BT Complete Wi-Fi Review | Trusted opinion



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What is BT Complete Wi-Fi?

The BT Whole Home Wi-Fi Mesh System proved to be a great success. Generally fast and cheaply, it was a decent upgrade for users of a router they did not want to replace. With BT Complete Wi-Fi, BT offers a simpler solution: a new router for the basic connection and disks that you distribute in your home to improve the signal.

Complete Wi-Fi, available exclusively for BT Plus customers, gives you a BT Smart Hub 2 router and a single Wi-Fi disk to increase the range of your wireless network. If you still have dead spots, you can order up to two other Wi-Fi disks for free. If you still can not get a signal everywhere, BT will refund you £ 20.

Faster network speeds and a cost of just £ 5 per month for BT Plus customers make it a great upgrade for existing BT Smart Hub owners. Few configuration options hurt slightly.

Related: Best Wi-Fi Extensions

BT Complete Wi-Fi – Design and Features

BT Complete Wi-Fi is available for BT Plus customers only. With BT Plus, you get a "Keep Connected" promise that BT will send you a 4G router if your broadband goes down, allowing you to stay online until the problem is resolved. By subscribing to a mobile phone contract as well, you get a doubling of data and the promise "Keep in touch connected" also goes in this direction: if your main broadband is down, your phones enjoy unlimited 4G for the duration of l & # 39; show.

BT Complete Wi-Fi includes Smart Hub 2 and a single Wi-Fi disk designed to extend wireless range. The Smart Hub 2 is an evolution of the previous router's design. Externally, it looks pretty similar, but the status lights have moved into the disk in the middle.

For routers, the Smart Hub 2 is harmless and should fit well. At the back is the same expandable reference card, which displays the default secure wireless settings. It's convenient, especially when you have guests and want to give them your network pbadword.

Full Details Nesting BT Complete Wi-Fi Smar Hub 2

At the back of the router, there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports to add external devices, a USB device to share external storage, and a single RJ11 port for your Internet connection.

BT Complete Wi-Fi Smart Hub 2 at the back

The use of RJ11 could be slightly disappointing for some. For example, I have an Openreach modem in a rack and I run an ethernet cable from where I want to place the router behind the TV. Switching to RJ11 only meant that I had to install the Smart Hub 2 in the closet instead.

The disc looks like the old model Whole Home Wi-Fi system, except this time the disc is black and it does not have an extractable card with the details of Wi-Fi. To put the discs in a box that will pbad through a door, the feet come out of the dish.

BT Complete Wi-Fi Disc

BT Whole Home Wi-Fi is not compatible with Complete Wi-Fi and you can only use new discs with the existing system. Although BT is sending you free to two other drives, this is not really a problem: with a fully-loaded full Wi-Fi system, you have four access points (three drives and two drives). the router) compared to Whole Home. The three discs of Wi-Fi.

BT Complete Wi-Fi – Interface and Features

BT Complete Wi-Fi is configured and configured through the new My BT app, rather than having a separate dedicated application like the Whole Home Wi-Fi system. It guides you through the router configuration and then through the search for the best location to place your records.

Ideally, the disks should be able to be placed and configured wirelessly, but it did not work for me. Instead, I had to plug the drive via Ethernet directly to the router so that it could get the configuration that way. Once installed, the drive would work when I put it back in its main location. If you have multiple disks, you can also repeat the procedure to install them.

BT Complete Wi-Fi back disk

Once the disk (or disks) installed, you can use the application to manage your system. There are really not a lot of options. You can turn off the lights on your router and drives, or turn them off completely. This last option is useful if you have a drive in a bedroom and do not want to be disturbed by flashing lights during normal use; if there is a problem, the lights come on to warn you.

BT Complete lighting control of the Wi-Fi application

From the application, you can also change the network name and pbadword, and that's it. There is currently no option for a guest network and the application does not allow you to control simple things such as port forwarding. BT indicated that additional features were being exploited. Options such as guest networks should therefore be considered in the future.

BT Complete Wi-Fi application

The launch of the Whole Home Wi-Fi system was similar: at first, it was pretty basic, but new features were quickly put online.

To change more advanced settings, you must access the web portal. Again, it's very simple, but from there you can change the wireless networks into automatic channels into channels defined by you. This can be useful if you are having interference issues with the automatic settings and want to lock your configuration.

BT Complete Wi-Fi Web Interface

Port forwarding is available through this interface and is the only way to configure the rules you need.

I recommend disabling Smart Setup. This feature redirects new devices that connect to a page on the configuration of other BT services and is extremely annoying.

Parental control is available on the My BT online portal. Once activated, the rules apply to all devices connected to your network. It's a shame that you can not create profiles for each family member because they group all their devices. This will give you more control, including individual filter levels and a setting that allows each family member to connect. This puts BT Complete Wi-Fi behind the competition.

Of course, BT TV YouView is supported immediately, so you can stream live channels such as BT Sport without any configuration.

BT Complete Wi-Fi – Performance

The new system uses 802.11ac. For the Smart Hub 2, the 5GHz channel has a maximum throughput of 1733 Mbps and the 2.4GHz channel has a throughput of 289Mbps. The drives have the same speed of 1733Mbps 5GHz and a faster network of 385Mbps 2.4GHz.

As usual for mesh systems, BT's full Wi-Fi system combines 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks under one name, using tape control to direct customers to the best network for their network. capabilities and their scope. The system will also push customers to the most powerful drive to maintain performance while traveling through your home.

Using the Tamosoft flow test, I have achieved impressive results. At 2m, I saw download speeds of 480.81 Mbps and download speeds of 199.21 Mbps (average of 340.01 Mbps). At 5m and one floor, I've seen download speeds of 417.92 Mbps and download speeds of 141.08 Mbps (average of 279.5 Mbps). At 10 meters and two stories higher, the download speed was 315.09 Mbps and the download speed remained high at 187.05 Mbps (average 251.07 Mbps).

This compares well with the Netgear Orbi RBK50 system, although it has progressed to 10 m on the second floor, the tri-band system proving to have a little more power in range.

BT Complete Wi-Fi performance

Why buy the BT Complete Wi-Fi?

BT Complete Wi-Fi Network Rate has successfully tracked the Netgear Orbi RBK50, both systems using a router and a single disk / satellite. Since BT Complete Wi-Fi only costs £ 5 per month for BT Plus customers, it's a great upgrade for those who use an older hub. At this price, it would take more than four years to the BT system to cost you more than the Orbi.

This is not the whole story, however. Although BT Complete Wi-Fi is fast and easy to set up, it lacks many features: there is no guest network at the moment and no way to set individual parental controls.

In addition, satellites have only one Ethernet port, making them less useful when you need to connect more wired devices. For those who want more control over their networks, more features and more Ethernet ports, the Netgear RBK50 remains the first choice. Its application is better, it has a guest network and parental controls are available for individual members of the family. It's a little faster too.

That said, if you want something simple, fast and cheap, and you have a BT broadband connection, BT Complete Wi-Fi is a great choice.

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