What we can also try at some point (as i know the Tesltra units are meant to support it) is to wire the Telstra AP in here (it can temporarily hang off the back of the ASUS using one of the white ports) - the Telstra unit should then realise it has a wired connection back to the main telstra router and use that instead of WIFI
Craig
Yep, thereās probably going to be a long microwave session this evening for about 15-minutes, so that will be a good stress test.
Turns out the little switch has 5 ports, not 4, so there is still one spare. I could use that.
And itās not TP-Link, itās a D-Link:
I was always led to believe the Telstra extenders would only work if directly connector to the router and not via another switch. But Iāve never tried it. Will need to wait for wife to finish work so I can unplug it and take it outside.
Iāve now connected the Telstra extender into the D-Link switch outside and itās been recognised by the Telstra router:
Itās the Wi-Fi Booster 64.
Nothing connected to it as it usually takes some time for devices to cut over. Itās sitting on top of the battery housing for now, just a couple of feet from the IoTaWatt housing. The Asus is sitting inside the housing.
So I guess the question now is whether the IoTaWatt will receive better treatment from the Telstra network with a hardwired extender.
Probably wonāt test that until Thursday.
No issue with microwave interfering with the Wi-Fi now the Asus is outside.
Looking at that picture, your booster that is still connected wirelessly has pretty bad signal levels back to the base. I suspect that the one you hard wired had equally or worse and was likely part of the problem.
Since it is working okay with the hardwired router/AP, I suspect it will be just fine with the Telstra extender.
If the Iotawatt is in a metal cabinet, that is likely part of the problem. A grounded metal cabinet doesnāt do good things for wireless connectivity.
There are two boosters, one covering each end of the house. The one I connected to the switch is at the bottom of the picture and is showing a direct wired connection. That is the one near the IoTaWatt.
I note it has since established a Wi-Fi connection with my Fronius inverter (even though the Fronius is connected and communicating via ethernet cable).
Itās mounted inside a Hager plastic 12 slot electrical circuit breaker housing, although the IoTaWatt is mounted to a metal DIN rail inside the housing and the housing itself is mounted to brick wall.
Above that is the main circuit board, which is a large grounded metal box. All the CTs and VTs are in there.
Next update:
The ASUS router access point has been working fine.
So now that I have the Telstra Wi-Fi network extender connected via ethernet, and placed outside just near the IoTaWatt, I disconnected the IoTaWatt Wi-Fi using the IoTaWatt status page menu. It then required a power cycle of the IoTaWatt as the LED just went to continuous red. Once the IoTaWatt AP was back I tried to reconnect with the Telstra Wi-Fi network.
A connection with the Telstra Wi-Fi network could not be made. Itās not a signal strength issue. There is just something about the Telstra network preventing it from working with the IoTaWatt. I have zero idea why.
The log says nothing. Itās just says with Connecting with WiFiManager. and nothing after that. Tried a few times but no dice. I just canāt get it to connect.
So I reconnected with the ASUS router and it established connection no problem.
So for now Iāll be getting a small AP extender to replace the loaner ASUS router. Longer term, not sure but there is something weird about my Telstra network.
Once again a big thank you to Craig for his generous support and assistance.
Its a strange one what the Telstra Mesh is doing and as such i would be reluctant to recommend any mesh system to replace @wattmatters existing units.
We know there is something in his walls that is dramatically affecting the ability of the wireless to penetrate so unless he could get both extenders hard wired (or replacement units) with backhaul ethernet i am not confident that the problem will be solved.
I am just about to upgrade/replace my home TP-Link M5 mesh to the newer (and much more expensive AX3000) mesh from TP-link - once i do this i will ship my old kit up to @Watts and let him trial that - but first we will need a solution to his WAN failover system (that comes as an included freebie with his Telstra setup)
Craig
