I did the experiment with the globe in the fitting and again in an open uncovered lamp within a metre of the fittings and nearly the same height. It made a little difference to the signal strength, both were pretty crap.
OK, another experiment to try. I do have a 3rd device now, a wireless 4 gang switch but hopefully getting what I have reconnected is not difficult.
iPhone. I had a look at what alternatives there are but I don’t really know enough about networking to know what’s suitable or necessarily how to interpret what they are telling me. Some seem to just focus on internet speed, and none of them mention anything about channels or frequencies in use.
Yeah that’s the problem with iPhones, Apple never lets you access the underlying network info. Assuming it is zigbee, the powerpoint might improve things as you will start to get multiple paths to the coordinator. Definitely keep the Conbee on a USB extension cable. It is possible these bulbs aren’t great as I have some Belkin Wemo bulbs which are a little flakey (they don’t announce their state when they are turned on at the switch) compared to my Hue bulbs which are great.
Just been catching up on this tread and reading your situation…
Years back a IT techie told me he had placed his laptop on the table next to the Wifi router at a customers home - and been unable to detect the wifi signal. Wifi is a bitch to troubleshoot because the effect is very noticeable, but we can’t see the cause
Another customer commented that as an ex telecom technician he has cleaned the wires/connectors on all the phone sockets at his home, and found that wifi signal improved noticeably.
Given what you have said and shown about your house, and that the poor wifi reception is local to the outdoor area, I wonder if one or more of the outdoor power connectors might be generating electromagnetic interference. Could I suggest … being very very careful of safety, that you open each electrical socket and switch in turn and clean the wires and connectors. Possibly one (or more) is sufficiently corroded to cause sparking, but not not yet bad enough to stop the flow completely.
I also use a Wifi Analyzer app on my Android phone to give a image like this:
to show which wifi channels (not to be confused with zigbee channels which overlap but with different numbering) the phone can see, and relative strength of each. As you move around the house the graph changes in response to your moving toward some APs and away from others.
Hi guys. Just thought I’d let you know that I’ve purchased an arlec grid connect bulb from Bunnings today and have it working flawlessly with local tuya.
Thanks for the suggestion. I had all the outdoor GPOs replaced with new ones by my electrician last year.
Next week I have a network and cable guy coming (he does smart home installations so I figure he might have some clue) to install an extra ethernet cable or two and plan to ask him about what he might suggest for improving the network and also a switch.
When I had the Telstra tech visit a couple of months back he used a similar sort of analysis tool with his tablet. Walked all through the home and around it. He concluded I had no wifi issues, good signal everywhere but he could not explain why wifi devices would not remain reliably connected to the network.
He consulted all the techs, they made various changes to modem/router settings but nothing has really changed. Telstra logged the complaint case as closed. Meanwhile I have wifi extenders which are next to useless.
It’s part of the reason why I want to get a few key devices, especially my solar PV inverters and off-grid power system, connected with a wired connection. Inconsistency with connection drives me nuts and reliability with their operation matters.
All these smart electrical hardware devices are not much good to me otherwise.
The two Zigbee globes I put outside have been working these past couple of days, and the little battery powered switch is too. Wife likes it (that’s a win). So that’s a positive.
But I had this same experience before with the Tuya stuff. It worked for a while, sucked me in, and then one day anything outside decided to flip me the bird. Anyway, hoping the added items help with the Zigbee network’s resilience.
My rule of thumb is that you should run a wire wherever you can conveniently - wifi is for convenience where a cable isn’t feasible (such as using a laptop on the kitchen table). Definitely run Ethernet to those devices whose operation matters.
Grasping at straws - wifi is a bugger to troubleshoot - when the Telstra tech was using the analysis tool on his tablet, did you have all the electrical circuits outside powered on ? If one of the electrical connectors is sparking it will only be doing it while turned on, and could be any electrical connection (not just the ones with your wifi devices connected)
And getting a bit further off the topic … are your wifi extenders already connected to your main router by Ethernet cable or wifi ? If you’re going to run ethernet cables you might consider whether you can use the wifi extenders as Access Points with ethernet backhaul to the main router. This will allow you to position them further from the main router (increasing your wifi coverage area) and should improve the wifi speed.
This may not be the advice you want - ditch Telstra and their gear. overpriced and underperforming and very poor servicing.
My unifi network on the back of a Starlink service easily covers my large house of 3 seperate structures. I have a unifi ap in each room and an outdoor ap covering the courtyard/pool area.
I have over 30 different esp devices running on the 2.4 network and have nil issues with dropouts.
I did an experiment for a day where I ran a data cable along the floor to one of the extenders to see if it would help. It probably did but frankly my off-grid solar PV/battery monitoring and management system is more important, and despite the extender having the cable the wifi to the off-grid system was still flakey. So I swapped the cable to to that instead.
When the cable guy comes I talk with him about the options.
I’ve long wanted to get more cables in the house but held off due to planned renovations but with the near impossibility of getting builders, a project which should have started nearly 2 years ago is still looking “12 months” away. I have cables to the two outbuildings (second dwelling and my mancave and I am so glad I insisted on doing that).
It’s been an option to ditch the Telstra kit for a while. I’ve been pretty patient at seeing if things will improve but it seems not.
Fixed Wireless NBN here. It’s actually not too bad considering. We are not in a congested cell area. One thing which keeps me on the Telstra router is the automated 4G backup. NBN FW does have periods of downtime, usually related to some form of maintenance / upgrade by NBN. Having the 4G redundancy is helpful.
It’s something I’ll talk with the network cable guy about, see if he has suggestions on better wireless network gear and what switch I should use for the data cables.
While Telstra is bad enough, Starlink is too expensive for our needs.
Anyway, this is a bit OT. I’ll update later once I have some cabling in and also when I have more Zigbee devices operating.
Network reliability issues with ISP provided modems is due to the routing table overflowing on really cheap hardware. The best solution is to buy a real router (Netgear, Asus, Dlink etc). Place this router behind the ISP provided modem. Enable DHCP server and disable NAT routing and wifi on the ISP box. Then it no longer needs to use a routing table. Use 2.4 Ghz (I have disabled 5 GHz wifi)To expand your wifi reach, add up to another 2 WAPs (Wireless Access Points). Set them to use the same SSID and password ona all WAPs and use non-overlapping channels 1,6 and 11. My network has been bulletproof setup like this for well over 10 years. Fully wiring the house with ethernet back then has proved the best thing I’ve done
Any issues you have with this setup, Tim? I’m thinking of using the same parts as per your post but wasn’t sure about Wi-Fi (I prefer zigbee) and responsiveness?
@b3nn I have had no issues with responsiveness. I have two lights set up with this method and they have worked well for a few months now. My wife loves it as it always works regardless of if HA is running. like right now as my SSD has failed in my server…
I have a solid Unifi wireless network with about 3 APs covering the house on low/medium power. I have found this gives great results as turning your Wi-Fi power up doesn’t help with the low transmit power of the IoT devices trying to talk back to the AP.
I also prefer ZigBee but with the limited cheap options in the power control space in AU I have been using more Shelly/Wi-Fi for always powered on control.
In reality I have has more issues with my zigbee2mqtt network (about 70 devices, 25% routers, 75% battery sensors) than I do with my always on Wi-Fi devices. ZigBee works great until it isn’t, then I feel like I am troubleshooting half blind compared to Wi-Fi related connectivity issues.
My dream is that Shelly make a ZigBee version. Maybe keep two radios. Wi-Fi/Bluetooth for the highly configurable settings and ZigBee as an option for communications.
Thanks @tinglis1 for the detailed answer. I also have Unifi network as well and a fleet of the sonoff smart plugs. Maybe I’ll give the Shelly a whirl. My zigbee has been rock solid since replacing the coordinator with the new sonoff zigbee dongle but you’re right, I similarly never had any issues with wifi devices.
PS. What size SSD and form factor? I have a few SAMSUNG 250GB 2.5" SATA drive I’d be happy to donate if you can use.
@b3nn I was using deconz but am just completing the switch to zigbee2mqtt for better device compatibility (locks). Was using the conbee and now the sonoff zigbee stick.
My main issue with zigbee is if the network is having issues it is difficult to diagnose exactly what is going on.
On the ssd, it’s a Samsung 970 1tb. Already have a replacement. Not sure if it’s a hardware or file system (btrfs) issue. Th ask for the offer. I am building a collection of smaller ssds as well.
Thanks for the unhelpful assessment. Not sure what my employment status has to do with anything? Why the personal attack?
Sometimes it helps to get opinions/thoughts/suggestions from a different cohort.
In any case I have engaged a networking professional to assist with installation of a data cabinet to house all the gear, a network switch, extra ethernet outlets for devices and extenders. We will monitor the performance of our network and may ultimately upgrade to a Ubiquiti system for wifi.
Part of the reason I’ve persisted with the Telco’s own kit is their inbuilt 4G backup, which we need reasonably regularly because of NBN outages. e.g. ay before yesterday as there was a day long NBN outage but the seamless transition to 4G backup meant we were operating online just fine.
Yes, there are some other options for that but effectively they involve the same Telco’s network as it is the only viable mobile data network where we are.
I have since experimented a little more with things and having success with some things and less so with others. Sometimes I get frustrated as what is put forward as simple and reliable doesn’t always live up to the promise.
