Mesh system?

silvercar

We complained to virgin that the broadband strength was vary low in some rooms and they sent us their mesh unit free of charge. Literally plug in and leave it do it’s stuff, within a couple of hours the strength improved. Instructions say wait 24 hours to appreciate. Full effects.

victor2

silvercar said:

We complained to virgin that the broadband strength was vary low in some rooms and they sent us their mesh unit free of charge. Literally plug in and leave it do it’s stuff, within a couple of hours the strength improved. Instructions say wait 24 hours to appreciate. Full effects.

Does their mesh system work on both the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands?

I find that with my Asus WiFi router down where the VM modem (Hub3 in modem only mode) is, and at the opposite corner and floor of a reasonably sized detached house, I get 5Ghz WiFi into my PC at the full 250Mbps I get from a cable connection. I set the router to only connect to that device at 5GHz, otherwise it will connect at the slower, but stronger, 2.4GHz.

Do you know how much power the mesh unit uses? Annoyingly, the Hub3 uses around 10W, even in modem only mode, plus my WiFi router uses another 9 or 10W. So there's a 20W overhead running 24/7 and I can't really put them on a timer because the WiFi is used regularly overnight as well as during the day. Plus power cycling the devices daily might shorten their lives.

chrisw

silvercar said:

We complained to virgin that the broadband strength was vary low in some rooms and they sent us their mesh unit free of charge. Literally plug in and leave it do it’s stuff, within a couple of hours the strength improved. Instructions say wait 24 hours to appreciate. Full effects.

I tried this with Virgin but they said they would only supply it free for those on 1 Gigabit, otherwise it's £8 per month.

Reading around, many people prefer the VM router in modem mode with an Asus router rather than mesh. I can't see the mesh systems using that much less power as generally you seem to need 2 or 3 of them on top of the VM hub.

silvercar

victor2 said:

silvercar said:

We complained to virgin that the broadband strength was vary low in some rooms and they sent us their mesh unit free of charge. Literally plug in and leave it do it’s stuff, within a couple of hours the strength improved. Instructions say wait 24 hours to appreciate. Full effects.

Does their mesh system work on both the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands?

I find that with my Asus WiFi router down where the VM modem (Hub3 in modem only mode) is, and at the opposite corner and floor of a reasonably sized detached house, I get 5Ghz WiFi into my PC at the full 250Mbps I get from a cable connection. I set the router to only connect to that device at 5GHz, otherwise it will connect at the slower, but stronger, 2.4GHz.

Do you know how much power the mesh unit uses? Annoyingly, the Hub3 uses around 10W, even in modem only mode, plus my WiFi router uses another 9 or 10W. So there's a 20W overhead running 24/7 and I can't really put them on a timer because the WiFi is used regularly overnight as well as during the day. Plus power cycling the devices daily might shorten their lives.

We have an old house with solid walls. It’s also been extended to the side, so some internal walls are actually solid external walls. The problem has always been that the VM hub (V3) is downstairs in one corner and the rooms beyond the original outside wall upstairs struggle. We don’t have a separate router, so the Hub3 is doing everything. 

Literally plugged the mesh unit in and let it do itself, I don’t know whether it is on 5 or 2.4, can explore more in the week.

As to what it uses power wise, I’m not sure how to measure that, I will read the manual and report back. Tbh if it’s constantly taking an extra 10W then so be it, that’s less than 10p a day.

chrisw said:

silvercar said:

We complained to virgin that the broadband strength was vary low in some rooms and they sent us their mesh unit free of charge. Literally plug in and leave it do it’s stuff, within a couple of hours the strength improved. Instructions say wait 24 hours to appreciate. Full effects.

I tried this with Virgin but they said they would only supply it free for those on 1 Gigabit, otherwise it's £8 per month.

Reading around, many people prefer the VM router in modem mode with an Asus router rather than mesh. I can't see the mesh systems using that much less power as generally you seem to need 2 or 3 of them on top of the VM hub.

We only have one, positioned centrally upstairs, whereas the VM hub is downstairs in one corner of the house. We are on a Volt tariff and don’t pay anything extra. 

Mutton_Geoff

I put my VM router into modem mode and installed TP Link Omada router into their WAPs. The FAST app on my phone reports 410mbps around the house.