If you have Sky Q, you might be surprised to hear that you can use your Sky Q box(es) as Wi-Fi repeaters, even if you don’t have Sky broadband. To set it up, follow the below steps:
1) Go to Settings > Setup > Network > Advanced settings
2) Select ‘Wi-Fi hotspots’, and then ‘Turn on’
3) Enter your PIN
4) Read the message displayed, as it has important information that you should be aware of, and select ‘Continue’
5) Again, read the message displayed, as it’s also important, and select ‘Turn on’
6) When the list of Wi-Fi networks appear, select yours
7) Enter your Wi-Fi password and select ‘Confirm’
8) Confirm your Wi-Fi password, and select ‘Confirm’
9) Select ‘Close’
It’s as simple as that, your Sky Q box(es) are working as Wi-Fi repeaters. This will work best if your boxes are hard wired, or at least your main box is hard wired.
Keep in mind that the Sky mesh network doesn’t really perform very well, except for Sky TV use, but it’s better than nothing. Whilst network availability and coverage is was good, the speed was extremely poor, especially when compared to the BT Whole Home mesh network.
In case you’re wondering how much slower it was for me, a simple speed test, resulted in download speeds of near 25Mbps when using the Sky mesh network, and 76Mbps when using the BT Whole Home network.
Let me know in the comments if this works for you?
Once you have turned them on, how do you actually connect to the hot spots?
When they are setup, you just connect to your normal wireless network, because the boxes will broadcast the same network.
I have the 2TB Q box and 2 mini boxes. I am leaning Sky broadband next week and Sky have told me that they will switch off the hotspots but gave me a very vague link to the area of the website which details how to turn them on again. They outline the same method as you show but I can’t find any question about the hotspots in the settings. I can get to the page you show but the question just isn’t there. Has it changed recently that you know of? Thanks, John.
You don’t need Sky broadband to use this feature, and I imagine that the person in Sky isn’t even familiar with it.
I’ve also checked my Sky Q box, and the option is still there to enable it, as per my article.
Rich