits to devices one-by-one or all together.
It is too early to say if there are any reliability issues but it looks like this will be very good value for money.
Maybe it’s just me but I followed the setup instructions within the BT app given we already have the BT smart hub2 (although this product is compatible with any router). Tried repeatedly to get it to connect and no joy, but that was user error 101.
Whilst this is a BT disk it is not whole home WiFi BT disk – primarily why I bought it as I wanted a product I could use should I move away from BT and thus use another router.
The instructions weren’t clear enough to me that despite being a BT disk it has its own setup, so if you try to use the BTapp and set it up within there it will not work. Safe to say it worked perfectly when I did it the right away and it’s done a brilliant job of making sure we’ve got flawless coverage throughout the house.
One thing to note, the first disk has to be connected vie ethernet cable to the main router so be prepared to have space for that. The others can go wherever you have a power supply, just plug it in and you’re good to go.
Does give you tonnes of controls
But it does give you a nice UI and a few nice features ontop of the mesh network
It takes a while to add all the devices (we have several smart light bulbs/speakers in addition to the usual devices like smart phones, tv, iPad, Nest stat, Nest cams etc).
A BIG PLUS is that if we change internet provider we don’t need to re-add all the devices to the Wi-Fi, as they are stored on the BT mesh thing, so it will just be a case of changing router, disabling it’s built in Wi-Fi and plugging in the first disc to the new router. Bosh.
My best advice (if adding multiple devices) is to add each one individually and change the name of it which BT app identifies it as (e.g, “hallway light” or “front room tv” etc, otherwise your list of devices on the MESH network will look like a load of numbers and you’ll not know which one you want to control/switch off etc.
The guest network is a winner too, as we can now only make sure guests use that rather than being able to join our main network and be able to control some of the smart devices if they downloaded the app (a friend tried to play a prank with our SONOS speakers on the old network).
I upgraded to this Wi-Fi mesh. I had doubts, but this has been a game changing upgrade. I require solid 5Ghz network between my PC and VR headset and this delivers, as well as stretching a decent 2.4Ghz to my garage. Simple to setup, and despite the lack of ability to dig into customising every aspect of the mesh, I’ve found everything just works.
The reviews steered me here and the Amazon sale helped clinch the deal. Pricey, but less than the powerline adapters I previously had which delivered one third the connection speed and frequently de-synched.
Well done BT.
I’ve been in IT since wireless was an impossible dream! I’ve used wireless products from lots of vendors, enterprise mesh systems and basic access points and repeaters. But do not consider anything but a mesh system nowadays. I chose this one as based on 2 basic factors – price and ACxxxx rating. It was 149 for 3. AC2600 at that price is tricky to find.
Performance is superb frankly, and in my 4 bed, 3 story house, I have only deployed 2 disks – 1 in the lounge (ground floor) at the router, and 1 on the landing on the 1st/middle floor. This gives solid signals in every room in the house. Even extending a fair way into the garden compared to the BT home hub router. The software is really simple for anybody, but it can be a bit flaky to be fair. Already after 2 days use I’ve seen it say I have a problem, or one disc is offline, but then it sorts itself out. It does everything it’s supposed to do really well. Do not expect content filtering and app controls – you can easily pause internet and set schedules for each device but you won’t be able to monitor usage, bandwidth, real time activity or stop certain applications or websites. But it’s not marketed to do that. Just be aware that their is a premium product in the range too, and other solutions offer these sort of controls in as standard. But at this price it’s nailed my coverage problem.
Overall a slightly harsh 4 stars, think of this as a 4.5 star review!
I work in IT, so I was dubious about moving away from Business/Enterprise solutions – although my wife would never have allowed me to spend over 400 on a mesh network so I didn’t have much choice. I live in a Victorian town house over 3 floors with lots of solid brick walls etc so my standard Wi-Fi wasn’t cutting it. After comparing all the offerings, I decided to take a punt on these and not the premium version. And am I glad I did.
Setup was easy through the app, although you can log in to the discs via a GUI if you want a few more options. All my devices connected, indeed the signal is so strong some devices are connecting with a full signal to discs that are further away. It did need a firmware update which I did before connecting any devices, so I don’t know if there were any issues prior to that. I’m using a BT Home Hub 2 and the Extender Disc (now retired) and it’s really given the Wi-Fi a new lease of life. My PC is connected to a LAN port at 1Gbps and I’m getting my full internet bandwidth to all devices, wired or wireless on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. The signal is full throughout the entire house, and most of the garden too.
I’ve no doubt you can get something better feature wise if you’re willing to spend more, but actually these work very well if all you need is a strong, stable and fast Wi-Fi network.
3-storey house with extensions and RSJs abound, thus lucky to get 60% of speed into house over WiFi. Techy and sick of researching reviews for power line adaptors and replacement routers, and a review brought me to the BT mesh disc solution.
Am techy, but could have been installed by an 8yr old so credit to BT.
Setup in less than 10minutes.
Results/need to know
* Getting virtually the quoted speed over WIFI now, with some devices going from 45mb to nearer the quoted 100mb down.
* With my original BT Superhub sitting in kitchen I got 45mb (service is 100mb) so I switched off the WiFi on the BT router (so it just feeds the internet to the discs) and in the same spot the same device got 96MB – difference is entirely clear.
* Placed all 3 hubs on ground floor owing to extensions/steel, reception exactly the same with speeds no different on middle floor. Tested in loft and genuinely shocked to see 91mb down instead of a poor signal and barely 5mb/sec
* This is mesh technology not an access-point or JUST a new router, this literally floods the house with quality WiFi – every single device I have that can use 5GHz is connected to 5GHZ – never had that before.
* Can now stream 4K uninterrupted in the garden
* Each disc has a handy RJ45 if you want to hardwire something (console / TV box / laptop or PC) if wanted
Just buy this – would be worth double the price I paid
I’ve been battling WIFI problems since the COVID-19 lock down began. I first thought is was the broadband into the house, but after some discussions with BT and a remote diagnostic, the problem was traced to the number of Wi-Fi devices I have on the network and the router struggling with prioritising traffic and a dead spot in a remote part of the house (it’s not that big, but far enough to case a drop in signal)
The discs were easy to install, following the instructions on the app which help you place the discs across the house to get the best coverage. It took about 10 minutes to set up. You can turn off the home hub (or whatever router you connect to) but I chose to keep both allowing me to spread the load of the various iPhone, iPads, smart TVs and lightbulbs across the various access points to the networks. You don’t even need to change the SSID and Password for the hub or discs. Use done on the back and any device connects to the network and has full access.
I now have a fairly even spread of devices connected to the hub and any one of the three discs across the house dependent upon their proximity to the access point. I have full WIFI signal across the whole house on every device. If you walk between rooms, any devise you take with you seamlessly transfers to the access point with the strongest signal.
What’s even better, is that the multiple discs appear to have also boosted the signal into the far reaches of the house and the garden. It’s a little expensive but there are deals to be had and it’s made a massive difference to the network speed. No drop outs, it’s super stable.
I’m glad I went for these devices. Having a web interface as well as an app it important to me as apps tend to have a lifespan, and you could end up with devices that cannot be managed. Also, having to register with some unknown company to be able to use a device worries me. Suffice to say, none of those worries applies to these units.
The BT devices were simple to set up, and I was up and running within 30 mins. I now have very good consistent speeds throughout the house, compared to what I originally had.
For a common 80/20 broadband connection these units fit the bill perfectly. I get a solid 60-75 Mbps in all rooms but the dining room where it is about 25 Mbps Previously, connection speeds were variable throughout the house.
Worthy note is that the Gigabit ethernet port on the rear of each unit can be used either as a backbone or as a wired connection to a device. Nice. If you move the units around the house they re-organise themselves. Nice. The LEDs can be dimmed or turned off. Nice. Lots of control through the web interface. Nice. They look like they can be wall mounted. Nice. I have yet to find anything that I don’t like. Early days, I guess.
I was tempted with the mini version of these units, as I could get 4 of them for less than these three, but I was put off by some reviews. I would have liked to try them. Maybe I should have tried them first…
To summarise, I was worried that mesh WiFi was all just hype, and that I was spending another huge sum on more kit that would prove disappointing. I have been pleasantly surprised.
I went for the 3 disc pack. It was easy to setup, and I have left my router wi-fi on as I have my main workstation ethernet wired as it is in the same room. I have connected up 3 TV’s (one 4k) 4 other PC’s, 3 phones, 3 Firesticks, Smart Blu-Ray player, Now TV box, Panasonic home security with 4 cameras, Hive controlling the heating and a couple of lights, a PlayStation, and the printer. We have stress tested the system by using the lot at the same time, and so far everything has excellent connections with no dropout. The house is 2 floor 4 bedroom, and we do have Fibre + with BT, with a Smart Hub 2. The first disk connected to BT router is in the hallway (had to use a longer ethernet cable, although the one supplied is a good length) the second disk is just inside the conservatory which is open to the lounge, and the third is on the upstairs landing. There are no ethernet connections to disks 2 and 3, so everything is through the wi-fi.
The only mystery is why the Lounge disk is picking up 8 of the devices, when the kitchen tv and firestick is closer to the hallway disk. Don’t know if it is possible to re-assign devices to spread the load as it were. Also, on the app device list, it is showing two other devices which I have still to find! I have renamed the devices for easier tracking.
And, BT should really have made it possible to wall mount.
So far so good, certainly seems to be doing the job, and I can now ditch the 3 old extenders I was using, which were never that reliable.
Conclusion: Easy setup, good coverage (for my house) would recommend.
I have to confess my instillation is not like most as I have a LAN cable which serves as a backbone. My house is across 3 floors with thick walls and we have a history of struggling to get our wifi signal round the building. It doesn’t help that the Fibre to the premises, and hence the smart hub, comes in next to a thick chimney breast so a double layer of bricks shields much of the property from the hub. However I do have the advantage of a LAN to the top floor where I have a study. Rather than start at the hub (like the instructions say) my first disk went to the study and it set up fine using the BT home wifi app even though it was going through two different 5 port gigabit network switches to get to the hub in the lounge. My second disc in main bedroom connected by wifi to disc 1. This serves primarily the bedroom and kitchen extension below, but also throws a strong 2.5GHZ signal down the length of my garden (30ft). Initially the app told me the received signal at the bedroom disc from the study was only “good” and I should move the disc closer – popping it on top of the wardrobe improved its signal to “very good” and my LG smart tv certainly has no streaming issues. The third disc location was a conundrum, I thought about the dining room where there is a network switch but the signal was then not strong in the lounge where I spend more time, so direct into the hub it was plugged “Excellent”. So I have 2 on LAN cables and only one has a wifi connection (in between Disc 1 & 2). the My BT App now throughout the house shows my data as 76MB to hub and also 76MB hub to phone – am about to upgrade my Fibre to the Premises above 76 so will be interesting to see what happens to my in-home speed.
Problems: Getting my sky Q and 2x mini Q to work on this new network proved problematic possibly due to interference between the mesh networks and this is where I dropped a star – though truthfully I suspect the poor sky boxes software rather than the network. My final solution after 2 hours was Sky Q connected via a cable to Hub. Mini Q 1 connected by LAN cable to Disc 2 (using it as a wireless access point), and Mini Q 2 with a sky wifi link to mini Q 1. This means the data of a telly programme streamed on Mini Q 2 comes from the Sky Q via LAN to a BT Smart Hub 2, LAN to Gigabit switch 1, LAN to Gigabit Switch 2, LAN to Disc 1, BT Wifi to Disc 2, LAN to Mini Q 1, sky wifi to Mini Q 2 – It manages this without any buffering. Ideally I would add a 4th disc in the dining room but I do have a signal in there so I will save myself the expense.
We’ve had these setup for a day now and so far its been a mixed bag but with some positive results especially in getting Wi-Fi in our cottage close to the house. The setup process was more challenging than I assumed. On the first two attempts the BT disc connected to the router, failed to connect to the internet however, after rebooting the router and removing an existing Devolo setup things were ready to go! What I discovered when setting up the additional decks was firstly that there range is both impressive and not at all at the same time, it really dpendes on where they are but in my setup it mainly comes down to luck in terms of getting good reception on all the discs. In particular I found one disc very difficult to pinpoint which was surprising since it was located one floor above another point. The app is a tad shabby truth be told with several glitches and I found myself rebooting the app around 10 times in just the first day ! That said it’s really simple and intuitive to use it’s just disputing that it has the these glitches and in setup it makes the process far more drawn out than it needs to be. In terms of internet we now have a great connection throughout the house so in the end the hard work was worth it! Whilst the setup was challenging and the app fails to impress overall these provide a comprehensive system at an attractive price point.
I had a couple of reasons for looking for something like the Whole Home system. Firstly to replace the flaky supplied router from our broadband provider and secondly to finally get a decent connection extended into our cabin in the garden which is now my office during lockdown.
We’ve tried other range extenders in the past with pretty poor results and have just lived with a 3-4Mbps connection in the garden and cabin. Working from home everyday has made that less than ideal so based on a recommendation from a colleague I thought we’d give these a try.
The entire experience has been a breeze. We have one disc connected to the original router via the supplied Ethernet cable, one in the Kitchen which covers the other side of the house and out into the garden and one in the cabin completing the set-up. The connection throughout is now as if you were standing next to the router. It’s really very good.
Set-up took less than 20 minutes from opening the box, the “locate disc” feature in the app was not very helpful as it insisted that the location I was choosing was “poor” but the disc connected in that location with an “Excellent” connection and works perfectly. This happened with both stand-alone discs so I just ignored it.
Once the discs were up and running I disabled the WiFi on the router to leave just the Whole Home network. This did mean that I had to go round and reconnect every device to the new network but I took the opportunity to rename every device as it connected so we know exactly what’s on the network.
The guest network feature is really simple to set up and we’re using it for work laptops for the time being.
I’m hugely impressed by the product and how easy they’ve made the set up. The app for the system is also excellent, allowing you to see exactly what’s on the network and on which disc it’s on. You can also disconnect single or groups of devices from the network at bedtime etc. We haven’t used this yet but the time will come 🙂
I haven’t found any issues at all with the system so far. Great stuff!
The hardware feels strong and robust and is easy to install physically.
The fact that the back stand is not removable is frustrating. I sawed the legs off onedisc to mount it flush against a wooden panel with success. This unit would be ideal for roof installations if they had made the stand removable and added more attachment options.
My issue is that I have an outbuilding 20 metres away from the rear of house that requires network whilst network was originally transmitting from front of house and powerline switches have been unreliable. However this system has resolved that by having one unit at tue router on the front of the house, a 2nd disc by the back door with clear vision through a window to a 3rd unit in the outbuilding window within line of sight.
After one month I’ve had no losses of connection across all 3 doscs and considerable improvement in reliable network speed in the outbuilding that has a PC, TV, smart switches and an alexa running on the network together. Added a few pics to show modification and perspective of distance between discs.
Like others Software install using the phone app was frustrating. Turn off your existing wifi for a better experience, don’t follow the next option to add a new disc, do it from the menu as add a new disc.
Once installed, I renamed my mesh wifi to my existing wifi name with same password and everything reconnected seamlessly.
Works on both 2.4 a d 5ghz frequency. Smart plugs work on 2.4 ghz work fine.
I work in IT and have tried multiple solutions from putting my router in modem mode and using a Cisco 1U router and multiple wireless access points to using a single nighthawk. I am using the dreaded super hub 3 with virgin that has earnt its bad reputation. Mainly for me when suddenly out of no where devices couldn’t stay connected, could see them on the DHCP scope and able to ping but amazon echo devices and ring doorbell would not respond on the network. Since having this mesh network setup I have had ZERO issues, maybe once or twice the Wi-Fi has gone slow when it’s switching disc or Wi-Fi band but genuinely it’s nothing to be of concern purely because I have came across enterprise grade Wi-Fi networks that are either worse or on par with this setup and for the price it’s really a bargain. I would 100% recommend at least you try this out. I have one in my office at the front of the house (plasterboard wall) then one at the opposite end of the house in a conservatory and one in our annex at the end of the garden and I can get 112mb (megabits not bytes) download speed at the end of the garden by the annex or in neighbours gardens. Our internet speed is 100mb however credit to virgin for some reason we seem to be getting around 120 and haven’t yet (touch wood) had an outage. The only issues I had was the SH3 randomly selecting devices and not allowing them to communicate on the network. Huge credit to BT on this and especially not tying it down to their own equipment is fantastic. One comment to note in an 1950’s built house we could potentially do with one upstairs at the opposite end of the house to the master (in the office) but I still haven’t bothered so can’t be that bad !!!
I bought these to replace a rather convoluted network based around wireless and powerline adapters, the latter proving to be increasingly unreliable.
We are fairly heavy users of wifi. As well as the usual HD video and audio streaming in the house, I have half a dozen wireless webcams around the garden for both security and wildlife, and a weather station which is constantly chattering to the Met Office and other weather sites. Chuck in a couple of laptops and a handful of tablets, iStuff, Alexa devices and phones and you have more or less the complete picture.
Setup was very straightforward, although it’s good to have a rough idea in your mind of where you would like to place them to avoid the signal going through walls at oblique angles etc. Once the disks have been set up, they replace the router’s own wifi, which can then be turned off. If you then rename and set the password of your new network the same as the old, all your devices will transfer to the new network, without having to set them up individually (no fun with 37 devices).
In a 4 bedroom brick built house, I have one disk covering the front, one covering the back, and one in the summer house, which covers a 120ft garden.
Performance has far exceeded expectations.
Most noticeable has been a drastic increase in framerate from the cameras, allowing them to be used to full potential (and also causing the operating temperature of the host PC to increase by about 15C to cope with the extra data).
Dropouts, once maybe several times an hour, are a thing of the past, and I’ve yet to get anywhere near the capacity of the network.
Overall, the network is noticeably more responsive and crisp.
For me, these tick all the boxes in transmitting data quickly, easily and reliably, at a price which doesn’t break the bank.
Anyone want to buy some powerline adapters?
Absolutely brilliant!! Following a disastrous run of experiences with the Virgin Hub 3 and associated “boosters” and having come very close to cancelling the Virgin Media contract altogether, procuring this system has been a revelation. The Hub 3 Wi-Fi range could only be described as pathetic, while the plug-in boosters simply screwed up any attempt to create a network. Having wasted hours, if not days resetting, rebooting, reinstalling and waiting for ages on the helpline (which was equally awful), a “techie” friend recommended looking at the BT Mesh System.
Ordered from Amazon it arrived quickly and efficiently, within 24 hours. The system was beautifully packaged and the clear instructions very simple to follow. It is necessary to download the recommended “BT Hole-Home” app with which to manage set up. It is difficult to understand why there were so many negative reviews associated with the App, because, by following the instructions to the absolute letter, the entire installation of 3 discs took less than 20 minutes. A particularly clever aspect was the ability to check the signal in each part of the house, thus receiving advice on the best positions to locate each disc. Also clever, is the change of colour tone according to signal strength.
It has to be said that the Virgin Media fibre cable offering has been up to expectation – very fast! Unfortunately, however, it has been the Hub 3 and associated peripheral equipment performance which was so disappointingly poor. The result from adding the BT Mesh system has been startling. Whereas before installation, the Wi-Fi range was dismal, we can now reach the garden decking and achieve speeds in excess of 150 Mbps (prior to installation no signal from the Hub 3 could be achieved even with boosters). We selected the 3 disc system in preference to 2 discs, which given the size of our house (small 4 bedroomed “box”), might have been overkill. The signal now available throughout the whole house is, however, now excellent, so, despite the extra cost, the 3 disc system is recommended.
In summary, having dithered about cost, procurement and installation for some weeks the decision to ‘go for it’ appears to have been more than vindicated. Strongly recommended for those in a similar situation. Virgin Media should hang their heads in shame.
We live in an average sized two-storey house and always had trouble with our Wi-Fi signal. Despite everything that Ryan Reynolds said about BT Infinity in their TV adverts, we could barely get a signal in our bedroom and the smart TV in our lounge frequently lost connection despite it being only one room away from the hub itself.
We tried various repeaters in our efforts to boost the signal but they never seemed reliable and most ceased to work at all within a few weeks if not days.
The most important thing to say about ‘BT Whole Home Wi-Fi’ is that IT DOES WORK. We bought a set of four discs and have two downstairs (one attached to the BT Infinity hub and one in the lounge with the smart TV) and two upstairs. We now get a great signal throughout the house with no gaps at all. When I’m sat in the car on my drive I still get a full signal!
The system was very easy to set-up and the app that controls the whole thing is easy and logical to use. The app tells you how strong the signal from each disc is and you can do various other things to personalise everything.
On the whole I’m really pleased that we now have reliable Wi-Fi throughout the house.
Any negatives? Well, very occasionally an individual disc will lose its signal. You can see this on the app because the disc in question turns red. Switching the offending disc on and off always seems to sort the issue though. I must admit that I do also feel that BT should supply their ‘Whole Home Wi-Fi’ system to customers free of charge. If their flagship hub struggles in a typically sized house they really should be providing whatever is required to ensure a full signal throughout. An additional 250 is a lot of money to have to pay to sort a problem which really shouldn’t exist in the first place!
Having got the WholeHome system up and running, I’m delighted with it, and it’s a massive improvement over the old WiFi system which was not a bad one. WholeHome is working very quickly and reliably, and my devices switch their connections from one disk to another seamlessly as I move around the property. Whilst it took a bit of trial and error to place the disks in the optimum locations, it has now completely eliminated the previous dead spots that always annoyed me with the old system. And the WiFi signal is equally fast and reliable in all parts of the property now.
Setting it up was pretty straightforward and quick. I’m reasonably tech literate but you don’t need to be. The app guides you in deciding where to place each disk to maximise coverage and connection quality. This was actually very helpful – I finished up placing disks in locations that I wouldn’t have thought of, but the end result is great coverage everywhere. The disks really do work together to create an effective and comprehensive single network. It’s a clever system.
I needed to speak to BT Technical Support at one stage – not because of an issue with the WholeHome system itself but to work out how to connect a separate internet access point to cover another part of the property in a way that wouldn’t mess up the WholeHome system. They were very knowledgeable and helpful and solved the problem quickly once I was able to get through to the right person. So technical support was good when needed, though it isn’t needed for a normal installation.
And managing the system once it’s installed using the app is easy and powerful. It’s a good app and very intuitive, and it lets me do everything I want to to manage the system in the way I want.
My only annoyance (and the reason for four stars rather than five) is that getting the app to work on my iPhone proved impossible. And you cant install the system without the app. Googling the problem it seems that I wasn’t alone in finding this. Even today, the app on my iPhone tells me that the WholeHome system isn’t connected and so my iPhone version of the app is entirely useless. If you have this problem too, the solution for me was to run the app on an Ipad, where it worked perfectly first time. No idea why this should be the case, and incredibly annoying and frustrating before I found the solution. It all works well now on my iPad though, so I’ve got what I needed in the end. But this isn’t a problem that should happen. BT please take note.
Overall I’m delighted with the system now it’s up and running and would recommend it highly. Just make sure you have an iPad and not an iPhone when you’re installing it.
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.
Note – this system does require a separate modem-router, unlike some others like Google Wifi. Setting up was fairly straightforward using the BT Whole Home app. In the box are three discs, one LAN cable to connect the first disc to the router, and three power cables. All the cables are decent length to give some flexibility to siting the discs. The first disc installed close to the router and the second where I thought it best for our needs. The BT Whole Home app (on Android for me) said signal at this site OK but not excellent, but the system has been stable for a month thus far. We haven’t yet had to install the third disc.
After installing I switched off the wifi from HomeHub5 and renamed the Whole Home Wifi to exactly the same log-in and password as the HomeHub. I thought this would be quicker than reconnecting every device to the new, default log-in and password of the Whole Home Wifi. It wasn’t as convenient as I thought – all static devices (wifi printers, tvs, sky box, radio) needed to have the log-in and password entered afresh to make a working connection even though I had changed the Whole Home Wifi to the old log-in settings. Time saved was marginal!
The Whole Home Wifi app is OK. It kept showing alerts to update Whole Home Wifi software even though I had set it to update automatically. I clicked on manual update, it said my system was up to date and stopped nagging me.
A month on, our wfi and connections are much more stable with only occasional blip (much less than before) sorted by either restarting the responsible disc or re-entering log-in credentials. Bit pricey, but competitive compared to most other big name mesh systems. I hope the system will cope with further wifi equipment as we purchase them, and remain reliable.
I struggled at first and then moved the first disk away from the router (using a 5 metre ethernet cable) so it was more central in the room. This improved the signal to the second disk which I placed where my old WiFi extender was. Signal from the first disk was rated as excellent, but the second (4 metres and two brick walls away) was only good. However, the second one was able to transmit a signal that was good enough to watch streaming HD video throughout the house and down to the end of the garden (another 20′ parst the end of the house).
So it works. It’s not quite the wonderful solution they say as it took some messing with and I child only get an “excellent” on the second disk if I moved it to within line of sight of the first which seemed pointless and the second could not serve the rest of the house after that. They also run a bit warm.
I’ve turned off the WiFi on my router and just use these now. I changed their WiFi name and password to match the one the router had so my existing devices need not be changed. This also got rid of the three Wi-Fi names i had with my old setup.
My hp printer struggled to connect at first after this (some don’t like multiple devices with the same WiFi name) and i needed to download the latest drivers to fix it.
Is nice knowing i could add another disk if needed to this system, though it’s reaching every where now and it’s simple to use and maintain. I like the extras like being able to group devices and pause their WiFi use at at times (so kids devices) and being able to clearly see who is connected and with what at anytime.
You can use this as a pure Mesh system with the central disc connected to your router to serve WiFi, the other discs can then piggy back off the WIFI signal to “boost out” the signal to cover more square footage. Setup is relatively easy and as I had a quite a few devices rather than use the default SSID from the mesh system, I mimicked my old SSID and password and turned off WiFi on the BT router.
However I decided to go the whole hog and have each disc connected directly or indirectly to the router via Ethernet cable. One disc I have connected directly to router, the other two I have indirectly connected via Ethernet Over Mains adaptors (TP-Link) so in effect each disc is physically connected to the router. I now have high speed WiFi coverage across the entire house. Works a charm with the 4K netflix stream in the far corner of the house!
The control app is relatively easy to use and you can set some basic child controls which effectively just stops internet connectivity to selected devices during scheduled times. It won’t, however, stop the child using the device for something that is stored locally!
As a summary it works well, not too obtrusive and means I have full wifi coverage so no complaints!
I did quite a bit of research about Whole home wifi network products and the best two were TP Link and BT. I plumbed for BT (as it was cheaper and had great reviews by Which). You will not be disappointed. Just download the app to your phone and follow the instructions on the app and within 10 minutes I had a fully functioning whole home wifi network.
I have a Sky router with a TP link Extender in the middle of the bungalow. My PC is in my office in the middle of the bungalow, just by the extender and it kept losing signal and would drop out. I also have an Amazon fire stick in my TV and it kept losing the network connection and so I couldn’t watch anything.
Those days are over! What a transformation. I placed the 3 discs, one in my kitchen, and the others in my office and living room and what a massive change. Very strong Wifi signal throughout the home. I even managed to connect my TP Link extender to the system, just to give it a boost!
I watched a movie via the firestick last night for the first time in ages and not a hint of dropping out. I have connected my printer to the wifi and I printed off a document from my laptop (in the conservatory) to the printer in the office, which is four rooms away, bingo!!! Never been able to do that!
The app is excellent, as you can manage each disc and see what devices are connected. You can control all devices’ internet access from the app and even set up a guest wifi, so they can’t access your network.
The discs are quite funky and look like mini satellite dishes, just a little larger than a CD.
I have never posted a review before but felt compelled to do so with this product. I have done so much research about this and spent ages agonising about which one i should go for (as not a cheap option) and I was not disappointed. I am over-the-moon. I have wifi everywhere and my firestick works!
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.
Very easy to set up. Download the App, Connect the first disk by wire (supplied) to your router and follow the instructions. You’re then prompted to add another disk which clones the wireless info from the first. You can move the disk around until you find a “sweet spot”, somewhere far enough away from the first to bounce the signal on without being too close and overlapping it. You can name each disk as you go – Living Room, Bedroom etc. making it easy to manage later on.
You can choose to either disable the Wi-Fi on your router and just use this or leave both running. I’ve not had any interference so left both. Then just connect your wireless devices to the new Wi-Fi.
Back to the device that has the App, open it up and you can manage each disk separately. You can set groups (for kids devices etc.) and then set times for them to be allowed to connect. A guest Wi-Fi can be setup too so that there’s no chance that your connected devices can be seen.
I have a 5 bed house on two levels which is wider than it is long. BT recommend three disks for this but knowing I could always add more (with the best value at the time of order) I ordered the two disk pack and it has given me 100% coverage. Other brands give the option of faster speeds but at double the price I wouldn’t say it was worth it at this point and by all accounts are nowhere near as easy to set up. I was all set up in under 15mins inc. un-boxing. At the time of writing, if you’re considering more than two disks I would suggest by them in pairs as this offers the best price.
My first disk is necessarily positioned near the hub, linked by ethernet cable, and my other two disks are positioned in the top centre and top left of the house. Positioning was constrained by the availability of suitable power sockets, so the optimum spacing could not be achieved, but I got as close as I reasonably could. Set up was straightforward, and the iphone app works OK.
Since setup, the wifi connection has been pretty strong and pretty stable. The disk near the hub is consistently blue (strong signal), as you would expect, and the other disks are mostly blue and sometimes amber (moderate signal). So it is definitely effective. For functionality alone, I’d rate this as 5 stars. However factoring in cost, I’d rate it an overall 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars. The cost in Oct.2017 was 200, current Amazon cost 170. One thing that I found slightly annoying was that the first disk must be connected to the router via ethernet cable, which for most people means that you are only really getting 2 disks (not 3) in the remainder of the house, which is where they are are needed. So in reality I considered that I paid 100 for each extended unit, which is quite expensive considering that a reasonable hub/router itself costs about 100.
More recent firmware versions have fixed my problems. Very happy with the set of three discs. Changed to 5 stars.
Updated Aug 2018
Was previously 5 stars, now 1 star.
Came back from holiday a month ago to find that the discs had updated themselves to the latest firmware, which is rubbish.
If I try renaming devices to be more identifiable it renames the wrong one.
Restricted/schedule internet access is unreliable. Thought I had a problem with our Canon printer with it intermittently not being recognised on the network. Turned out to be the time schedule for the kids internet disabling it in the evening even though it wasn’t in the restricted group.
Coverage and handover between discs is still good though 🙂
Updated 14 Dec 2017
I had high hopes for this BT setup in solving WiFi dropouts as the kids moved between rooms with their iPods. Its not that large a house but it has had an extension, which involves foil backed plasterboard and insulating foam.Several weeks on and the connections are still rock solid and much better than the mix of range extender/access points we had. Coverage is good, handover between discs is seamless. I have two networked with ethernet and the third using wifi for the mesh.
Updated with the latest firmware released a few days ago. What a difference. Intel Centrino Wifi problem fixed – laptops now connect at 5GHz. It adds guest network capability and also timed access for devices and groups – good for controlling the kids internet access.
Previous comments from November – NOW FIXED 🙂
Main problem so far is any laptops with a Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 WiFi chipset don’t connect UNTIL you force it to prefer 2.4G over the 5G in the advanced WiFi driver properties. Googling for the issue finds others with the same problem, recently introduced with the latest firmware upgrade. Also affects a HP 840 G3 laptop with a newer WiFi chipset.
Apart from that the Web management interface and the App are lacking in features, at least compared to those in Fibre/WiFi Routers.
All that said hopefully BT fix the Intel Wifi incompatibility soon and enhance the web management interface at which point it should be excellent, so I will be carrying on.
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!
The system has been running for a good 3 months now with no issues. One thing to note is that the disks kept dropping off my old iPhone 4 and seemed to be locking up after every night. Following some googling I changed the wifi channels to 1 & 36 and enabled compatibility mode using the web link (just type in the IP address of your master disk to a web browser). That solved the stability problem and they have been rock solid ever since.
Also last week I added another 3 disks for a total of 6 to extend the range even further and provide higher speeds to my devices. It works well, however you will need to manage the disks using the web app instead of the iPhone app. Setting up the extra disks was painless. Just plug in the new disk on the router and turn it on. Wait for a solid blue light and you’re done. Then unplug and relocate to its final location. I now have full wifi 5ghz coverage in all my holiday home floors!
I am dropping a star to 4 due to the compatibility mode and channel setting changes being necessary to achieve a stable system in my case.
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I’ve been struggling to get decent wifi signal across my 4 story holiday home in Athens for years. For context the house is built with steel reinforced concrete slabs, pillars and brick walls. Definitely a challenging environment for any wifi installation. I’ve played around with repeaters and power lines but they have been unreliable. WiFi was dropping when roaming from one access point to another, poor coverage and overall slow speeds. I’ve taken a punt with this BT Whole Home wifi as I was not sure whether it would have the range to fill the whole house and garden. After installing the three access points across three out of the four stories in the house I’ve been greeted with a solid wifi connection across the whole house. I wasn’t expecting full 1300mbps speeds as three access points are on the low side for the size of the house. The connection has been solid across the house with the access points being able to max out my ADSL connection from any point in the building and garden. Excellent results and seamless roaming between the access points.
Once the single AP’s become available I might go ahead and buy a couple more to make the signal even stronger in the far ends of the house.