What setup works best for large-ish homes with dead spots?

[ra_beale]

Our EE broadband service was activated yesterday, all thankfully very smooth with the switchover.

At the moment, I'm using the same setup we had with our previous provider:

• Draytek Vigor DSL modem attached to the main socket
• 2x Netgear switches attached to that, wired to our cabled Cat-5 network
• Ubiquiti wireless access point attached to one of the Cat-5 sockets, as close to the middle of the house as I can manage.

This works... OK.... but the kit is now nearly 7 years old (we moved back into this house after extensive refurb in 2017). There are still dead spots - the front rooms don't really have any coverage on the side nearest the street, which annoyingly is where our TV is.

It's pointless having anything serving up wifi at the main socket, because it's in a 'bike shed' that was built onto the outside of what used to be an exterior wall, and in about the furthest corner of the house it could be from where any actual living happens.

I'm wondering:

• Can I do something similar, but using the EE Smart Hub instead of the Draytek? 
• Is there any benefit to doing so?
• Is there a better solution?

Would love to know what has worked well for others in similar situations. Many thanks.

[Mustrum]

@ra_beale  if you are still on DSL, I would say that is your limiting factor, and your current setup won't be improved with the EE Smart Hub.

Cat5e or 6 could inprove your local LAN speeds, as could getting more of it to your commonly used areas.

[ra_beale]

Yes, we're not fiber to the premises yet, though there's cabling in our street. The last time I tried to get this installed the engineer came round and harrumphed about our property and said they couldn't install it because of digging up our driveway and then lack of suitable placement points on the house for the box. V annoying.

I'm not so much worried about optimising speed as trying to get the best wireless coverage I can in the house. But it's good to know there's not much point trying to tackle the Smart Hub setup.

[JimM11]

@ra_beale If your front room is wired, and you have a spare cable or if not extra switch there, then install another AP for wireless, you do not need to only have 1 AP to try cover everything, staying with the same brand is also easier support and connection wise. Is/does the draytek have wireless on/off as you do not say type?  

[ra_beale]

Thanks Jim. Modem has no wireless, it's literally just the box (with 4 'out' ports). I think I'll probably need some sort of mesh setup as switching between APs is going to complicate things somewhat.

[JimM11]

@ra_beale There is no switching between, the extra AP has the same setup as your existing one, and becomes an extra node on the network, it is like a form of mesh. But if you feel upgrade is what you want then Network ethernet of all the nodes back to the draytek is the way to go when you are looking at the type, make sure they can all do ethernet backhaul if your cabling permits and something has to be routing your signal if you are in AP mode.👍