u/av4625

I bought a 3 pack of BE3600 on prime day in anticipation of moving into a new bungalow in July that has a biggish floor space.

I pay for 300 download for reference and get slightly over 300 consistently when beside the router.

I setup deco straight away and never used the ISP router. I found if I was outside I lost connection instantly even if a deco was just on the other side of the wall and if I went to certain rooms in my house that are only a room and a half away from a deco I was getting 5/10% of the speed (22 download) I get if I stand beside it. So basically unusable internet.

I thought it must be just because it isn’t that old an house and must have thick insulated walls.

I have been having some bother with other devices and I thought it can’t be right I get such slow speeds in the house. I have never seen this in any house.

So I connected to the ISP router and am getting at least 95% (280 download) of the speed in the furthest rooms from the single router. So one single ISP router can cover a bigger distance and provide pretty much max speed everywhere.

I have to say I am very disappointed with deco. I am past the 30 day amazon return window now because I bought them before I got the house even though I would say these decos have to be defective.

TPLINK support told me to move a satellite deco closer to the main one. I can’t get them to understand the problem happens with them all, even the main one and it still happens if I plug them in beside each other.

I was wondering if anyone has seen this or any settings I could try? I have tried router mode and access point mode and it’s identical.

I plugged a PC into my original ISP router to bypass Deco earlier when trying to trouble shoot a network issue. I was then surprised to see the PC was showing up as a wired online client in the Deco app.

My decos are in router mode, although the only setup I did when I got them was to plug the main one into the ISP router and it defaulted to router mode. I thought I would have had to change the ISP router to modem mode or something, then I would only have one connectable router in the house.

Because the PC showed up on the Deco app when wired to the ISP router, does this mean that I can use these ports on the ISP router and everything on the LAN can still talk and see each other? Or how does that work and how did the Deco see it?

I have 7 echo devices around my house, I only really use them for multiroom music and always say to play music everywhere, they are:

• 2 echo dot 5th gen
• 1 echo dot 3rd gen
• 1 echo show 5
• 1 echo spot
• 2 echo show 2nd gen

I also have a tv showing on the alexa app that is offline and I can't seem to remove it from the app.

All 7 will play music and seem to work for a couple of days and then suddenly the 2 echo show 2nd gens and the echo dot will not play, just the other 4. Sometimes you can see on the screens of the ones not working the music that should be playing. You can start the music on 1 of the 3 "broken" ones and they still wont work, it will just play on the other 4.

If you go round and unplug and replug in all echos it will work for a couple of days again. Just today I noticed In the app for the settings for the devices I can restart the 4 "working" devices under general but there is no way to do this for the 2 echo show 2nd gens and the echo dot strangely. Restarting the 4 devices in app fixed it today.

Is there anything else that would be causing this issue? Restarting them a couple of times a week is annoying.

I moved in to a new house that was built in 2007 so would have pretty thick breeze block external walls and well insulated.

I got Deco BE3600 straightaway as the house is fairly large and set them up as soon as broadband was put in so can’t compare easily to the standard router and both the standard router and the main deco is in the middle of the house, not beside an external wall.

I have 2 of them right beside external walls. I found when I am outside, unless I am right beside the external walls where the deco is inside I lose all wifi. And when right beside the wall I get like 10mbps download or worse compared to the 300mbps inside. I also see big slow down in internal walls too but they are all block walls too. I get maybe 10% of the speed a wall and a room away. Is that normal? Or would you expect it to work through one external wall a bit better?

Is there any reason that the deco mesh routers would be worse through walls compared to a “normal” router?

The reason I notice it so much here is there is no phone signal, maybe all houses are the same but I haven’t noticed as I normally have phone signal to rely on.

I wanted to create an L shaped desk this size (sizes are mm):

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Each side will hold 2 monitors mounted to the desk on arms and 1 laptop each. So basically 2 computer setups, one on each side.

https://www.diy.com/departments/goodhome-kava-natural-solid-oak-square-edge-kitchen-worktop-l-3000mm-w-620mm-t-26mm/3663602635437_BQ.prd

I was looking at this 26mm thick solid oak work top to make the desk from.

The 4 rectangles in the desk are the legs, not sure what way to do the corner ones as they don't line up with the end ones the way I have drawn them, could maybe use different ones in the corner so it doesn't look as bad when not lined up, legs are something like this:

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I'm not sure how to join the two bits of table top over than zip bolts and dowels. Would this be strong enough and not sag or should I build a wooden apron/frame type thing like this legs removed from the drawing to not clutter it):

​

The legs could then be mounted to the frame, the frame could also have braces in the middle.

Would this be enough? Or is there better ways? Maybe I'd need some angle iron to brace it up the middle?

Thanks!

Edit: If I don’t think I can create something strong enough I have just found a L shaped standing desk frame that I put my own top on. I might have to go with that as it has the structure part done for me

In my previous house I had hive heating that had a single thermostat and hot water control. I have just moved house and the house is plumbed for 2 zones and hot water.

I was wondering if this is what I need to buy for the second zone?

https://www.screwfix.com/p/hive-hubless-v4-wireless-heating-opentherm-smart-thermostat-white/738YU?tc=EH2&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19822796606&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPyedkl66r6ozPS5KTPjAkFEQ&gclid=CjwKCAjwsfzSBhB5EiwAOGyqSTfqb5MHMp-SXlJWQRzuRrBceJQlODRYvGrM6Srm4lO-9cEJU-qEWhoCPZMQAvD_BwE

Edit:
The new house is oil heating and not a combi boiler.
My current hive setup looks older than the current v4 ones I am seeing, mine is a v2 I think. Can this be used along side the newer ones?

Edit 2:
Or would a hubless mini thermostat work for me?

I have an openreach engineer coming out tomorrow to install full fibre. I live up a lane that has a man hole at the top between two house that then has two underground ducts to two houses (one of which is mine).

I have checked the copper line that goes into the middle of my house and if I pull it, a friend can see it move in the manhole. Thats good news. There is a rope up the duct from the pole at the end of the lane to the manhole at the top of the lane where the two houses then connect too.

I keep getting texts from openreach about my appointment saying a decision maker needs to be present as they have to drill a small hole in the house etc.

How likely is it that they will refuse to pull the fibre through the duct using the old copper line? Or would this be the first way they try? I really want it in the duct as it comes into the centre of the house. If it was to come into the side of the house through a hole they drill they would likely have to cut up my tarmac drive. Or go an elaborate way round the edge of the garden as I am looking to put a garage in the garden where the straight line to the house would be for the cable and they would have to cut up a tarmac path at the edge of the house this way anyway.

I also have no idea how easy it will be to get that rope to move thats in the duct that goes up the lane.

Anyone else been in a similar situation?

https://preview.redd.it/8385hoxwv7ah1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=940aabd85bc3e14b480fafcdd7012aeef0c32109

I want to put surround sound in this room. I want the TV at the top and the sofa at the bottom in front of the windows. I will be renovating this room and putting down wooden flooring. I was wondering how you would run the speaker cables.

My current idea for the two back speakers at least is to run both round the left edge of the room under the floor with a little bit cut out of the underlay to give them space. This would keep the wire away from the door entrance. The front speaker would be the same just a shorter run to the two front corners.

Is this sensible or what would you do different? I'm pretty sure its a concrete floor underneath and not floor boards.

When viewing a house we discussed with the sellers about blinds and they said that the blinds wouldn’t fit windows anywhere else so would leave them.

So when I put in my written offer of full asking price I put a few conditions and one of them was that the blinds stay.

5 months later and a couple of weeks before we are meant to complete the fixtures and fittings say they are taking all blinds except the sun room.

The estate agent is now saying they want money for them. Surely they can’t go against the offer they accepted without a price decrease, especially because I have the offer in writing and the estate agent should surely also be telling them that.

They also said they are taking carpets from an expensive house that I gave them full asking for 🙈 didn’t think I needed to add that as a condition (not that the conditions seem to do much).

I’m guessing theres nothing I can do? :(

I have bought some of the following strips in 12v.

The description says they are SMD2835 and that the power consumption is 7.36W/m.

I want to connect three strips of 1m and one strip of 2m to a single power supply.
Using this site.

I calculated the total watts to be (with a safety margin): 5 * 7.36 * 1.2 = 44.16

Can I just use a 4a/48W power supply like this?

If I wanted a manual dimmer knob is there anything I should look out for?