Just got a first Shelly device, a PM Mini Gen 3. Found out about the range extender feature.
Does this allow a smartphone to use the Shelly AP for extended WiFi range? Or is this just for other Shelly devices? If so, how come it allows network access to other Shelly but not any other device?
The extender feature is for Wi-Fi, that means it will extend the Wi-Fi coverage.
Here’s Shelby own description of the feature.
" * Wi-Fi Range extender for IoT devices: A Wi-Fi extender is employed to expand the reach of your Wi-Fi network by receiving your current Wi-Fi signal, enhancing its strength, and then transmitting the enhanced signal over a wider area."
Yeah, I was able to try and it works perfect. Shame we can’t change the SSID, but still it’s a great thing to have.
I was just looking into this feature, I’m a bit confused. From your quoted explanation, I would guess that the wifi to which the “extender” shelly is connected will be copied to the AP and can be accessed just like on the original network, thus extending the wifi range.
But then the AP has it’s own SSID, so that would be a different network than the original, so extending the network with another network.
I’d like to keep everything I have for smart home on a private network, but then it would help if the range extenders just “extend” the same SSID to reach further. Also having the range-extender functionality in a different menu item then the AP configuration is weird. And it says there that if you disable the AP, range extending will also be turned off (I admit that this makes sense).
When I connect to the AP of the extender (different SSID) I get an ip address in the 192.168.33 range, so a different IP network than the “uplink” IP range. The shelly works as a NAT device, so it’s not a range extender in the literal sense, I think. Unless it does both (and I’m having trouble confirming this), so besides the AP SSID, it could also extend the wifi range of the uplink SSID network? But it seems unlikely to do this.
To come to the point, can you connect a shelly or any device to the AP of the range extender and have it “work” in home assistant on the uplink network of the range extender?
NB, my home network has the home assistant as a router/NAT between the normal home network and the “smart-home” network, so the extended AP has double NAT to get to the outside internet (if I let it). I know this is a bit convoluted, but I don’t want the smart devices to be able to snoop or access my normal home network (except DNS) and also no internet access, unless I’m updating the firmware, for which I open up the NAT router for that device and close it again.
It def uses a different SSID, but you can change it (I think) so it uses your same network SSID, so your devices switch seamlessly.
I don’t think it’s the best practice though. I’ve learned that the network it creates has low bandwidth, and at least for me it’s not reliable for normal phone use (what I was doing).
It probably is enough for things like ESPHome devices, but not sure.
Basically it creates a subnet, and shares internet connection to it as well AFAIK. Prob not what you’re looking for.
I’m not an expert though.
I figure that if I name the SSID of the AP of the extender the same as the uplink SSID, but it has a different range (and no layer 2 link) than the uplink network, devices might get confused if they can sometimes reach one and sometimes another…
So I think the use of this is limited at best.
Perhaps what I want is a mesh network functionality?
No, they shouldn’t get confused. I’m no expert, but I know that works for range extenders, and it’s the best way so that clients can choose the best AP.
The point is that it makes it invisible (or hard to see) for you. And that’s annoying, because you might notice a drop in speed and don’t initially know why.