Yes, my point as made earlier, that it can be an assumption that a Wi-Fi mesh where the AP’s are not wired back to the router is optimal for overall performance, that Wi-Fi backhaul is always the weakest link, and even where the RSSI is good, you can still have setup issues and channel congestion to deal with, not the case if that AP is hard wired.
Wi-Fi 6 brings a number of benefits in terms of modulation improvements, spectrum management and ability to characterise traffic, all things BT enable and support in their managed ecosystem.
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All my disks are the same but they look like the old ones. The original ones came at least 2 years ago. It works well none-the-less, and I have 20 IoT roughly 50/50 on SmartThings and WiFi.
Phil
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If you already have kit and it’s working of course keep doing so, if you’re looking at this as a new hardware requirement, doing so using the latest black Halo extenders is recommended, as opposed to buying the older ones used or on eBay for example.
Regardless of which ones you’re using hard wiring the Halo extenders is recommended, if you do add some that aren’t of course that’s fine and you can mix wired and Wi-Fi backhauled AP’s in a single mesh.
The latest generation use BT’s own OpenWRT based firmware which in itself comes with various optimisations and improvements under the hood.
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A pack of Whole Home Premium x 3 discs received first thing and installed this afternoon. So far so good, a nice improvement gained. We now have seamless Wi-fi roving throughout the house, and even a strong reception upstairs too. The annex where my work room is was the main concern, and so far, no issues pairing or drop outs to the main disc near the router (connected via ethernet cable to a Cisco switch), and all works just fine with the UQ2.
As an aside, I was quite surprised how big the discs are are, they are mahoosive! I expected them to be about 10cm across, not just under 20cm in diameter.
As everything is working I’ll hold on to this set up for now, but will keep an eye out for price drops, deals or secondhand units for a 3 pack of the faster Whole Home Wi-Fi 6 discs.
Thanks for all the pointers and guidance folks, very much appreciated indeed. 
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It looks like you have the faster wifi 6 discs that BT produce
It says it’s AX3700. Hopefully others will confirm but I think this is wifi6
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It shows it supports 802.11ax, that’s Wifi 6
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The AX in the model number AX3700 does indeed indicate that it’s a WiFi6 version.
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Well, that’s great that they are Wi-Fi6!
Can anyone please confirm what the real world advantages would be of the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi 6 Tri-band AX6600 over these AX3700 discs?
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This may be of use, it’s primarily about total throughput and concurrency of client connections, either will be fine in most domestic environments.
The numbers are derived from the total theoretical bandwidth the radios can support combined and as a total.
Channel width and total
number of antennas for transmit and receive define the interface bandwidth/throughput capability.
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@YetiZone are the discs are still performing well? Any issues at all?
I’m my own situation, I have now been able to run a cable from my Hub, which is about 1/2 a meter from the floor on an outside wall under the stairs, to the centre of our house. An Access point can located at ceiling level here on the ground floor. This will obviously be a much better location, but I’m wondering if I should add a second Access point on the first floor, also at ceiling height for a better signal upstairs? We do get a signal from the Hub in its current location, under the stairs, but it’s weak.
@Mr.M Apologies, I’d forgotten to check on the thread. Many thanks for posting that comparison chart, very helpful indeed. The spec numbers show a clear improvement in performance, but wonder how that would be for real world usage. Still keeping an eye on the prices of the latests black discs though.
@Finkfan All relatively stable thanks. One disc is playing up a little, and that is the one furthest from the main BT Smart Hub2, the only disc connected via Wi-Fi. Before I embarked on the upgrade, this room only had two bars Wi-Fi signal on the phone. I’m about to connect that particular disc via an ethernet cable and that will hopefully pair a little better with master disc connected to the Smart Hub.
That new cabled central access point should really pay dividends in terms of overall signal strength in your set up, and you may well get away with that one main access point and not bother using another disc upstairs. I’ve managed without a disc upstairs on the first floor as we get a decent (but not a full) Wi-Fi signal, so an extra disc would be helpful. I’ll give it a while longer with the ‘Premium’ BT x 3 discs for now, but don’t think I’ll bother adding the extra disc - ideally I would like to switch to the higher spec Whole Home Tri-band AX6600 set.
I was about to purchase a pair of premium discs this weekend but after a little more research, BT say ONLY the first the premium disc can be connected via Ethernet. Any additional discs have to be linked to each other via wifi or an Ethernet cable linking two. This won’t work for me. I need one in the centre of the house, which won’t be a problem, but I need another in my office/music room in the garden. In our home we need the ability to use parental controls via app for simplicity. I have looked at various routers, but the parental controls won’t work when the router is in AP mode. It looks like I’ll have to go for the non premium, wifi 5 discs for now.
If you’re willing to pay a premium to do things properly I’d be taking a serious look at Ubiquiti or Ruckus for your Wi-Fi hardware needs.
I may well look at the Ubiqiti discs. I purchased a pair of BT whole home discs, not wifi 6. Having a nightmare connecting them to the app. It appears the discs, although new, are from 2016 and so running firmware from that year. They will not update. The app says it cannot find the disc, despite my phone being connected to it. It is broadcasting wifi ok and I can connect all my devices to it. But If I search on the web page I can see the disc only recognises 1 thing…my laptop. It says nothing else is connected. As the app fails to find the disc I cannot complete the set up and so the app is useless. I need the app for the parental controls. BT technical are still looking into this for me, but no matter the suggestions, it won’t work. Looks like these will be returned to the vendor and I’ll look elsewhere.
@YetiZone is it just your first wifi 6 disc that is hard wired? Or are you able to hard wire the other discs? BT insist the latter is not possible, which is why I went for the regular wifi 5 whole home discs and these can all be hard wired
Oh heck - sorry to read that you are having such connectivity issues, and hope you manage to resolve the situation with BT’s guidance and update your discs. I’ve also had some teething problems with the App not recognising discs, and the odd disc throwing a wobbler every now and glowing with the orange light of doom.
We’ve also had serious BT Broadband outages for a whole week (due to roadworks, thankfully now resolved). So once the BT service was stable I decided reboot the router, then do a factory reset on all discs, deleting and reinstalled the BT App, literally starting from scratch with the whole shebang. Thankfully it has been fairly stable since. Although, it has started to make me think about looking at an alternative Wi-Fi mesh system outside of BT. For ref, all three discs are hard wired (via two Cisco switches) to the BT Smart Hub2.
The orange glow from the App this morning for my Studio, but all was working just fine and devices were connected. Rebooted the disc and all reading correctly again - sigh. Wi-Fi fun and games.
I’ve been in touch with BT again today and they are sending out a pair of replacement discs. The firmware in mine is so far out of date it cannot be updated. Great service for BT really as I didn’t purchase my faulty discs from them.
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Fair play, that is very good of them.
I have been using the white whole home discs for a couple of years now, and the system has been rock solid all over the house. The first disc must be connected by Ethernet directly, to the BT hub, but the others can be either WiFi or Ethernet. I have 3 discs in total, all Ethernet connected ; the first direct to the BT hub, the other two Ethernet connected but via a Netgear switch back to the Hub.
On other isssues I have found BT support to be excellent.
Good luck, Paul