Whole Home Wi-Fi from BT 4+

Setting up took my just over 3 hours.
The instructions are simple when (!!!) you know what your doing, but if you make one mistake the software can’t handle it. I only solved it by switching it all off and starting again, which when I then knew what I was trying to achieve (ie do initial connection all within 1 meter of each other) was fine and took 15 mins. If they’d explained the high level process in the quick start leaflet, it would have been much easier.
But then getting them to map around the house took ages and many attempts too. They just wanted to stay linked to the base station, but with a long thin house, I needed them to daisy chain wirelessly in a line, so the furthest discs kept saying “weak signal”. After some experimenting and learning where to strategically stand to trick them into a daisy chain, they all have perfect signal strength. They let you see the mesh map in the app, but it’s not manually configurable, which would have made this quicker. Or why there isn’t just a “re-map mesh for best signal strength” button in the app and the software tries all map combos till it finds the best one, I don’t know.
BIG PLUS !! (If you can get through the pain of set-up) I now have full WiFi strength in every room in the house and down to the bottom of the garden, and it’s seamless as you move around, (which is irritating with non-mesh systems needing to re-connect to the same Wi-Fi name)

I have the premium whole home 3 pack. It performs well, it does what it says it will do. My only issue is that one of the discs has to be connected to the smart hub by Ethernet cable, effectively my 3 pack is only a 2 pack. My objective was to have the discs in a string formation in three out buildings to reach the far end of the paddock, I presumed wrongly that the first disc would log onto the smart hub via Wi-Fi, so as to utilise the coverage built into the smart hub, like some other extenders I’ve used before. Hence my 3 star rating, as I have to purchase another disk to complete my expected coverage. I don’t believe this is made clear enough before purchase. In fact it is a good idea to disable the smart hub Wi-Fi while setting up as it can confuse the syncing process, this is mentioned in troubleshooting, however, I found this out after hours of trying, it should be more prominent I believe. Can be tricky after a power cut as they reconnect better one after the other in series. However, performance is good for my use, plenty of streaming in the house, and Wi-Fi calling outside as there is very little mobile signal. Shame about the first disk being a hub.

I had this app already. The original set-up was difficult and annoying, and frankly once you had the App the functionality was limited, however you do need it from time to time and that was the case today when I opened it up, only to discover I had been forgotten and had to start all over again. I thought “it must be improved” but was very soon let down. The UX is atrocious, and as before, you are routinely set-back during the process, with the “Hours of your life you’ll never get back” timer ticking away. Part way through, while (re)adding a 3rd disc I had to move some items to get to the Power Supply and when I returned to the App it took me all the way to the start. So adding my 3rd device sequentially now had to be managed as if I had bought a 3rd and was now adding it. That entailed moving the disc back to the 1st, using the WPS connection, and then moving it back to the original location, only to be told that a site previously rated as “Good” was now “Poor” and rather than allowing me to live with that, forcing me to relocate the disc…part way through that, and I get sent back to the start, with the only plus side that I was asked to rate the App during this whole sorry situation. When the product works, I have found it to be excellent and really has made living (in which wi-fi is now more required than ever) and in a 1960’s house, much, much better. Shame the App makes it so hard to get to….