Wiring BT Whole Home Mesh

[VladD]

I've got five BT whole home discs that I'm trying to run in a string. Doing it wirelessly is proving to be a massive pain in the arse as each disc either connects to a wrong other disc, not its nearest neighbour, or it won't find a neighbouring disc at all. I'm therefore considering wiring them together. Each disc only has one LAN port, so I can connect disc 1 to disc 2, but how would I then connect disc 2 to disc 3? I guess I could have a small hub at discs 2, 3 and 4, but is there a better way?

[Ydnaroo]

Each disk will have to be connected back to the router or a switch/hub connected to the router as with the first disk.

[VladD]

Ydnaroo said:

Each disk will have to be connected back to the router or a switch/hub connected to the router as with the first disk.

So can I daisy chain the hubs? So a cable from the router into a 2 port hub. 1 cable out into disc 1, the second cable into another 2 port hub. 1 cable out into disc 2, the second into another 2 port hub, etc.

Or is it better to have a cable out of the router into a 5 port hub and run separate cables for each disc. It'll mean a lot more cable running around the house.

[xeny]

VladD said:

Doing it wirelessly is proving to be a massive pain in the arse as each disc either connects to a wrong other disc, not its nearest neighbour

Typically they connect to the one they see with the strongest signal. It's not worth fighting this, except by juggling disc locations to improve the signal path between the discs.

[VladD]

xeny said:

VladD said:

Doing it wirelessly is proving to be a massive pain in the arse as each disc either connects to a wrong other disc, not its nearest neighbour

Typically they connect to the one they see with the strongest signal. It's not worth fighting this, except by juggling disc locations to improve the signal path between the discs.

You'd think that'd be true, but it's not. I have the first three in a straight line, almost equidistant, and 3 connects to 1 instead of 2. I can even move 2 and 3 to be a couple of feet apart and 3 will still connect to 1. A couple of times I've got the chain of 5 working as I want, but the next day 3 has connected to 1 again and 4 has lost contact with 3 and won't reconnect. I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to get it to worked as desired.

[595Heaven]

I don’t think you can use a wired connection between the discs, other than the first which connects to your router.

You can wire more than one to the router though (not BT Whole Home Wi-Fi Premium).

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y]

VladD said:

I've got five BT whole home discs that I'm trying to run in a string. Doing it wirelessly is proving to be a massive pain in the arse as each disc either connects to a wrong other disc, not its nearest neighbour, or it won't find a neighbouring disc at all. I'm therefore considering wiring them together. Each disc only has one LAN port, so I can connect disc 1 to disc 2, but how would I then connect disc 2 to disc 3? I guess I could have a small hub at discs 2, 3 and 4, but is there a better way?

Is it actually causing a problem, i.e. why do you care which disc they are each connecting to as long as you get a blue light on each (which means they are working correctly)?
I've got 7 of them in my house (with thick stone walls) and placement does seem to be critical to get everything working optimally. I'm struggling with one at the moment that I can only get an orange light on, I suspect I need an extra one to cover a dead spot. In an ideal world I'd hardwire each one back to a switch, however retro-fitting cabling is not practical, hence installing the discs in the first place.

You can link one disc to another (I've done this during the setup process) so you might be able to at least link some pairs together if that may help some coverage where wiring them is feasible?

How do you actually find out which disc is connecting to which, I can't see this detail in the WholeHome app?

[33q]

Cover the one’s you don’t want to connect to with aluminium foil?

[VladD]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

Is it actually causing a problem, i.e. why do you care which disc they are each connecting to as long as you get a blue light on each (which means they are working correctly)?
I've got 7 of them in my house (with thick stone walls) and placement does seem to be critical to get everything working optimally. I'm struggling with one at the moment that I can only get an orange light on, I suspect I need an extra one to cover a dead spot. In an ideal world I'd hardwire each one back to a switch, however retro-fitting cabling is not practical, hence installing the discs in the first place.

You can link one disc to another (I've done this during the setup process) so you might be able to at least link some pairs together if that may help some coverage where wiring them is feasible?

How do you actually find out which disc is connecting to which, I can't see this detail in the WholeHome app?

The problem I have is that when 3 connects to 1, 4 then won't connect to 3.

In the app, if you go to "Settings" and click on "Network Layout" it shows you a diagram of what is connected to what.

[VladD]

33q said:

Cover the one’s you don’t want to connect to with aluminium foil?

I need all of them to connect, but in the right order.

[595Heaven]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

How do you actually find out which disc is connecting to which, I can't see this detail in the WholeHome app?

This link (on a device connected to the Wi-Fi network) gives you loads more info than the app: mybtdevice.home/login.htm

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y]

VladD said:

In the app, if you go to "Settings" and click on "Network Layout" it shows you a diagram of what is connected to what.

Ah thanks. In that case my setup is also doing stupid things, as the one that's orange is connected to a disc that is much further away rather than a closer on one in an adjacent room.

[33q]

VladD said:

33q said:

Cover the one’s you don’t want to connect to with aluminium foil?

I need all of them to connect, but in the right order.
[/quote

Leave uncovered the only one you want to connect to

[VladD]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

VladD said:

In the app, if you go to "Settings" and click on "Network Layout" it shows you a diagram of what is connected to what.

Ah thanks. In that case my setup is also doing stupid things, as the one that's orange is connected to a disc that is much further away rather than a closer on one in an adjacent room.

Drives you nuts. It's a shame the app doesn't let you configure how they should link as an override to the auto connect process.

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y]

The web admin interface posted above has an option in the Setup menu - 'Disc topology' which you can set to 'Prefer Daisy chain' which appears to change how they connect to each other...

[VladD]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

The web admin interface posted above has an option in the Setup menu - 'Disc topology' which you can set to 'Prefer Daisy chain' which appears to change how they connect to each other...

Yep, already got that set, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y]

Ah weird. I just checked and could see mine was set to default, and one unit was connecting using 2.4Ghz to one at the far end of the house, giving me an orange light.
As soon as I changed that setting to 'Daisy chain' and rebooted all units through the web interface they have now connected in a much more logical order, and in fact I've actually managed to remove one that seemed to be redundant as they are now all connecting at 5GHz and giving good coverage everywhere.

Maybe you need to experiment with the location of each disc? It took me ages to get them all in the state where I was getting a blue light on all of them, just moving each one individually to a different point in a room and leaving them to see if the LED colour changed.
The web interface seems to be very helpful, I don't know if you have been rebooting them individually but maybe it's best to do a global reboot through the web interface so that they can all re-initialise and work out which discs they should be connecting to.

[VladD]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

Ah weird. I just checked and could see mine was set to default, and one unit was connecting using 2.4Ghz to one at the far end of the house, giving me an orange light.
As soon as I changed that setting to 'Daisy chain' and rebooted all units through the web interface they have now connected in a much more logical order, and in fact I've actually managed to remove one that seemed to be redundant as they are now all connecting at 5GHz and giving good coverage everywhere.

Maybe you need to experiment with the location of each disc? It took me ages to get them all in the state where I was getting a blue light on all of them, just moving each one individually to a different point in a room and leaving them to see if the LED colour changed.
The web interface seems to be very helpful, I don't know if you have been rebooting them individually but maybe it's best to do a global reboot through the web interface so that they can all re-initialise and work out which discs they should be connecting to.

We'll I'm glad yours is working better. I've rebooted mine loads of times but it never resets how I want it.

[b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y]

Are they all showing as 5Ghz and Good Connection, or do you have some 2.4Ghz links and Poor Connection statuses?

[VladD]

b.e.n.n.y_b.o.y said:

Are they all showing as 5Ghz and Good Connection, or do you have some 2.4Ghz links and Poor Connection statuses?

All 5Ghz and Good Connection for the first 3, but 4 isn't connected to 3.