I have had a sense for almost 3 years. During that time it was configured to “attach” to a WiFi network based on a Ubuiqiti Amplifi HD network with 4 mesh points. One of those is in my office and the sense is in the panel, outside the house right behind the wall on the opposite side of the office, approximately 12 ft from the AP.
All this worked without problems. Then my Amplifi HD started having problems. Research shows these units are starting to die, Ubiquiti does not really support them anymore, so… decided to buy a new setup. Settledd on TP-Link Deco X75 Pro.
I made the switch by seting up the deco under a new SSID name and then disconnected the Amplifi, and renamed the Deco to the old SSID/pw combination. This seemed to work (as expected). All me devices now just connected to the Deco system.
Three hours later got notified Sense was offline. I went to investigate and tried to reconnect to this new mesh point (in the same location as the Amplifi was before). During setup the connectivity test failed, many times, with different errors. Sometimes communication with sense broke down (I was standing outside, right next to it), sometimes it complained it could not ping the gateway (ridiculous: this works from any other system connected to WiFi), and occasionally it complained it “might” work but speed was too low. In those cases I chose “ignore” and went ahead. Many times the unit would go offline again. It was late at night, dark, so I decided to investigate more during the day.
During the day I removed the sense from the panel (leaving connections intact). I noticed that sense was not always finding all networks (perhaps it has a limited size list, and it gets filled first come first serve?). It would also indicate a so-so signal strength in the icon. Figuring it might have something to do with the antenna, I removed that from the panel too. No change. I then disconnected the antenna… no change. That alone leads me to believe the antenna connection is broken.
All that aside, I was able to get to the “might not be fast enough; ignore” point. I also configured ny Mesh, for the sense device specifically, to not allow it to roam, to only offer 2.4 band, to not advertise mesh features etc. It now seems to stay connected, most of the time. If I run a ping command to it, it frequently does not respond, or if it does, round trip times are several seconds?!?! Network wise there should be minimal delay, so I conclude the unit itself is too busy doing things, so I am not taking that too seriously (although I think it should not happen).
So my question is whether anybody else has been experiencing these kinds of problems, and whether or not TP-Link Deco is implicated (I did try to connect to an old Apple WiFi station that I am trying to phase out, and that worked without problem). Secondly, what’s up with these various connectivity test failures which seem nonsensical? James?
I can’t give you much help as my connection has always been rock solid through both Apple and Ubiquiti APs using a 2.4G only SSID. As for the WiFi test - it has seemed useful to me, though the speed part of testing has always been a little mysterious.
dolfs…2-3 years ago I update my WiFi to Netgear mesh. Found that my Carrier thermostat was not compatable with mesh. Had to get a new thermostat. Not cheap. Just under a grand. Can’t remember what I did with Sense. Still running my DSL from the phone company. It my be running under it. I pick my battles…Hi… Later…Gerry
I have the exact same problem, however it started with my Netgear Orbi RBK850. Since it was a WIFI 6 mesh system, I changed to te Deco BE95 Wifi 7 and never was able to reconnect to my Sense again. Everything that happened to you happened to me as well. I followed all troubleshooting instructions, created a separate 2.4Ghz network, removed the WPA protection, connected and isconnected the devices a hundred of times, etc but keep receiving the same (or different?) connectivity test failures. Could be some incompatibility with the new WIFI 7 system that needs a firmware update?
Although I am still having the problem I found a significant improvement (less frequent problem), after I used Deco’s
“Optimize Network” feature to select the most interference free channels. If you haven’t done so yet, I suggest that.
It is important to recognize that a WiFi 6, 6E or 7 mesh system really makes no difference. All those systems also support the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band (all earlier WiFi versions).
The more I read, the more I seem to find information that perhaps the Deco IOT network feature is buggy, and posibly even there whole mesh implementation. It seems that things like phones are not very sensitive to that, as they have very complete network stack software. IOT devices are often equiped with cheaper antennas and questionable quality networking software, possibly only tested on non-mesh WiFi systems. It is also leading me to the conclusion that switching to another brand of mesh may not improve the situation.
I have always been a big fan of the Ubiquiti line of WiFi products, in particular since they also support VLANs, but these are all requiring wired access points (PoE) and I cannot easily get wires in place. If I could I would have already implemented that. Even that, though, shares similarities with mesh solutions in that it allows seamless roaming, which may be part of the problem (because they are all wired, it is essentially all ethernet backhaul though).
Since I don’t really have an option, I continue to experiment. I am also concerned though that attaching the antenna, or not, seems to make no difference in the signal quality that sense perceives…
I think you’re hitting a real issue. Many of the newer “WiFi6/WiFi7” systems do a poor job maintaining compatibility with “legacy mode” 2.4GHz devices. I think it is informative that you didn’t see these issue with older Amplifi and Apple networks (I’m guessing you were running Apple in “mesh” or wireless bridge mode as well ?).
As for the antenna - I suspect that the main purpose of the attached antenna with Sense is get the receiver outside of the breaker box “faraday cage”. If you have the cover off your box, you could see similar signal level. Wavelength for 2.4GHz signal is 12.5cm, so a wire run of 6cm inside the Sense unit would act as half dipole antenna.
I have about 40 2.4 only devices. None of them are having a problem, except sense. So am I hitting a real issue? Yes, I think I am, but not in the way you are indicating…
The older Amplifi system was a 2.4/5 mesh system and had no problems. The Apple device was a singular device, so no mesh.
I had the problems both with the unit in the fully closed panel (but antenna sticking outside of course), as well as when I pulled it to hang outside. I tried both situations with the antenna connected, as well as disconnected. There was no appreciable difference in the signal strength indications Sense presented for the various networks. Also, the sense strength indications did not seem to correspond well with reality. I did a WiFi survey around my whole house and in the location of the panel, the WiFi network in question has good signal strength. My mesh also reports that the sense unit is connected with “strong” signal strength (whatever that means exactly as they don’t give numbers).
Has anybody’s Sense just stopped connecting altogether after December 18th, 2024? Currently running firmware 1.51.97-Ofb253fc-release. I wonder if this new update bricked my device or if the wifi/bluetooth module just failed.
It’s been working solidly for 6 months and now all of a sudden it’s absolutely toast. After power cycling the breaker, the unit powers on and i do see the blue and green lights flash for an instance on the antenna port and then nothing… i also see the unit is powered up since the solid amber light by the power port stays on. I can’t even connect via bluetooth to reconfigure the network settings. There’s been a few instances it connects successfully for 10-11 minutes and it’s fully operational but then it goes offline again. I have a ticket escalated with support but thought i would ask this forum as well. And also, my access point log tells me the connection on wifi is established but after 2 hours, it’s only exchanged 48kb/64kb up/down which seems very low. Anybody having trouble like me?
Welcome to the community, @yusuf.hasan . You are on the right track with going through support for the issue you describe. Many businesses are short-handed at the end of December as people celebrate holidays, so please be patient while they help you identify the problem.
yusuf.hasan… My just drops out from time to time. I get an email saying it is off line. If it remains off, I then go and turn the power breaker off for it and leave it off for 10-15 seconds and then turn it back on. Most of the time it is back on line. Hope this helps… Later…Gerry
Thanks that’s helpful Gerry. My device would do that before. It was on a 31 day online streak till dec 18th. Now it’s permanently down. I’ve been able to revive it twice for 15-20 mins/attempt. As of this post, it’s off my wifi completely as per my access point logs. Anyway i am within my 1 year warranty period and support asked me to send them my invoice. Looking forward to a potential replacement.