Vodafone Super WiFi booster second booster issue

[kelliott1]

I signed up to Pro broadband to make use of boosters as I have area of house with no WiFi coverage.

First booster added. All ok but still not providing full coverage.

Here I get a second booster and connected it to the first booster, was ok for few weeks but then the second booster started disconnecting, since this started it has been impossible to get stable connection from second booster. Reviewing the Super WiFi in the app I realise the second booster connects direct back to the router with an extremely weak connection rather than connect to the first booster as it should. Resetting, swapping boosters does nothing, adding booster does nothing. Seems impossible in the app to connect it back to first booster.

Called the apparent experts... After 2 hours, the expert just decided to send a new router.

New router installed, boosters reset and reconnected... 2 hours in and the second booster starts to disconnect and again it connects to the router directly.

It seems when this happens it is impossible to have the boosters connected to each other, they both just connect direct to the router..

Also booster 2 just shows greyed out in the app and not able to delete it..

So I'm left with booster 2 just disconnecting and causing my devices a poor connection.

Tried moving second booster around and no joy.

I'm at the conclusion:

1) Super WiFi may be ok with single booster but seriously flawed with a second booster, I've now switched it off

2) the super WiFi app is extremely basic, limited, slow and unable to delete old data

3) experts... Can't offer anything other than resetting the device...

4) once second booster drops connection impossible to get it back connected to first booster..

I'm at a loss....

[R1chy]

Hi, 

I had a similar issue with the Super Booster not connecting on the app. The tile would either not appear or would appear but wouldn't let me complete the wizard.

Using a different phone it worked without issue.

I managed to trace the issue down to Android's built in Ad-Guard, if you have this enabled you will need to either exempt the app from Ad-Guard filtering or specifically allow the URL's its trying to connect to.

Hope this helps someone in the future.

[Tiggerfan]

We have a similar issue here. The 2nd booster "prefers" a poor connection to router instead of a good connection to the first booster.  However unlike your situation  the 2nd booster is easily corrected by rebooting it.   It will stay like that for 12 hours or so.  I'm still playing with it cos its a new installation.   I did find that moving the second booster into a room actually improved reliability, a bit counter intuitive!

We have a similar problem with wireless devices. Many of them will swop from a good connection on a booster to a poor connection on the router. 

For info this is a large old house with solid brick walls everywhere and hardwood doors.  On balance we are starrting to see really good performance iin general so its worth persevering with moving bits around.

[kelliott1]

Good luck, same as mine, and the booster always seems to prefer a very poor connection back to router than the first booster.  Really poor system and it is flawed with this issue. 

[Tiggerfan]

More clues, it looks like a timing problem here.  I've just had some good advice to look at the router data via the good old web interface.

This reveals when the PPP was dropped last night. Its clear that this coincides with devices choosing bad connections.  My guess is that the router is recovering first, and then the boosters see that and both go for it.  Maybe there is a cunning way to make the second booster delay a few minutes so it sees the primary booster?

[kelliott1]

Good luck telling Xperts that and requesting them to make that feature update

[Tiggerfan]

A lash up would be to give that booster its own power cut every day at say 6am.  Simply plug into a conventional power clock timer.

[gtawebb]

I have the same issue with these boosters. It seems that there is nothing smart about them at all. I understood that I was going to receive a mesh network of up to three boosters. I received three boosters but they do not appear to work together and they frequently lose connection.

Booster 3 will frequently decide to connect to booster 1 instead of booster 2, even though booster 2 has a much stronger signal to it and we get much better speed test results when it connects to booster 2. The signal between booster 3 and 1 is very weak, yet the 'mesh' ends up connecting that way. Sometimes booster 2 connects to the router instead of booster 1, even though this results in a much weaker signal and practically no internet.

On top of this, any one of the boosters will decide to dropout any any random time and then not reconnect again. If this happens to be booster 1 then we lose them all.

What's very frustrating is that there appears to be no way to remotely reboot the boosters so that I can try and remotely force them to connect in the correct order.

If only Vodafone had focused on providing a quality mesh system instead on adding ridiculous Alexa functionality. If I want an Alexa smart speaker I can buy a dedicated one from Amazon pretty cheaply and it will give much better sound quality. I've disabled Alexa on my Vodafone booster as it interferes with my current Alexa speaker and it is totally unnecessary.

Vodafone, please replace the boosters with a mesh system that works. What you have provided is not fit for purpose.

[kelliott1]

You describe exactly my issue. They are simply the worst product I have ever tried to get working and I work with a lot of tech gear.

Bad product. Bad customer service

[kelliott1]

And forget trying to have anyone in Vodafone listen. They're not interested but will have you on the phone for hours

[R1chy]

I've now turned off my Super WiFi Booster.

1 - Built in Alexa. Why am I being force fed to have this crap in my home

2 - Drops out when on MS Teams calls, doesn't seem to be enough CPU on the device to cope with the 2 way streaming traffic.