EE Smart Hub Plus poor range and connection strengh compared to BT Smart Hub

[dr_dongle]

My BT contract ran out in June and I wasn't offered a new BT contract, just EE. I now have an EE Smart Hub SH31B and 3 x SW30A MESH repeaters. This single-storey house is T-shaped with the Hub at one end of the crossbar, repeaters 'A'  then 'B' along the crossbar and 'C' down the stem. 'A' shows amber, 'C' shows amber but 'B' shows orange, indicating a marginal signal. This repeater 'B' is 10 metres in line of sight of 'A' and 18 metres from the hub in a roughly straight line but not actually in view.

Question 1 for someone: Is 'B' taking its signal from 'A' or from the hub?  If it is taking it from 'A' then the range of the repeater is less than 10 metres and should I report a fault or is the repeater just poor tech?  'C' is happy so could be getting its signal from 'A' or the hub.  I've tried 'B' in two different locations, one nearer 'A' and one nearer 'C'. Still orange.

I understand by the way that the new repeaters make more use of 5GHz by the way which will improve speed and capacity but will not be as good at driving the signal round corners as 2.4GHz

[dr_dongle]

Sorry I mean 'Aqua' not 'Amber' .. I'm colourblind but not *that* colourblind!

[JimM11]

@dr_dongle It is very hard to determine what is happening in a mesh system, but from your description i would say that B is skipping A and trying to go direct to the EE Router. There is a thing that you can have too much mesh and causes all kinds of problems. The best way would be to if you have a laptop, open the web manager interface 192.168.1.254 gets you connected.

Goto B your furthest away mesh, and about 3 to 6 foot away from that device on a mobile then speed test note the result.

Switch of A and speed test at B again, compare the readings, at all times observe the colour status of your mesh. Web manager will hopefully indicate what is connected to where. The EE Router should throw the wi-fi signal out around 30 to 45 feet easily but depends on construction. If you are a android user there is an app called Netspot, it is very good at showing the signal strength of both bands.

[dr_dongle]

@JimM11 Thanks and all good advice which I'll follow.  As a starting point (why didn't I think of this before?) I just turned off 'A'. 'B' is still orange and 'C' is still Aqua  suggesting that both are going direct to the router. The router is located where the fibre comes in, at the most remote corner of the house. I had hoped that the mesh would get around this but I'm beginning to think I should move the router (an awkward cabling job). Hey-ho.

[JimM11]

@dr_dongle Thanks for replying, ideal if you can get the Router central and Smart wi-fi as you need. Always a pain when cabling. TP-Link and Asus both explain mesh network very well, and given what you replied, may be 2 is all you want, but you wont know until you position and test. Good luck with it...👍👍