Sky Q v Max v Mancave

[Ben+att]

Hello everyone.. Just need some confirmation if possible of an issue I now have thanks to Sky's amazing upgrade to Max.

So up until yesterday, I had our house set up so that the Sky Q main box and 2 mini boxes were all connected together with ethernet back to the sky broadband router.. things were working well.. Wifi solid all round the house and garden. One of the mini boxes is in the mancave down the garden out of the reach of the house wifi which is in the front room.. Never been a problem though as it connects via ethernet under the ground and then broadcasts as a wifi hotspot to fill in the gap.

Fast forward to today and now I have installed the Sky Max Router that is supposed to be better, but having spent a long time trying to get the wifi hotspot on the Sky Q in the mancave working,  I have now read that the mesh doesnt work with Max...

Is there an official statement on this loss of functionality? I get my setup might be pretty niche as my Sky Q mini is down the garden, but as they are taking features away seems crazy they dont tell you this upfront as it is pretty much a backward step

I guess I will have to just get a wifi extender for the mancave and use that instead and just turn off the wifi on the sky q mini.. Is that my only option? Any ideas would be great..

Cheers

[Chrisee]

@Ben+att this the closest "official statement" I can findhttps://www.sky.com/help/articles/set-up-hub-max-hub-do-you-have-internet-calls. However what you have been told is correctthat the new hub is not compatable with Sky Q boxes due to the age of the networking system Q uses and its assumed end of life around 2030 when satellite broadcasting stops. Sky like most companies dont tell people about disadvantages of their products but in networking terms Q's complex wifi mesh system is very old. It was bought  from a third party supplier and is no longer supported.

As you suggest  attach the Q boxes by ethernet turn iff their wifi and they should work as TV boxes but you will lose the ability to connect third party devices to their wifi hotspots. Therefore in your garden room you could also buy a cheap ethernet switch and a wireless WiFi access point for around £30 to £40 for the pair. You need the switch so you can hard wire both the access point and the SkyQ mini. 

[Ben+att]

Cheers Chrisee.. Thanks for the confirmation of what i feared.

Will have a rummage around my boxes of cables to see if i can find an old extender.. Already running  a switch on the ethernet cable before it hits the sky mini so shouldnt be too tricky to sort.

Have a good one

Ben

[Bails147]

Hi Ben,

I hope you're well and had a nice Xmas. 

I am having this exact same issue... 

only the difference being is that I have ran an Ethernet cable from my old SKY booster/extender to the back of the mini box which is located in my man cave. This no longer creates a wireless access point now, in the man cave, so can you kindly advise if you have managed to rectify this issue and if so, how you have managed to do so, as the Ethernet cable plugged into the new SKY Max Pod doesn't work, I have TV but no wi-fi connectivity in the cabin like I used to have from the sky Q mini when it used to create a hot spot.

Cheers  

[Chrisee]

@Bails147 the Sky Q mini can no longer act as a WiFi extender when paired with any router except for the black Sky hubs which support the Sky Q mesh. The best solution is to run an ethernet cable from the hub to the man cave and have a small ethernet switch so you can connect the Q mini for TV and a cheap wifi access point for wifi. Connecting the cable to a booster or similar rather than to the hub is not recommended.