Voice Preview Edition - substandard wifi?

Does wifi work well on your device(s)?

I’ve found that the Voice PE’s wifi performance seems to be below par.

I’ve got one sitting next to my desktop PC - which streams Spotify fine via wifi - but using Spotify via Music Assistant on the Voice PE in the same location stutters and then cuts out entirely, making it unusable for music playback.

I don’t know how to check signal strength on a device like the Voice PE but testing ping to the device from my Windows PC shows very high latency. On a typical run the average is 448ms (compared with 108ms on my Samsung Galaxy phone), sometimes over 2 seconds on a packet - with occasional packet loss, something I haven’t seen with any other device on our internal network. I know the Voice PE supports only 2.4GHz but it might help to clarify that the signal is strong enough in this location to receive 5GHz on my PC.

Could this be down to the Voice PE’s software rather than hardware? Is there anything I can adjust to improve things?

There is a big difference between a pc antennae and an esp32. I have it next to several other esp32 wled nodes. The voice pe signal is almost 10db lower.

Thanks @Mikefila. I suppose I’d have to have some skill in electronics (which I don’t) to consider attaching an external antenna to the grove port.

Idk if that is an option with the grove port, I’ve never looked into it. If it’s not an option there is a diy way to add an external antenna to an esp32.

It seems this is a hardware limitation but, sadly, I can’t see a simple external antenna with a grove port interface advertised on line. I think this would solve the problem.

As I said in another comment, I’m not an electronics expert (or a wizard with the soldering iron), otherwise I might risk trying a DIY solution.

It might be worth considering attacking the problem from the other direction and improving the WiFi strength at that location. A good repeater halfway between it and the router, or setting up a mesh network, or something. Just spitballing ideas.

Thanks @JonnyG. I already have a Mesh system and the satellite on the floor below gives me a good enough signal to get 5GHz (known for its shorter range) on my other devices. I realise that the Voice PE only supports 2.4, but had thought at that frequency the chip would perform better than it seems to.