I have two sense units. Each is in a 200 AMP breaker panel. The IOS apps (one on iPhone, one on iPad) occasionally the connection to the sense unit. Sometimes I can reconnect easily. Usually I have to go to the basement, near the units, to reconnect. Sometimes I have to take the cover off the Circuit Breaker Panel to get the IOS app to find the sense unit. Is this because the app gets confused by having two sense units? Does anyone else have this problem? It’s a real pain to have to take the panel cover off to get a connection.
Hmmm…this sounds like a good question for the support team to take a look at. Have you opened a ticket with them yet? If not, just send them a quick note through https://sense.com/contact
Sorry for the troubles!
I have just 1 sense unit installed. I dread having to reconnect it to the internet. Most often I have to do the same, stand by my box and try to reconnect but for me it takes hours or even over overnight before I can reconnect. Like I said I dread it so bad I do not make any adjustments to my Wi-Fi extender I installed just for Sense to have a larger signal to connect to.
I am not being critical but I am an IT guy and when I hear the words WiFi extender I immediately assume the worst. Add an additional access point is always the best bet. I bet it is more of a wireless issue than a Sense issue. I could be wrong but “knock on wood” mine has been solid.
If you’re trying to connect to the device to configure it you’re using bluetooth, not wifi. The documentation sucks in this regard, and I needed to use three different devices before I was able to connect to it. Thankfully I haven’t had to do that since the initial install.
Gotcha, I misunderstood the issue. If the bluetooth connectivity is hit and miss that seems strange. Maybe that is a firmware fixable thing? Hopefully it settles in and gets more consistent.
Ya, I am not a fan of extenders either but when wap is not posable you do what you got to do. My extender also gives direct access to my outback cams, sprinklers, weather stations and a second nas. I did note losing Sense from my network is happening less and less time to get it back online. I am very happy with what Sense is able to do.
To the OP’s issue:
As pointed out by LinkRunner, initial config is via bluetooth direct to the Sense unit. If you have two of them close by, it is possible that your phone isn’t sure which Sense to say hello to when trying for a direct connection for initial configuration.
But once configured, it should rely on WiFi and then the Sense talks to “the cloud” and your phone/app talks to the cloud.
If your app is losing connection to the Sense after config its either a network connectivity issue with your phone to the internet (unlikely) or a issue for the Sense to the the internet.
Did you use the antenna extender to get the antennas outside of your panels? If not, I would certainly try starting there.
If they are out as others have mentioned, getting a stronger signal to your Sense(s) will probably make a big difference.
Going a bit off topic but to expand a bit on what @kyle and @rjgroves mentioned about extenders and additional AP’s.
Randy is of course correct that running an ethernet line is not always possible.
I would recommend people look at powerline “extenders” that offer integrated wireless.
Along the lines of something like - TL-WPA8630 KIT | Powerline AC Wi-Fi Kit | TP-Link
But I would never recommend using the Wifi Clone feature. Always create a separate network name. Unless you are using a controller of some kind, having multiple AP’s broadcasting the same network name usually ends with problems.
Over simplifying, but most extenders work by essentially taking the available bandwidth they can get from the AP they associate with and then chopping it in half. Then depending on how many stations associate with the main AP and the extended AP, your signal performance goes down even more. Most extenders don’t have any good airtime fairness algorithms built in.
The issue I run into more often than not with extenders is people saying “but my device shows great signal. I have full bars”. It may have a “great signal” to the extender, but how is the signal from the Extender to the AP its “extending” the signal from.
If you can get any stats from your main AP and your Extender, I wonder what it shows as TX/RX rates between extender to AP and then extender to Sense. Knowing that the Sense is particular about is connection to the internet, if it is getting a low data rates to the extender, it may be causing some of the issues. Especially with the number of devices you are saying connect to that extender. I’m assuming its single radio, 2.4Ghz. I would bet money that the sprinklers or weather station may have an cheaper Wifi card in it that only supports 802.11g data rates, so it takes down the performance of everything else on the extender.
Anyway, that was a really long way of saying “hey, if you are considering an extender, consider powerline”. You can still run into some of the same issues, but power line has come a long way. Range extenders, not as much.
I think you have to be careful with the different types of extenders.
The ones that simply repeat or re-broadcast the signal have varying levels of usefulness.
The better units are stand alone WAPs.
I have had great success with the Actiontec MOCA WIFI extenders.
I have re-wired my house for cat5/6 so using the existing coax for 200Mb FD connections really helps.
I have one in each floor. The latter models even to 802.11ac. You can also re-use an old Actiontec router as a WAP.
(FYI, this even works if you just have cable, not fios. You will need two devices, one to bridge the ethernet network to the coax/moca network and the other for the WAP)