How important is it to have a wifi connection?

Apologies if this has been asked before (I searched, and did not find) - our system's wifi connection was lost last month and nothing I do seems to be capable of bringing it back. Life being too short to keep trying, I contacted the installer who kindly offered to put it right for £120 plus vat, which I am certainly not going to take him up on. I don't want to spend my time on the dashboard, all I want is a system that I can leave to look after itself, so my question is, can I just leave it to its own devices? Will it get on with the job without the wifi connection?

internet connection is a requirement for the warranty, whether this is WiFi or wired. So it needs sorting out.

What inverter do you have as later models have a wired option which is more reliable if that's an option. Otherwise you'd need to find out why it can't connect and remedy it, which may mean having to get a WiFi extender

Cdent Thanks very much for that! Eventually I decided that throwing £15 on an extender could save a lot of heartache, and it worked. I'm mystified that it worked fine for months before falling over for no apparent reason, and I am still astonished that anyone built something so complicated to operate, and so inherently unreliable. But it's sorted, and I can get back to work!

Petergroves81 glad it worked. The kit isn't great, I woke this morning to find that for some reason all my imports since 23:30 have been from the grid, with the battery doing naff all and staying at 77%. Eco mode only on, nothing else and nothing in the registers to suggest a change. It's been fine for the past few months, why all of a sudden it decides to do this I've no idea!

Petergroves81 Probably a new WIFI network appeared in the neighbourhood which was interfering with the WIFI channel used by the GE WIFI dongle. The GE dongle is very old tech and is 2.4GHz WIFI only and can't use channels 12 and 13. The 2.4GHz band is very crowded these days. Lots of interference.

I had the same problem and the only solution was to get a WIFI extender which used the 5GHz WIFI band to connect to my main router and provided a 2.4GHz WIFI access point right next to the GE WIFI dongle. Been solid as a rock since.

For me 2.4GHz is the only thing that works reliable in my house because 5GHz won't got through internal walls. It comes in through the windows from my neighbours stronger and interferes. I used to turn off 5GHz but now I have a Google mesh system I can't, so I have to have an extra point just for my TV that I also can't disable 5GHz on. I wish it was always optional.

nophead

Mesh networks are always a kludge. Use wired access points to get WiFi where you need it...

I have 45 Ethernet switch ports as well for things like 3D printers. In general the Google mesh system works very well as most of my Wifi devices are 2.4GHz only. I only get problems with devices that I can't force to 2.4GHz. I live in a large detached house so interference on 2.4GHz from neighbours isn't a problem because the local signal is much stronger. 5GHz is only strong in the same room as the Wifi hubs so next door's signal can be stronger.

nophead Yeah. 5GHz doesn't go through walls like 2.4GHz does. It can be a bit of a lottery. Crowded 2.4GHz or not so crowded 5GHz. If you want reliabile connection, wired is the way. Also, GE WIFI dongle doesn't like MESH. 🙁

alan_johnston Also, GE WIFI dongle doesn't like MESH

I have my Gen 1 inverters connected fine to my Mercusys AX3000 Mesh network.

However:

• you have to turn the 5GHz network off when the inverters first connect otherwise they just won't connect. Once an initial connection to the 2.4GHz network is made by the inverter you can turn the 5GHz back on and its fine after that
• have to turn 'fast roaming' off on the mesh network. If its on, even locking the inverter to the nearest mesh node, the inverter drops the connection within about a minute or so. With fast roaming off its solid and stable for me
• 'Beamforming' seems to be OK whether on or off

I have my Gen3 inverter on a Google Wifi mesh, only a few meters from the Wifi point though and it is totally reliable.

Also it isn't possible to disable 5GHz on Google Wifi but it doesn't stop 2.4GHz devices connecting. Since 2.4GHz devices cannot see 5GHz signals it must be a router bug in some routers that don't let them connect with the 5GHz on.

My old Gen1 inverter wifi dongle isn't happy with MESH. It can connect and get an IP address and can TX but return data doesn't get back to the dongle. 🙁

nophead Its not a bug.

Basically a lot of mesh systems have a feature called "Band Preference" or similar and the first thing it does is disassociate 2.4GHz clients in the hope they reconnect on 5GHz. 802.11k/r/v are relevant here but older clients like the GE dongle don't have any support for that.

So what you tend to find (I'm talking WLANs with hundreds/thousands of clients) is that a small proportion of older clients won't reconnect when this happens until they come in range of another AP on the same SSID. They simply sulk until something changes.

Oh and the simple de-auth at the start is vital for areas where clients first appear (think entrance to concert/shops/etc) as they will all pretty much try to latch onto the 2.4GHz radios due to range. Kicking them from the WLAN on first connection will shift a fair few onto 5GHz where at least there's bandwidth and frequency separation to play with. The same technique is present on quite a lot of consumer mesh systems and is rarely exposed to the end-user so you can't turn it off when appropriate.

Surely the mesh system should ask the client if it supports 5GHz and if it doesn't doesn't even understand the request or says no it should assume it only supports 2.4GHz. Whatever Google does it just works on all my 2.4GHz devices. . Most of my devices are ESP32 or ESP8266 or RPIs that don't support 5GHz and will never be upgraded because it doesn't work anyway in my house.

nophead That's where 802.11k/r/v comes in. Older/cheaper clients don't support it.

So the router should know they don't support it and not drop the 2.4GHz connection. Changes should always be backwards compatible.

nophead So the router is supposed to know (magically, one assumes) the capabilities of every client ever made.

Stop digging your hole is my advice.

No it simply can sent one of the messages from the new protocol and if it doesn't get the correct response it knows the client doesn't implement it. My Google mesh works with all my old devices, so it must be possible.