This article was rewritten and updated on 9th April 2017.
BT is a popular Internet service provider in the UK. BT subscribers receive a free router called the “BT Home Hub“. A new model of Home Hub is launched every few years, and as BT never takes the old ones back, many people have an old Hub tucked away somewhere, gathering dust.
This post explains how to convert an old BT Home Hub 5.0 or Home Hub 4.0 into a second wireless access point (“AP”) on your network, strengthening and extending the wireless signal around your home or office. Although the details are for those routers, the basic procedure works for other BT and perhaps non-BT routers. In particular, notes have been included for the BT Home Hub 3.0 and the now ancient Home Hub 1.0 – these are indented and written in italics. Many users have also had success in reusing Home Hub models 2.0 and 6.0 (BT’s latest router, also known as the Smart Hub).
Summary
In summary, this procedure comprises resetting the old Home Hub to factory defaults, then logging into the Hub using the default IP address and password, disabling DHCP, and giving the Hub a suitable new IP address. And finally, running an ethernet cable between the old Home Hub and your managing router.
Note: During test, my local network was managed by a Netgear router. But the managing router is not part of this procedure. You are not required to access or modify it in any way, except when running a cable at the end of the process. Only the Hub being re-purposed is changed.
Procedure
Start with the Home Hub not connected to anything except its power supply.
Hit the Reset Button
Power on the Home Hub 5.0 (or 4.0). Locate the recessed “Reset” button on the rear, towards the right hand side. Using a paper clip or similar, hold down the Reset button 20 seconds or so.
The light on the front of the hub will go green. After about 20 seconds it will begin to blink, then turn solid blue for 15 seconds, then flashing amber for 15 seconds, before settling to solid amber. A few seconds later, the “b” will start to blink red. The Hub will remain in this condition. Proceed as follows.
Home Hub 3.0 users:
The Hub will reset (the power light will glow dimly amber, then flash, then the “Wireless” LED will light up blue, then both LEDS will settle to blue).
Home Hub 1.0 users: Press the “Wireless” button on the back of the Home Hub 1 and hold it down for 15 seconds. You will then hear a click and the Hub’s green LEDs will all illuminate. Wait a couple of minutes for the Hub to reset and reboot.
Resetting the Home Hub to factory defaults will clear out old settings that might otherwise prevent this procedure from working. For example, it will deactivate the “BT Fon” feature, also known as “BT Wi-Fi”. If left active, BT Fon would prevent DHCP from being disabled. Also, if you have forgotten the admin password for the old Home Hub, the reset will get around that.
Instructions for resetting other BT routers can be found here.
Connect your PC Directly to the Hub
De-activate wireless on your PC. If it is connected to your home/office network with a physical network cable, disconnect it now. The PC needs to be completely isolated from your network.
Connect a spare Ethernet cable from your PC directly to the Home Hub. Use any of the Hub’s Ethernet ports (they are coloured yellow).
Your PC should then receive an IP address from the Home Hub, via DHCP. (If you are curious to know, this address will probably be 192.168.1.64).
Reset the Admin Password
Start a browser on your PC and surf to the Hub default IP http://192.168.1.254.
You should see the Hub’s main home page. Click on “Advanced Settings”. The Settings page appears, with a message beginning “To prevent unauthorised access to your Hub’s settings, BT Hub Manager is password protected…“. Enter the default Admin password as directed. It can be found on the Hub’s white (detachable) panel, labelled “Admin Password for Hub Manager”. Note that the it is case sensitive. Click the OK button.
Home Hub 3.0 users:
You should see the Hub’s “Please Reset your Password” page. Enter the admin password located on the pull-out tab of the Home Hub 3.0, as directed. It is not case sensitive. Also enter a new admin password where indicated, and enter it again to confirm. You can also enter a hint, but it is not required. Finally, click the “Change Password and open Hub Manager” button. You will be presented with the Hub’s home page.
Home Hub 1 users: Instead of the admin password, you must enter the serial number found on the back of the Hub, as directed by the web page. Also enter a new password, and again to confirm. Then click the “Change Password and open Hub Manager” button. The home page opens. Now proceed to the next Home Hub 1 section below.
Note: Some Firefox users have reported seeing JavaScript errors at this point – switching to the Chrome browser fixed it for Ed Iglehart, see his coment below.
Note: A couple of people have complained of not being able to surf to the hub at all. If this happens to you, try what Josh suggested in his comment below. That is, “go to File Explorer, then on the left it will say network, open that. If the hub is connected by Ethernet then it will show up with something like “BT Hub”. Click on that.”
Reconfigure Wireless Settings
Now Click “A-Z” at the very top right. Then click W -> Wireless Security – 2.4 Ghz.
Under “2.4 GHz Wireless Configuration”, make sure that Security is set to “WPA2 Only (Recommended)”. By default, it should be already. Under “Wireless key (WPA2)”, delete the default key and enter one of your own, and remember it. This is the password that clients will use to connect to the wireless network. Leave all other options as the default.
Click the Apply button at the bottom of the page. The page will reload and you should see a “Changes applied” message at the very bottom, confirming the new settings.
Note that by default, the key you have just set also applies for the Hub’s 5 Ghz wireless network.
Home Hub 3.0 users:
Under Wireless Configuration, make sure “WPA & WPA2 (Recommended)” is selected. By default, it should be already. Enter a Wireless key. This is the password that will be required for clients to connect. Click the Apply button at the bottom of the page. The page will reload and you should see a “Changes applied” message at the very bottom, confirming the new settings
HH1 users: On the Hub home page, select from the menu on the left: Advanced -> Continue to Advanced -> (enter “admin” and the password just created) -> Wireless -> Security. Select the “Use WPA PSK Encryption” radio button. Enter a wireless password (called a “key”) just below that. And change the “WPA-PSK Version” drop-down to “WPA+WPA2“. Then click “Apply”. Then jump straight to the next Home Hub 1 section below, where DHCP is deactivated and a new IP address allocated.
Allocate New Hub IP Address
The Hub IP address needs to be changed now. By default it is set to 192.168.1.254, and this would almost certainly clash with your managing router. What’s needed is a new IP address compatible with your home network, and which is not already in use by something else.
Click “A-Z” at the very top right. Then click D -> DHCP Settings. Under “Hub IP Gateway Address”, enter a new IP address for the hub. It should be in the same network, but outside the DHCP ranges of the router managing your network. For example, if your network is controlled by another BT Home Hub (eg. model 1,2,3,4 or 5), those routers by default allocate DHCP addresses in the range 192.168.1.64 to 192.168.1.253. You would therefore choose a new IP address outside of that range. I would recommend 192.168.1.63, but you could also use 192.168.1.62, (or 61, or 60, …).
After you have entered the new IP address for the Hub, click the “Apply” button and answer “Yes” to the “Are you sure?” question. You will then see an error message about the page failing to load, or it will not load properly. Don’t worry, this is expected because you just changed the Hub’s IP address.
In your PC’s browser, surf to the new IP address of the Hub, ie. the address you have just chosen. For example, http://192.168.1.63. The Hub’s home page should load again, proving that the new IP address works.
Deactivate DHCP
Now click “A-Z” at the very top right. Then select D -> DHCP Settings. again. Enter the admin password if asked. Under “DHCP Server“, set the “Enable:” radio button to “No“.
Click “Apply” and then answer “Yes” on the “Are you sure?” page. After a few moments, the page reloads. You should see a message at the very bottom: “Changes applied”. Proceed to the next section for connecting your Hub to the wired network.
Home Hub 1 users: From the left hand menu, select “IP Addresses“. On the page that appears, uncheck the “Use DHCP Server” tick box. Below that, under “IP addresses“, you should see these addresses:
10.0.0.138/24 172.16.1.254/24 192.168.1.254/24
Click “Edit” next to the address that matches the rest of your network. For example if your other network devices are addressed like 192.168.1.something, choose 192.168.1.254. Enter a new IP address for the Hub. Following the same background notes as for the Hume Hub 3 above, your new address should most likely be 192.168.1.63. Therefore, change “192.168.1.254” to “192.168.1.63” and then click the “Apply” button. The page will then fail to load properly. Don’t worry, this is expected because you just changed the Hub’s IP address. In your PC’s browser, surf to the new IP address of the Hub, ie. the address you have just chosen. For example, http://192.168.1.63. The Hub’s home page should load again, proving that the new IP address works.
Connect the Hub to your Wired Network
Now remove the spare Ethernet cable from your PC and the Hub.
Connect the Home Hub to your local network You can do this by using a long Ethernet cable. Plug one end into any of the Hub’s yellow Ethernet ports. Plug the other end into a vacant port on your managing router. Now the Hub 5.0 is part of your home network. And client devices connecting wirelessly to it will be able to access the rest of your network and to the Internet, using your general Internet connection.
Alternatively, if your Hub 3 is a long way from your managing router, and you don’t want to trail a cable, you could use a pair of power line connectors – one connected to the Home Hub, the other to your managing router. Once the connectors are paired up, the effect will be the same as if you had used an Ethernet cable.
Test your New Wireless Access Point
Activate wireless on your PC and check the list of available Wi-Fi access points. You should see the new Home Hub AP, which will be recognizable from its SSID.
Connect to the new AP. You will be prompted for the wireless key chosen above. Enter the key and your PC will connect wirelessly to the Home Hub. Try to connect from other devices too, perhaps a smartphone or tablet. In each case, you will need to enter the wireless password.
Flashing Lights on the Hub
At the end of this procedure, users of Hub models 4.0 and 5.0 will notice that the Hub light is now permanently amber and the broadband LED, shaped like a “b”, blinks red. Unfortunately there is no way to stop this, except to acquire some black insulation tape and use it to block the lights.
NB There is an option to dim the hub lights, which helps somewhat. Log in to your re-purposed Hub and go to A-Z – H – “Hub Lights, change brighness“. Enter the admin password if asked. Then select “Brightness: Low” and click Apply. The message “Changes applied” appears and the hub lights immediately dim.
Conclusion
If all has gone to plan, you now have your second AP up and running. Wireless users in your home/office can connect to whichever AP has the strongest signal in their location.
Set a Different 5GHz SSID (Optional)
The BT home Hub (models 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0) is dual band, meaning it comes with an extra wireless channel on 5 Ghz. Modern wireless clients (circa 2015 onwards) can connect at the higher frequency and obtain a clearer, faster, less congested signal. Meanwhile, older devices will continue to connect using the slower channel
By default, the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz channels use the same SSID (same name). I like to give them different names, so that they stand out in the list of APs when your client device (phone, tablet) does a wireless scan. If you want to give your 5GHz channel a special name, proceed as follows.
Surf to the IP address of your re-purposed Hub and login. At the top right, click A-Z and then W and Wireless Security – 5 Ghz.
The Wireless SSID will be set to something like “BTHub5-XYZ3”. Edit the field and add “-5Ghz”, for example “BTHub5-XYZ3-5Ghz”. Click the Apply button. The page will reload and you should see the familiar “Changes applied” message at the very bottom.
Your 5GHz network is now renamed and you should see “BTHub5-XYZ3-5Ghz” among the list of devices found when your phone/tablet/laptop does a wireless scan (but only on devices which are 5 Ghz enabled, likely to be those purchased from 2016 onwards).
A Note on SSIDs
Some readers have asked if it is worth setting the SSID of the new wireless access point to be the same as another existing SSID, for example the one on your main wireless AP, provided by your main wireless router. It is allowable to have both the same, but I would not personally recommend it. If the names are the same, it is difficult to know which AP your device is connecting to.
On the other hand, with different SSID names, you can see both in the list of APs on your client device (eg tablet), making it easy to choose whichever you prefer. Also, most devices will connect to the strongest signal by default. If you roam out of range of one, your smartphone, say, should pick up on the other automatically, if it is stronger/closer.
Or you can force it by disconnecting, then letting your phone/tablet reconnect to whichever is the nearer and stronger AP.
Some Background on DHCP
If you have followed the above procedure, wireless clients will be able to connect to your new AP. They are allocated an IP address by the DHCP server running on your main/managing router. There is no DHCP server on the re-purporsed Hub. It was deactivated as part of the procedure).
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Neil Pellinacci for the basic process. I just added the factory reset bits after encountering an inability to disable DHCP due to BT Fon settings.
Followed your guide and worked a treat using pfsense etc. However, the hh4 that I am using restarts every so often. I believe this is because it isn’t recognising a connection. I cannot find anything on the internet that fixes this. Is there any way to turn this off?
Hi Sophie. It is strange that the HH4 does occasional restarts. Perhaps your HH4 has some kind of issue. Unfortunately I can’t suggest anything, unless you have another HH4 to try in its place.
Did you ever find a resolution to this? I’m getting the exact same problem!
All works fine however…Slave hub keeps resetting constantly?? So I lose the wireless for a minute or so then back on for about 15mins then repeats? Any ideas?
Hmm. Slave hub shouldn’t be resetting. What kind of router is your slave, Michael, Eg. Home Hub 4, Home Hub 5 ?
Did you ever find a resolution to this? I’m getting the exact same problem!
If I can configure my old hub like this explains could I then take the hub to my partners address so I can use it like a hotspot to get a good connection there as the nearest hotspot is not a reliable connection or is there a way I can use my details to connect via somebody else’s homehub ?
Hi George, in theory yes, that should work. You should be able to take your re-purposed hub to your partener’s home, connect it to their main hub (via a cable or powerline connector), and obtain the second wireless access point, just as in your own home. There is a very small possibility that your hub’s IP address might clash with something on their network, for example their hub. But if that happens, you can always change the IP address of your hub again.
On your second question, no, there is no way of using your details to connect to somebody else’s hub.
Hi,
Thank you for that very useful guide. Following the instructions and the defaults for a HH3 has worked really well and has enabled me to extend my poor Sky E115 router and provide additional Ethernet ports (Sky’s only comes with two!!)
One problem I hope you can help with? I now need to access the BT HH3 to change some access control and wireless settings but cannot seem to access the HH admin screens. Can you advise?
Using win 10, Ethernet connection into HH, have tried 192.168.1.63 and the IP address that it was allocated by SKY router (192.168.0.4) original default HH IP address (that I assume no longer applies). Indications are no network acess and browsing to those addresses just time out.
Any pointers would be great!
Hi Alltoo. You have followed the above procedure and got a second access point running successfully. You now want to change some control and access settings on the re-purposed hub. As you have not said which settings you want to change, or why, it is difficult to advise. However there should be no problem in accessing the hub, and I do not know why you are getting a timeout. The .63 address should work if that was the address you chose when following the procedure. Are you sure the IP address is right ?
Thanks Jim, I just wondered if I was trying to connect incorrectly -though I could not see how.
To update, I am trying to change the HH3 wireless settings -password and timed access disable for WiFi. I also wish to see which devices have been connected ( I suspect an unauthorised one has been courtesy of grandson giving out the p/word!!)
For ease of use I used the article’s advised new setting for the repurposed HH3 192.168.1.63 (which I then recorded separately so it should correct).
Will give it another try later today with reboots and also allowing longer to do up connections before attempting to get into the HH3 router’s home page. Failing that it,s maybe another reset and run through from scratch- with the changed wireless settings.
Disable the Smart Setup on the ‘new’ repeater, this will prevent anything connecting to it from getting the web page stating there is a ‘problem’ with the broadband connection.
Hi Dubz, Smart Setup is on HH4, HH5 only. Allytoo is using a Home Hub 3, which does not have Smart Setup.
Well not exactly sure what I have done to allow connection to the HH3 but after a hub reset AND being disconnected from the main broadband hub I can now get access to hub management pages.
Did note my HH3 default IP address was not 192.168.1.254 but 192.168.0.254 but even that did not work prior to the above actions.
However all is well now and with the HH3 IP address being outside the range for allocation of the SKY hub, no need to change it.
One last question: is it possible somehow to access the HH3 management pages whilst still connected to the main SKY hub? Sky hub allocates the HH3 via DCHP as 192.168.0.4 but neither that not the default HH3 addresses above connect. I thought saving a copy of the bt hub setup might be useful!
Dubz, thanks for adding that suggestion, but I am not aware of a’ smart set up’ for my hub so if you can clarify please?
Hi Allytoo. My examples in the article use the IP network 192.168.1.xxx, because that is the default for BT Hubs. If your Sky hub (and other devices on your network) use 192.168.0.xxx, then you should also pick an address for the HH3 that starts 192.168.0.
You say the main Sky hub has allocated a DHCP address to the HH3. However, I don’t see how this can be so. A DHCP address is allocated only after a client asks for it, and the HH3 will never ask. It does not operate as a DHCP client, and I don’t think it even has the software to do so. It isn’t capable of receiving a DHCP address.
I think Sky hubs, by default, have a DHCP range covering the whole network, eg. 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254. It would be best to go into your Sky hub setup pages and shrink this range, so leave room for static addresses. This will prevent your Sky hub accidentally allocating the same address you have chosen for the HH3 to another device on the network (such as somebody’s smartphone). It is a remote possibility, but best avoided. There are many web pages explaining hot to shrink the Sky hub’s DHCP range. Eg you could change it to 192.168.0.64 to 192.168.0.254, which will leave your HH3’s address (192.168.0.63) outside the range.
And yes, if things are correctly setup, you should be able to surf straight to your HH3’s setup pages without difficulty, from anywhere on the network, wired or wireless.
Hi
We’ve recently got Virgin broadband and I’m trying this method to use our old BT router as an access point to reach a room that has patchy WiFi access. I’ve got all the way to the end of the process and the homehub 5 is producing a signal but none of my devices can connect to it?
Is this a compatibility issue with Virgin? I reset the access password to be the same as the main virgin router – could that be the problem?
Thanks
Matt
PS. I also used the same IP address to change to as recommended in the article – could this also be an issue with a master virgin router?
Hi Matt. You say none of your devices can connect to the re-purposed Home Hub 5. In what way are they unable to connect ? Do they not see the HH5 as a wireless access point? Does the login fail? Is the password being rejected ? What error message is produced?
Hi,
Thanks for a very helpful article : I managed to set up an old BT Hub 3.0 without any problem, connected to a Sagemcom router.
However, when I click on Network in Explorer, all I see is BT Homehub 3.0 Media Gateway (under Other Devices), which keeps disappearing & reappearing. I have an USB hard drive connected to the BTHH 3.0, which does not appear at all.
Any ideas about what the problem might be?
Hi Ian. You have followed the procedure and successfully set up a BT Home Hub 3 as a wireless access point. As I understand it, you also want to connect a hard drive to the HH3 and have it shared around the network. I have just tried the same thing, using a Home Hub 3 and a 32 GB memory stick, and it seems to work fine. Other devices on my network can access files on the memory stick without a problem. I am not sure why you cannot access the drive from Windows (I use Linux). On your Home Hub 3 management page, is the hard drive shown under “My Home Network”, where it says “USB:” ?
Hi,
Great article & responses.
I used this idea after reading your article.
I just connected an old bt homehub 2 via a powerline
Connector using an ethernet cable into yellow socket 1.
Gave the hub a reset with a pin.
Hub came hack up & worked straight off with no settings
altered.
Wi-fi worked using bt hubs password.
Also connect to a desktop pc using another cable into
Yellow socket 2.
Cheers Mark, glad it worked for you.
Hello,
So I have followed all the steps from this tutorial and it worked just fine apart from a little problem.
The router keeps checking connections from time to time and it results in a drop on the internet connection.
Is this supposed to happen?
Cumps
Artur
Hi Artur, pardon the long delay in replying. No, that shouldn’t happen. I am not sure what equipment you are using, or what is meant by “The router keeps checking connections from time to time”. Could you provide more detail?
Hi Jim
Sadly I only found your piece after struggling through a number of other inferior efforts! Anyway, thanks for the time you’ve spent on it. I have a HH4 now running ok as a WAP. Its connected to the main Genexis modem/router through powerline adapters with both routers using the same SSIDs (I note not your preferred approach).
The only issue is that the HH4 keeps rebooting itself every 30 minutes or so, with obvious loss of wireless until it completes. During my pre-instalation research I saw reference to this on another blog that I now can’t re-find, but no solution was offered, so its not just me! Do you know if there is a setting I’ve missed?
Thanks…./Peter
Hi Peter, pardon the long delay in replying. The HH4 should not be rebooting itself every half an hour or so. That must be quite annoying. I would guess it is a fault with the HH4.
A similar issue was reported by Sophie, in her comment above. If possible, try another spare hub. Many people have had success with the HH4. Sorry I can’t provide an easier solution. Hope you get it working smoothly.
Did you ever find a resolution to this? I’m getting the exact same problem!
Hello Jim
Great post thank you.
Just hooked.up my hh 5. The main home hub 6 is downstairs, I have data points over the house it’s a new house so don’t know which ones are live!! There all in a patch panel it’s a bit of a mess..not numbered unfortunately…. If I can see the ssid of the hh5, does this mean it is connected to the network? All my devices can see it but can’t connect??
Hi there,
This was an excellent guide and I thought everything was working fine but sadly I cant connect.
I went through all the steps and all my devices can now see that the wireless network of the old device has changed as it now needs a new password – so I assume that is working, however when I connect to it, it gives the message “Failed to obtain IP address”.
One thing I struggled with was finding an IP address out of the range of the pool as the IP pool was 192.168.1.2 to 198.168.1.254.
Any ideas?
Forget it – this was a problem with my powerline. I didnt have it plugged into a wall – doing this rather than an extension cable worked now.
Thanks again – fantastically helpful article.
Cheers Dave, and thanks for coming back on that.
Hello.
Thanks for the instructions. I’ve followed them carefully but fall down at the last step when trying to connect via wireless to the BT HH. I have a BT HH5 that I’m trying to use to broadcast wifi. We have Virgin Broadband. I’ve given the BTHH5 the IP address 192.168.1.60. but this may not be compatible with the Virgin router which has IP address 192.168.0.1. I did give the BTHH5 the IP address 192.168.0.12 but when I did this I kept getting a message that the IP address could not be found. Any suggestions as to where I’m going wrong? Thanks.
Hi Matt. The IP address you give the HH5 needs to be in the same subnet as your main router. In your case, the Virgin router is on 192.168.0.1. Therefore, the HH5 address should be like “192.168.0.”. Choose the number so that, if possible, it is outside of the DHCP range of the Virgin router. You can check what that range is by logging into the Virgin router. Unfortunately I don’t own a Virgin router so can’t give more detailed instructions. Hope you get it working.
This is an absolutely brilliant guide – thank you so much!
Cheers Ben.
I’ve managed to utilise a spare HH4 and ran a Cat6 cable from our new VM Router. I’ve done the same thing you listed apart from the changing the IP address. Everything seems fine however I’m only getting 100Mb speeds on the 5Ghz Wifi. I’ve used the Lan 4 (Gigabit) port and my downloads max out at 10MB/s.
It’s a shame that it limits the speed somehow
Hi Phil, it is difficult your understand your configuration, especially as the whole procedure has not been followed.. 10MB/s (megabytes per second) is very good for an Internet download speed, equivalent to over 80 Mb/s (megabits per second). To get a gigabit connection, the port on your main router to which the HH4 is connected will have to be gigabit also. Is that the case ? Other that that, it is difficult to say what might be limiting wireless speeds in your house, as they can be influenced by so many things. Make sure there are no large metal objects near the HH4.
Hi Jim will try this again,
I have managed to get the BT HH3 connected but only with the no security option. I try to install it with wap option it keeps coming back stating wrong password for this hub.
Hi Peter. After resetting the hub to factory defaults, make only those changes listed in the article. It should not be necessary to use “WAP”, which will probably not work in any case. The above procedure explains that the hub passwords and wireless passwords are reset, so passwords should not be a problem.
Hi Jim I followed the changes as mentioned in the article and i left WPA & WPA2 (Recommended) as it was and entered a password. But upon trying to connect to the hub it kept coming up saying wrong password for this hub. If i take all security off I can connect OK but this leaves my access open to anyone!
Hi Peter, something is not right. As I understand it, you are using a Home Hub 3 for the new wireless access point. According to the procedure, you reset the HH3 to factory defaults, then enter the admin password printed on the HH3 plastic tab. Have you done that? At which part of the procedure are you getting the “wrong password for this hub” message ?
Hi, I really don’t know what I’m doing wrt networking. But this worked a treat linking my hh5 to a spare hh3 which will now serve a garden office. At first speed was slow 3mb from a 70mb main router speed. But turn everything off and on again and speeds are 40mb on the hh3 – and that’s through 75 metres of external Ethernet cable. Thank you thank you thank you for simplifying this process (there’s far more confusing guides out there)
Good stuff Dean. Just curious: what sort of “external” cable are you using for the connection?
Hi, i have two bt hub 5s i have the slave setup in top room via ethernet cable. I have a firebox run from slave which works perfect via cable. My problem is the wireless from slave it drops after maybe ten mins then reconnects? Have followed all the steps. What channel should i leave both wifis on ? The same? Both smart channel? Different? Is this the problem do you think? Thanks for any help.
Hi Gav. Your wireless on the slave hub drops after 10 minutes or so, then reconnects. I can’t think why that should be. Does the wired connection go down at the same time or is it just wireless?
Try putting your wireless device very close to the slave hub (within 10 feet or so) and see if it still drops the connection. Apart from that, check the usual things: that there are no metal objects close to the slave that might be interrupting te signal.
Regarding channels, the HH5 is designed to select an alternative channel automatically if the current channel is too congested, so I wouldn’t try changing channel numbers, just leave it on automatic.
Saved me buying a new router. There are several other guides for this, but this was the most straightforward. Usually I read guides…. right the way up to the point they assume knowledge of a critical step, then bin it off. This is well written, very pleased, thank you.
Cheers Mysteriomonkie, glad it worked.
Hi Jim, I’m a bit late here but a) want to thank you for the article/procedure to set up the “slave” and b) ask for advice re a strange “problem”. I have recently moved home and signed up with EE receiving a Bright Box in the process and the previous occupiers had left a BT Hub 5 in situ as they moved. In the house there is an area where no wifi signal reached and so was really pleased when I found your guidance which even as a ham fisted, quickly ageing, non-techie I was able to follow to set up the BT Hub as a slave. However, I do have an issue which from as far as I could see no-one else has yet identified. In short, the slave when connected to the master directly by ethernet or via powerlines will broadcast a wifi signal for anything from a few minutes to several hours before re-starting itself and requiring me to forget the previous network and login a-fresh. Have you come across this before or could it that I did not follow your steps as closely as I like to think? I have re-done the procedure 3 times to try to cover any omissions on my part but am ending up with the same result. Any thoughts/advice would be really welcome.
Hi David. I think one or two people have mentioned this issue in connection with the HH5. That is, it periodically resets itself. You shouldn’t have to forget the old network and login again, though. Your laptop, smartphone or whatever should remember the password and reconnect automatically as soon as the wireless network becomes available again.
Regarding the HH5 resets, I am not sure of the cause, but suspect it is a problem with the HH5 (or some HH5s at least, my own HH5 is fine). Perhaps that is why the previous occupents did not take it with them?
Worked perfectly on a plusnet router which I had 2 of. Great work
Cheers James, nice to hear it worked on Plusnet.
thanks a lot for the guide.
have successfully extended wifi into kitchen blackspot using a redundant HH3.
Followed the instructions and it was all and up running in a few minutes.
cheers
Julian
meant to say it’s connected to a Sky router (whose wifi output is not as good as BT’s homehub)
That’s good to hear Julian. Especially the bit about the Sky router (I haven’t tested with one of those). Cheers and Happy Christmas.
Thanks for posting this post Jim, it worked a treat and I managed to add a HH5 AP to my existing HH5 via 30M cat5 cable to my garden man cave.
However I’m in the process of switching isp to Vodafone, Will it work from my new VF connect router ? Any help much appreciated
Johnunofficial
Hi Johnunofficial, that’s good. It should work fine with Vodafone. See this comment from Bob, another Vodafone customer. If it doesn’t work straightaway when you switch to Vodaphone, just do the procedure again with your re-purposed Hone Hub 5.
Jim, thanks for posting such an informative article with a clarity that so many forum posts lack. I followed your instructions step by step and bingo, my Hub3 is working beautifully and I have extend my wireless connections.
Cheers Alastair, that’s good news.
Hi, I am soon going to reconfigure my Bt Hub to use it as an access point. I just wondered whether I’d be then able to use a Ethernet port to wire a computer into it? Or when it is configured as an access point, do the output ports become disabled? Thanks
yes, on a HH I used the other ports for ethernet, works fine
Hi Ben, as Johan says, the other ports remain enabled and should be fine to use.
HH interfaces a bit different to described, but if you find the same settings it all works like a dream – thanks
Hi, many thanks for the guide.
Just a quick tip on a problem I found. I have just switched from BT to Sky and wanted to use my old HH5 as a wireless access point.
Everything was fine until trying to allocate the HH5 a new IP address. Because the sky routers use 192.168.0.xxx instead of 192.168.1.xxx as the BT hubs do, the HH5 would not accept an IP in the 192.168.0.xxx range and kept throwing errors. To resolve this I had to uncheck the DHCP server button first before it would then accept a change to the new IP address range.
Once done when the HH5 was connected directly to my Mac I couldn’t access it but once disconnected and attached to the sky router via ethernet it was fine. It’s now working in one of the kids bedrooms successfully as a wireless access point.
Hopefully this will help others in a similar situation.
Many thanks once again 🙂
Hi Chris, thanks for leaving this good information for Sky customers. It sounds like the Home Hub can be migrated to the alternative network scheme (as used by the Sky router) by first switching off DHCP, then setting the IP address. Cheers, Jim.
I have a BT HH6 and a spare BT HH5 that I’m trying to set up as a wireless repeater via an Ethernet cable from the HH6 to a switch box and then to an Ethernet socket at the other end of the house. I have followed your instructions as far as I can, resetting the HH5 and then connecting it to my laptop (WiFi disabled) with an Ethernet cable, I get stuck partway. Despite going back to square 1 several times whenever I try to reset the default IP address from 192.168.1.254 it seems to be accepted and I get a screen refresh followed by an error message (because the IP address has changed) but then when I try to reconnect using the new IP address (eg 192.168.1.60), no matter which browser I use, after a few seconds searching the browser bar search seems to want to revert to the default IP address of the hub (192.168.1.254) which I’ve changed of course in the HH5 itself so it can no longer find the hub anyway). Do you have any idea why the browsers in my laptop just keeps defaulting to the old IP address? (Its WiFi is switched off and its connect direct to the HH5 by Ethernet cable).
Thanks in advance for your help
Just a follow up to my question above. I have now tried this with three different computers and the HH5. If I clear the browser history it doesn’t try to revert to 254 but neither is the browser able to find 60 (or 61. 62, 63).
Into try again I have to reset the HH5 to the 254 default and start over – but it still doesn’t work. I’ve checked your instructions and followed them carefully (but not sure if there is something I’ve missed for a HH5)
Any ideas welcome!
Hi David. From your two comments, is seems the remaining problem is that you cannot connect to the HH5 (on its new IP address) after changing the IP address. I am not sure why this would be. There is no network involved other than the cable from your PC to the HH5. When you say “neither is the browser able to find 60 (or 61. 62, 63)”, what exact error message are you seeing in the browser?
Jim
Hi there
Excellent article. Thank you. However, I’ve had exactly this problem, with an inability to connect to the HH5 by Ethernet cable after changing the IP address to 192.168.1.63, despite typing that address into the browser. However, I had already turned off DHCP and reasoned that at least the address wasn’t 192.168.1.254 (because the browser wouldn’t connect to that either) and just connected it by Ethernet to the Smart Hub (HH6). It seems to work with the HH6 reporting it as having an address of 192.168.1.63. It is also possible to connect to the internet via the HH5, so thank you again.
Hi Tony, I can’t quite follow everything you have done, but glad it is working now. Cheers,Jim.
Hi
Many thanks for this now have HH4 connected to my Virgin Hub3 and all working well but… when connecting my iPad to the virgin hub WiFi I get just over 100 mbps but when connecting to the HH5 only get between 10 and 25 do you have any suggestions please
Thanks
Hi Geoff. Are you sure about those speeds ? How were they measured ? The reason I ask is that the 100 mb/s you are seeing with the Virgin hub is an extraordinarily fast speed for wireless (as fast as non-gigabit wired networks, in fact), and it is greater than most Internet connections too (although not the Virgin Superfast Fibre).
However, you should certainly be able to get more than 10 to 25 mb/s from the HH4, perhaps up to 50 mb/s or so. It might be down to the wireless “climate” around your home hub. If there are large pieces of metal near the HH4, remove them. Try moving around, and/or connecting over the HH4’s 5G network. Try changing the HH4 channel number to one that receives less interference. Cheers, Jim.
Jim thanks for this. I used 2 old powerlines which i think I got from BT anyway. Great job. Much better that using a repeater in my case.
Glad it worked Col. Using power lines is a good solution. I am still relying on the “badly concealed cable” method.
I’ve tried absolutely everything to the letter, my first attempt worked no problem, (hh3)
6 months later I had a new hh3 box and did everything the same, changes all the settings again but nothing, can’t connect by Ethernet or Wi-fi, driving me insane!
Hi Lee. I am not sure why it would work on one HH3 but not another. I have carried out the procedure on a HH3 and it worked fine, and many users on this form have reported the same. The only thing I can suggest is that your second HH3 has a problem of some kind. Perhaps another HH3 (ie a third unit) ? Jim.
Hi Jim
Thanks so much for the guide, really worked great.
I’m having a similar issue to some of those above though in that the BT hub keeps restarting itself every 10 minutes or so.
I’m assuming this is because it doesn’t think it’s working properly. I’ve looked through the management hub but can’t seem to see an option to turn off this functionality. Any ideas of what I could try?
I was thinking of maybe plugging the Cat5 from the main router into the Hub5’s red WAN port instead as maybe this will make it think it is getting a signal? Or would this not work?
I was also thinking it may be a software version issue. i.e. The software version I’ve got is telling it to do the restart. Do you know a way I can go back to an older version or even a newer one? Can’t seem to see a version update option in the mgmt. hub.
Thanks so much for your time!
Matt
Hi Matt. HH4 resets appear to be a known issue. I did a quick Google on “home hub 4 restarts”, and it seems other people have experienced the same problem, with many proposed solutions. For example, you can call 08001114567 and request a replacement unit. Regarding the WAN port, I wouldn’t use this. It is not designed for LAN connections and will likely just confuse matters.
Cheers, Jim.
Hi. I followed your instructions using a EE smartbox as the box connected directly to the internet and a HH5 as the access point.
Not sure if anyone else has had this issue but every minute or so the blinking B stops and the box restarts cutting off the wifi.
Anyone got a workaround?
Hi Peter. You have a central Router from EE and you are using a HH5 as the wireless extender, but the HH5 keeps restarting. I am not sure what the cause might be. My own HH5 does not behave in this way. All I can suggest is that you locate another spare HH5 (or other home hub) and try that instead. You might have a friend with a spare, or they go for £20 or less on Ebay. Cheers, Jim.
Hi just a note for your information
As someone who keeps my routers updated, I have use my old hubs 2 & 3 A’s extenders. But now I have a hub 6 and super fast fibre the older hubs keep freezing out and had to keep rebooting them. I have been told by a Bt engineer it’s the broadband is the problem the old hubs (2&3) where never designed to work on the super fast and can’t cope with it.
His advice was “convert the hub4 and bin the 2&3 “
Hi Tom
I am not sure why the older hubs keep freezing. If they are only being used as wireless extenders (using the above procedure), then they are not connected to your super fast broadband, and that can’t be the issue. They are connected only to your home wirelass LAN. I use a HH3 and a HH5 as wireless extenders without a problem.
Cheers,
Jim.
Thank you for the easy walk through.
Thanks Simon.
I have set up a hh3 as per you instructions to be both an AP and to provide extra ports. Working a treat for many a month now thank you.
Can you tell me though, without having to revert to original settings for hh3, how I can access it fir admin purposes ( I want to change wifi password). Currently pc is connected to it via ethernet and android tablet via wifi. Main router has been the poor sky one but is now srandard basic EE router and the hh3 does not appear in the devices listed.
TIA
Oh camcel that question please. I have found the hh3 on 192.168.1.254…….
Silly me!
Hi Ally. Yes, your HH3 will still be available on whatever address was assigned to it. You can login and change the password or other admin settings.
Cheers,
Jim.
Excellent article, worked perfect for me.
Thanks mate
Hi Jim,
Thank you for this, it’s truly excellent and worked brilliantly for a year. The last 2 days however, it has refused to connect to the internet and I can’t work out for the life of me why it’s the case.
Even when connected to the network, I can’t open the Admin settings, and have to do a full reset to be able to.
Cheers,
Steven
Hi Steven. Mine is still working fine (using a Home Hub 5). I can’t say why your setup has stopped working. You should certainly be able to get the Hub admin page by just surfing to the correct IP address. Has something changed in your environment ? Are wireless devices able to connect properly to your master router ? If you’ve not tried already, restart the Home Hub.
Just followed this wth HH4, seemed to go ok, got orange lights flashing at end and lists in available options on iPad, connects but no speed or won’t download anything. Shows full strength on wireless symbol on iPad, tried speed test but nothing. Any ideas?
Hi Nikki. It sounds as of the procedure worked correctly. You can see the new access point from your iPad, and connect to it. But you can’t download anything. Try another device, such as a mobile phone or laptop. Will they work okay, or behave the same as your iPad? Cheers, Jim.
Thank you ever so much, I now can use a piece of redundant gear that was going to the bin. Clear & precise. Works brilliant. Rewarding to reuse. Thank you.
Glad the procedure worked well for you, GGeorge. Cheers, Jim.
Hi, and thanks Jim and Neil for this.
I wonder if I’ve bricked my HH 4, however. All went well, factory reset, etc. until under “Allocate New Hub IP Address” I changed the IP address of the hub to: 192.168.0.200. I chose this because the intended network router is a Sky hub allocating addresses in the range 192.168.0.1 – 254.
Now using a Mac connected to (and only to) the HH4, I get a 403 – access forbidden when I type this address. I tried using a fresh browser. (The Mac’s allocated address from the HH4 is still 192.168.1.81). Factory resets don’t seem to affect the IP address.
Do you know any way I can get into to the hub now?
Thanks if you pick this up. 🙂
Hi Geoffrey. I don’t think it is possible to “brick” your HH4 using the procedure in the article. As I understand it, your main router is a Sky hub and the device you are re-purposing as an extra AP is a BT Home Hub 4 (HH4). It is difficult to tell what the problem might be without more information.
You have picked an IP address for the HH4 of 192.168.0.200, which, although it is inside the Sky’s DHCP range, is unlikely to clash with another device, which seems reasonable. My recommendation would be to start the whole procedure again from the vert start. Cheers, Jim.
Thanks so much for replying.
I am unable to access the HH4 setup pages now. Even after a reset, its allocated address remains 192.168.0.200. So I can’t get in to turn off its DHCP allocation.
I will try connecting it and the Mac to a sky router and see if I can get in that way.
Thanks
OK, maybe not a brick. But very unresponsive! When I start the procedure again, I get as far as
>Reset the Admin Password
>Start a browser on your PC and surf to the Hub default IP http://192.168.1.254.>
However, this no longer brings me to the homepage. (The ethernet connection information shows the router address as 192.168.0.200 -which is what I set it to the first time following these instructions). If I try to go to 192.168.0.200 I get a 403 – Access Forbidden.
Any thoughts?
Hi Geoffrey. After changing the IP address of your HH4, you cannot immediately reconnect because the hub’s new address (192.168.0.200) is on a different subnet to your PC/Macbook, because you have (sensibly) chosen an IP address on the same subnet as your Sky router. In order to access the admin pages of the HH4 and complete the procedure, please use another device on your main network. Eg Reboot your Macbook and connect it to the main Sky network as usual, over wireless, or with a cable to the Sky router. Then you should be able to surf to the HH4 on its .200 address and finish the procedure, starting at the point “Deactivate DHCP”.
Let us know if it works!
Jim.
That did work. Eventually. I found that the new assigned address for the HH4 (192.168.0.200) is very ‘sticky’ – seems to survive a number of resets – before eventually the unit reverts to its factory assigned home address.
That did work. Eventually. I found that the new assigned address for the HH4 (192.168.0.200) is very ‘sticky’ – seems to survive a number of resets – before eventually the unit reverts to its factory assigned home address.
And starting again with your process, again I found an ‘access forbidden’ at first after re-assigning the home address for it.
But it is working, and accessible, so thanks again.
That’s good news Geoffrey. The assigned IP address should survive reboots of the Hub, but not resets (factory resets). Cheers.
Hi there, great article. I am using BT Business Hub 5 and my router is Sky 192.168.0.x
When I set the BT Business Hub to an IP address of the form 192.168.0.2 I am unable to connect to it using the address. It’s as though the IP address has been changed but I am not able to connect to it. Any ideas?
Thanks
Dave
Hi Dave W, what happens when you try to connect to the hub? White screen? Error message ?
This works a treat! Put it in our living room as our superhub 3 barely reaches there. We did it on powerline with the Home Hub 3.
Fantastic!
Cheers Max. Good to know you got it working with a Virgin Media Superhub.
Jim.
So useful, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to male use of my old hub.
Brilliant.
Thanks
Nick
Great stuff Nick.
Many thanks, worked perfectly. 🙂
Glad to hear it Dominic.
Great article thank you. I have a HH6 and I connected a HH3 as a secondary to it as you described and it worked perfectly. I then got hold of a HH6 and replaced the HH3 with it. I struggled a bit to follow your procedures as some of the menus are different but I basically did everything you said you need to do. The secondary HH6 finds the home WiFi ok and devices like my PC and iPhone connect up to it fine but it takes about 15 minutes after connection for it to actually give the devices broadband connection (the WiFi symbol shows straight away but no broadband for ages). I’ve also tried to connect some wireless smart light switches to the new HH6 and while it connects ok they never get through to the broadband and therefore don’t work. Any thoughts on this? Many thanks.
Hi Simon. You have a HH6 as a main router, and you are using another HH6 as the wireless access point. Devices are connecting to the second HH6 okay but not receiving Internet access. I am not sure why this should be, nor why it sometimes works but with a 15 minute delay. These kinds of things can be sometimes be caused by incorrect IP configuration. What IP address are you using for the second HH6 ? Make sure it clashes with nothing else on the network. And what is the IP address of the main router ?
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