Radiation Pattern for Sky Hub?

[anonymous-user]

I've had an older model of Sky hub for years so Sky decided to upgrade me to their Sky Q Hub ER115 as shown below.

I was hoping it would give better WiFi coverage than the old one but it seems the same. I know Sky will provide repeaters etc but I want to avoid those if I can.

The hub is placed exactly where the old one was, I don't want to move it BUT I wondered what the radiation pattern is for these hubs. My thinking being that if the pattern isn't omnidirectional then maybe I could point a larger lobe towards the area with poorer signal strength. Anyone got any ideas on what the radiation pattern for these hubs look like?

[somouk]

With no external antennas they will be rubbish, never seen it measured because it's largely not worth it when you consider the reflective and blocking surfaces within a home.

You're better off turning the wifi off and using mesh.

[Miserablegit]

Mesh is wifi- Mesh is a way of daisy-chaining devices to increase the wifi coverage and OP has said he doesn’t want to use repeaters.

[Mr E]

Mesh != repeaters

Antenna patterns are usually an attempt at a flattened omni, but packaging/cost constraints mean they’re often far from ideal.

Does your new router do 5GHz and is that why your coverage has reduced (5GHz has significantly worse in building performance than 2.4GHz)

[anonymous-user]

Mr E said:

Mesh != repeaters

Antenna patterns are usually an attempt at a flattened omni, but packaging/cost constraints mean they’re often far from ideal.

Does your new router do 5GHz and is that why your coverage has reduced (5GHz has significantly worse in building performance than 2.4GHz)

Thanks. I’ll see if I can disable 5GHz.

I wondered if the radiation pattern had a lobe stronger in one direction than others? So I could point that in the weak areas.
Also I might put some silver foil behind it.

[eps]

Can't help much on specifics, but if you install a WiFi Analyzer App onto a phone and then check in various rooms it should show you the signal strength in various locations. I would try placing it high up, so that the signal can radiate outwards and downards from the device.

I tried avoiding Mesh but in the end had to accept that they work really well and is what they are designed for. Of course it depends on the size of your house and possibly 'just' upgrading the router to something a bit more powerful will do the trick.

Signal strength will depend on what protocol devices are attempting to connect to the router via, G/B/N...

I think the best if you don't want to purchase any more kit or install anything is to optimise the location of the router and then check the signal strength using an App as mentioned.

Now the Mesh is installed in our property I just don't have to think about connectivity at home or signal strength.

[Mr E]

WiFi analyser on an android phone is very useful.
iOS doesn’t allow the same access.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks re idea for app. I’ll try that too