M4R Deco or Hub 5?

Hi all,

I’ve recently moved from a 3-bed semi to a 2-bed bungalow (built in the 70s).

In my old house, I used a Deco M4R upstairs (where the Virgin cable came into the main bedroom) and another Deco downstairs in the living room. That setup gave me full bars of WiFi throughout the house and even in the garden.

In the new place, I decided to simplify things. I read that the Hub 5 has better WiFi performance (WiFi 6 vs WiFi 5 on the Deco M4), so I set the Hub 5 up as the main router rather than using modem mode with Deco. I also wanted to avoid using an extra switch if possible (Deco only has 2 ethernet ports). I’ll be connecting Hive and a Eufy Homebase etc.

However, I’ve noticed that the WiFi coverage isn’t great:

In the main bedroom (next door to the living room where the Hub is), I only get 2–3 bars.

In the kitchen and garden, it drops to 1 bar.

I tried running the Virgin Media Connect app, but it shows “fair” or “poor” in some rooms. When I click through to check eligibility, it says my service isn’t yet active and keeps looping between the app and the website.

My question: Should I add the Deco M4 back as an access point (maybe in the kitchen/back room) to improve coverage, or is there a better setup for a bungalow with the Hub 5? Or should I put the Hub 5 back into modem mode and use the pair of Decos again? Or is there a better pod I could get off Amazon?

Ideally I want signal across the entire footprint including the garden as I’ll have wireless CCTV Eufy cameras.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!