Replacing Q mesh for TV and wifi

[ceejaysix]

Hi all,

Have Sky Q, with SR203 router, main Q box, 4 miniboxes and an SE210 extender.

Used to work fine, then had house extended, now only reliable for one minibox.

TV works okay maybe 70% of the time but is somewhere between slight stuttering and unwatchable the other 30%, particularly when either using two outlying miniboxes simultaneously (I'm guessing main box in lounge at front of house connects to router in hall in middle of house, connects to booster in kitchen to rear of house, connects to minibox in kitchen in rear of house, in turn feeds both the movie room and the master bedroom miniboxes which can both struggle), or in bad weather (assume atmospheric conditions can affect signal - sometimes none of the miniboxes are watchable).

Wifi connectivity is fine (you can always connect to the network with good strength) but network speed is variable, occasionally unworkable for Teams etc, I'm guessing because the connection is also reliant on the mesh between the various Sky bits of kit - so you can connect to the nearest minibox access point fine, but that minibox isn't getting sufficient connectivity with the route to give solid internet access speeds.

At max devices on the Sky mesh, so Sky can't / won't do anything more to fix.

I'm thinking the way forward is to replace the mesh network altogether with a system that supports more nodes (right term??!!) than Sky's six to improve connectivity. No chance of hardwiring. Turn off wifi on all the boxes and ethernet each minibox / main box to the new mesh access points.

Questions:

1. Is the above sensible and will it improve things?

2. Do I need to replace the router as well or is it compatible with mesh access points (not sure if that's the right term) from another manufacturer?

3. What is the gold standard devices for a replacement mesh network (both router, if applicable, and access points / repeaters / extenders / whatever they're called)?

Assuming a similar range to the Sky kit, I reckon I'll need seven or eight mesh access points (one for the main Q box, one for each of 4 miniboxes, one to replace the current booster, and two (or maybe even three) more to boost signal in between the problematic miniboxes.

Thoughts / comments / pointers welcome - thanks!

[JimM1]

@ceejaysix The first question is what sky package do you have, and your max/min speed quoted.

With it working previously wonder why it has got so bad so quickly, perhaps foil lined pasterboard blocking signal etc. Layout is always an issue as you are mostly wireless connected at present.

Need somemore info from you.  

[Chrisee]

@ceejaysix one approach to try assuming you want to keep the Q tv boxes is to use a set of powerline adapters to improve the backhaul,connection between a didtant Q box and the hub which should both improve TV performance and the wifi. These adapters come in kits with 2 or more adapters one of which is plugged into a wall socket near the hub and linked by the short ethernet cable to the hub the second is similarly connected to a Sky Q box furthest from the hub. These units use the. properties mains wiring to send data improving the connection. 

When I had Q I used this approach as two of my Q minis struggled to maintain connection to the hub which was on a different floor. Linking one Q mini by a set of Devolo powerline adapters meant both Q minis operated well while significantly improving their wifi 

While you can buy a third party whole home wifi package you will find your Q mini boxes cannot connect to its wifi so you nedd to juggle two separate wifi networks to avoid interference issues or hard wire the Q boxes.

[jamesn123]

@ceejaysix 

The main problem you have is that you have the router + 6 nodes which is more than the recommend amount for Sky Q. Even if you decide to replace this with a 3rd party mesh system you may still find the Q boxes have connectivity issues because they still want to create their own link with the nearest Sky node. 

With the size of your setup you ideally need at least 1 ethernet connected node with that ideally being the main Sky Q box. 

[ceejaysix]

Thanks @JimM1 - Superfast, MySky app reports 75.1mbs to hub, if I stand near the hub on Wi-Fi my device normally gets 35-60mbs.

[ceejaysix]

Thanks @Chrisee  - I've tried Powerline, if I just one run one (from router to any minibox on the same power ring) it 'usually' becomes more stable for that one box, but doesn't improve the others. Having tested speed by connecting laptop directly to the Powerline instead of the minibox, I only get 12-15mbs across the Powerline. If I try more than one Powerline link it all falls over.

[ceejaysix]

Thanks @jamesn123 - the Sky engineer didn't mention this, only that (when he added the extended) that were now at max nodes.

Can you not disable the Q mesh altogether, use a more capable mesh with more nodes from another manufacturer, then Ethernet each minibox to a different node on the new mesh? Or is that only for wifi, and TV is only capable of being pushed across the background Q mesh?

I could Powerline / Ethernet the main box and hub, not sure I've tried that, but as above my Powerline speeds aren't great. Maybe worth a shot tho.

[Chrisee]

@ceejaysix you can buy kits at a variety of prices the more expensive ones use all 3 conductors rather than just two and while they dont reach their rated output you can expect at least 30% so 500Mb/s is achievable. If you buy online they can be sent back if they dont work in your home but always plug the adapters into wall sockets.

[jamesn123]

@ceejaysix 

You can disable the mesh but unless the mini boxes are connected via ethernet they will still use wireless transmission for TV functionality. Of course if you decide to ethernet each minibox to a mesh node then thats a different story you may then achieve a more stable connection if the 3rd party system creates a better node connection. 

As for using powerline on your main Q box, from your description in the other post aimed at Chrisee it sounds like your homes electrical wiring is not ideal for powerline. If your only getting 12-15mbps over it then Q will just fall over it needs higher bandwidth than that and low latency & i can imagine your latency isnt low if you only get low speeds over it. 

[ceejaysix]

Thanks @Chrisee and @jamesn123 .

 Sounds like first option is to try a higher end Powerline to link at least the hub and main box. Not convinced this will worry, old house with old wiring in much of the original part - though the hub and main box should be on the same power ring.

If that doesn't work, use a 3rd party mesh - which brings me back to the original question of what is the gold standard mesh that can support 7+ nodes, and what router should I use with it?

[Chrisee]

@ceejaysix Asus Zen mesh apparently supports up,to 9 nodes, TP-Link advise no more than 5 nodes for their Deco but there is no hard limit.