Sky Q wifi booster any good?

[Scam]

Unsure of the proper name of these, struggling to find any proper info online?

We've just about finished converting the loft in our small terraced house and obviously the wifi from our Sky router is fairly pants up there. It's also fairly pants in the study (first floor) so I had been looking at mesh systems for a little while, more info per my old thread here. We have ethernet ports in the study and loft now. My colleague mentioned that Sky sent out a wifi booster for him when he complained about his wifi. Do they still do this? I'm on a Sky staff account so thinking it would be quite easy to get them to send me one out.

If I can get a booster, does it support ethernet backhaul? Does it provide a proper mesh wifi on the same ssid? IE when I buy a second telly and have my main Q box, Q mini, and possibly the Q booster plugged in across the house - do they provide a proper mesh experience? Any downsides?

Just wondering if I could save myself some money and effort and try the booster. Really, our wifi is only used for phones and iPads etc. although if it's good enough for work video calls that's a plus. (We will both plug in when WFH mind, hence the ethernet getting run). We do have crappy phone signal here so wifi calling is a help, too.

Cheers.

 

[ChrisD.]

If you have ethernet ports available then get a single proper Access Point and put it in the loft on the ceiling, it'll likely cover most of the house and if it doesn't then put in an additional one on the first floor.

 

[Scam]

If you have ethernet ports available then get a single proper Access Point and put it in the loft on the ceiling, it'll likely cover most of the house and if it doesn't then put in an additional one on the first floor.

But I'd like a single mesh network particularly for wifi calling (ie. don't want to drop when wandering the house on a call). My understanding is an AP will be a separate SSID and you won't hop nicely between them?

I'm fairly aware of the options and have the budget to do a proper mesh, but I was curious if anyone had further info on the Sky offering as I'd imagine I could get it for free.

 

[ChrisD.]

But I'd like a single mesh network particularly for wifi calling (ie. don't want to drop when wandering the house on a call). My understanding is an AP will be a separate SSID and you won't hop nicely between them?

Not with proper kit, in fact, you're likely to get this with 'mesh' networks. With something like UniFi, devices will seamlessly switch between the devices. I can be on a wifi call on my phone and unplug the AP it's connected to and it will connect straight to the other AP without the call dropping.

 

[sandys]

I have been off Sky Q for almost 18 months and it might have improved (unlikely) but the booster and miniboxes work as repeaters and all they did for me is give me woeful wifi around the house.

The do give it for free though so it is worth a shot if you juts need coverage and speed is not a concern, I had that and two mini Qs, my house is very difficult for Wifi due to extensions and interior walls being old exterior walls that high speed wifi doesn't want to pass.

I ended up getting a mesh set up, this led to a whole host of other issues with Sky Q miniboxes, so whilst wifi was perfect the minis were not as the mesh network had to run off of sky hub due to no modem mode so it was a different network and mini Qs didn't like that, so I had to wire the minis direct to main Sky Q hub, I was able to use slow arse powerline here rather than actual wire and disable wifi in the engineering options on the minis.

Seamless switch is pretty much a ubiquitous feature now is it not? I don't recall wifi calling being an issue with the booster but I am far to lazy to be wandering around when on a phonecall, but in terms ofmesh network you disable Sky Wifi and use the Mesh SSID, this will be the same one used in all mesh nodes throughout the house and seamless switch between them, the only seperate SSIDs will be if you setup guest networks or IoT SSIDs etc.

 

[Scam]

The do give it for free though so it is worth a shot if you juts need coverage and speed is not a concern

Yeah. I'm torn between wanting to do things properly (hence running ethernet to the study on the first floor, and up into the loft), and realising that actually we won't have a TV or anything in our bedroom and are not the sort of people to watch streaming on the iPad etc. So in reality as long as we can get good wifi for the phone upstairs then that's all we need. Well, maybe a Google Home up there as well.

I ended up getting a mesh set up, this led to a whole host of other issues with Sky Q miniboxes

Yeah I've heard for the Sky boxes you're better off letting the SkyQ hub run it's mesh wifi for the mini so you don't encounter any issues. Would be a bit annoying running that on top of another mesh router e.g. Nest.