Linksys Velop WHA0301 Wall Mount - Velop Whole Home Mesh WiFi System Router Holder - Supports Tri-band WHW030x and Dual-band WHW010x Nodes - 1 Pack, White

I have an 1940s house with thick walls, extensions and a brick chimney in the middle of the house that meant the virgin 3.0 super router was next to useless. The signal barely left the lounge at the front of the house except up through the ceiling to the main bedroom (I was happy the kids weren’t!)Power line adaptors from virgin were almost useless too because my wiring is on different fuse boards due to the extensions introducing interference. So we had very slow and at times totally absent WiFi in much of the house.So I bought this mesh system fully expecting I may need to buy another set to fully cover my large house.I started off by switching my virgin router to modem mode (it’s worth also logging in online to opt out of the shared public WiFi hotspot in the profile to have one less WiFi network in your house to compete for channels)Then I followed the instructions on the phone app with all three of the nodes in the same room and it was as easy as anything.The only challenging thing was figuring out where exactly to place them around the house for the best overall signal. It took some fiddling around but is worth the investment of time.Once you find the best positioning you will probably get another boost by asking the system under advanced WiFi settings to scan the channels to find the best ones to use (this is taking into account the interference caused by neighbours).Fascinatingly this seemed to vary on the location ie when I moved a node it would be slower till I got them to do the channel scan again.I found that the signal is not surprisingly still quite effected by solid walls so I tried to daisy chain them to reach the far end of my house. Ie the idea was the network would pass from the first to the second to the third in a chain going through a wall each time in a kind of dog leg formation.But in so doing I discovered that the beam forming system of these routers must be very good as subtly changing the positions of them to minimise the number of walls the signal had to pass through actually meant I could get a great signal To the back of my house using just one jump even tho it was a long way. I imagined a lazar beam and tried to endure that it passed through an archway rather than what was once my thick outer wall.Somewhat oddly putting a node in between these Two nodes to try and boost it actually made it worse (I think due to the fact that where I’d positioned the middle rooter meant the signal had to bounce through more wall than it did direct (and the chimney may well have been causing some issues).So I’ve now got them in a kind of triangle formation where each of the two extension nodes are in an almost unhindered straight line from the first. Crucially I’ve made sure the chimney was not in between any of the routers that need to talk to each other. If I would add nodes I’d add them in between to form a circle around my house with each node in an adjacent room tho possibly with some upstairs.And as a result even with just three nodes I’ve now got speedy WiFi of well over 100MBS in almost every nook and cranny of my entire house. I may buy some more routers at some point to enhance the speed even further but initial testing seems to find that I don’t really have any true black spots just a few areas that drop slightly compared to the best.I can see that if I bought another three I could probably get close to my actual maximum speed everywhere. But your house will almost certainly be fine with three and I am not in any rush to get more.The nodes make full use of three channels (5GHz x2 and the 2.4 Hz). If for example my son and three of his friends were all in same room playing on the PC with their mobiles in their pockets some of them were connected to 2.4ghz in a more distant node and others to the 5 of the closest. (You can see which nodes are connected to each other and to what devices via the app and this helps you plan where to put the nodes).Presumably this use of all available channels maximises speed to all of the devices.You can even select three devices to prioritise data to and this made a little bit of difference but it seems fine to leave that switched off and let the network divide up the available bandwidth more equally. This is one reason having more nodes would probably even further speed up the network as one node wouldn’t have to serve as many devices.In order not to clog up the WiFi system my TV, Apple TV and x box are all connected via a simple WiFi switch to one of the nodes and they are all much happier as a result with no buffering etc. This is the item I use: TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Desktop... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ZOOJXEG?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shareOne technique for thinking about placing the nodes (which I wish I’d thought of earlier as it would Have saved some time!) is to test the speed of your initial node (or the second one if you are wanting to daisy chain) in the place where you are thinking of placing the second one before switching it on. Ie you are checking signal strength from that parent node at that point in the house.You need it to already be quite fast there actually in order for the mesh not to lose a bit of speed (the second node can’t be any faster than your phone is with only the first node switched on at the point you site the node).If you have solid brick or stone walls the ideal seems to be that there should be no more than one brick wall between each node or between the node and the items you want to connect to it.Think of either a star shape or a daisy chain shape when you think about placement. Unlike many so called mesh systems this really will work as a daisy chain with no drop off in speed providing the units are placed close enough together (rather than each node having to be directly connecting by WiFi to the first). This makes this system a great choice.Each node will link to one other node at any time. They can have several jumps (just remember to add a node to your existing network if you buy more rather than setting it up as a new item). And if a node goes down for whatever reason any nodes it connects to will find another route back to the first one (which connects to your modem by an Ethernet cable). If you have power line devices get rid of them they will most likely slow things down not speed it up.I wish I could replace the rubbish virgin router altogether but it seems to work reasonably well just passing the internet passively to one of my nodes.So far I’m very happy and as I say since my whole house is now bathed in sufficient internet to easily play Netflix (yes even in the toilet!) so it’s very possible even my strange and somewhat large house will do just fine with three even long termI realise something though. I’ve been upgrading my virgin media broadband when what I really needed to do was spread it round the house better. I am confident that with enough of these nodes one could downgrade the speed of the internet coming into the house significantly. You only need about 25MBS to stream even 4K. So even if you have multiple devices you shouldn’t need huge input. The trouble is many routers are not very good at sharing the speed out. This setup clearly is (I often have up to twenty devices at any one time if kids bring friends into the house!)The issue is if your power lines can only deliver less than 10% of what is coming into the house then of course you won’t be able to watch Netflix except next to your supply. With enough of these I’m sure you can get close to 100% of your speed throughout your house. And see the network speed shared around more fairly.Perhaps spending a bit of money on a real mesh system like this may help me downgrade and spend less money with Virgin each month.Can’t see the point in getting a WiFi 6.0 Mesh device since I’m sure three (or certainly six) of these will cover even a mansion with very fast WiFi (and cost less than some of the 6.0 systems cost for just two nodes!).One final point is that I’ve noticed that when lots of people are using the internet on lots of devices the speed test readings on individual devices do drop a bit, presumably as the node devices are sharing the bandwidth between the various devices in use. Crucially however it seems that many people can be watching online videos all over the house At the same time and not notice any buffering issues. Fascinatingly if you repeat a speed test in such situations regularly you may well see the speed on an individual device fluctuate. But if it is varying from say 50 to close to 200 and the reason this is happening is because the devices are making the best use of all available WiFi bandwidth and channels and constantly altering how much data to beam towards which device thus is fine. It’s kinda what you want for your internet to actually work so well on ALL your deficits that you don’t need to keep testing the speed!I mean for example I was a bit concerned at first about the fact that some of my newer devices were sometimes connecting to 2G. But if that’s the most efficient way to serve fast internet to all the devices including those temporarily on the “slower” network then actually that is intelligent use of all the radio waves you have available. And like I say suddenly I’m not getting those “dad the internet is broken again! ” or “why’s our internet so rubbish?” Calls. People are just using the internet the way it should have always been. A true MESH network like this seems to be the way forward. And even if I do eventually end up buying three more it will be cheaper than buying just two of some WiFi 6.0 systems some of which may possibly not actually daisy chain at all.To close I have attached a speed test obtained from the very back of my house In the extension and as far away from the parent node as it’s possible to be! Have to say I’m delighted at the moment. And if anything as the system is getting used to how we use the internet it seems to be getting faster and faster and so far I’ve never had to reboot it yet.

I ordered this Linksys Velop mesh system from Amazon because my virgin media superhub wasn’t providing a great Wi-Fi coverage around the home so, I was doing some investigating how to cover my whole living space with a Wi-Fi coverage that has The ability to connect it to the nearest source point of Wi-Fi point insuring that I get a full Wi-Fi network and speed. I decided to order this particular brand because I’ve had it in the past and it gave great results, and as an extra bonus Amazon had the particular colour I wanted on a special daily deal. To complete the whole Velop System, I ordered the Linksys MR8300 Tri band router as well. the Velop nodes which I have placed around my typical terrace home. Starting from the front bedroom I placed the main MR8300 router and then the first node I placed in the back bedroom and followed up with the second node placed in the summer house at the bottom of the garden, which is approximately 70 feet away. The third node I placed downstairs in the living room. Now it doesn’t matter wherever I am in the house or in the garden or in the summer house I have full Wi-Fi coverage. Setting up of these devices was very easy you don’t have to be a computer expert it is all done from a app on your smart device, The only problem that I had in my specific case which will not affect the majority of people is that I am visually impaired and my speaking software would not allow me to select the specific buttons, but someone help me set the app up with my input. The application tells you all the information you need to know from how many devices you have got connected to speeds and if your system is running okay, and the opportunity to select a guest network and share the password. I am well happy with this mesh system it now gives me the speeds all over the network that I am happy with. Just to give you some examples I am with virgin media 500 meg broadband package, in the house and in the garden my max download speed I have received is 470 Mb down and 37 Mb up. In the summer house which is approximately 70 feet away my max speed has been 200 Mb down and 36.4 up, I am well happy with these speed considering this is all connected wirelessly. If you want a system that you can walk room to room or go outside the garden and connect seamlessly this is a good system. The network speed around the home and Wi-Fi has increased by at least 90% considering that the superhub from virgin doesn’t have that great Wi-Fi

The wall mounts are supplied with two inserts, one for the dual band version and the other for the tri band version. I have the tri band version so I selected that version and clipped it firmly into the wall mount; they do supply a fixing screw but it’s not really necessary. I’ve mounted the nodes high on the wall and, because the cable with the Linksys power supply was too short to reach from the mains socket to the node, I’ve put another mains socket next to the node, the spare cable from the power supply is then coiled into the bottom section of the wall bracket. It’s a pity Linksys have put the cable entry hole in the bottom of the wall bracket so it is visible when you look up. The only other issue is that the nodes have a blue light on the top which illuminates the ceiling, a stick-on rubber foot over the LED solves that. The wall mounts put the nodes out of the way, they’re well made, easy to install and match the nodes perfectly.