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My Orbi RBR40 (FW v2.7.4.24) runs speed tests automatically too frequently
I've discovered that since my ISP increased the bandwidth of my plan, I'm running at -- and have exceeded once -- the data cap that they impose. After much digging and trudging, I see that my RBR40 i...
Excellent question and it has triggered a thought. Yes, it's that grafana. It's in a Home Assistant instance. It gets the data from the Traffic Meter feature of the router, which is coming from the Netgear integration with HomeAssistant. Your question made me think about that so I started digging through their docs. This bit is especially interesting, particularly the note of warning at the end of the paragraph. I know that I disabled the downlink and uplink entities long ago, but I don't remember doing anything with the ping entity. So, if that's still enabled in HA, then the integration is still running the full speed test every 2 hours. I may be taking an extended lunch break to head home and verify if any one of those 3 entities are still enabled and if so, I'll disable it and unblock access to speedtest.net. Assuming that 1) I don't see a spike in network traffic every two hours and 2) the last updated field in the Admin pages of the Router management remains unchanged, then I think we've found the culprit. It's also interesting to me that the HA integration might be updating the last run time value of the Speed Test results page in the router's management tool -- but if it's a true integration and invoking speed test as offered by the router, then it makes sense. If this is the issue, which won't surprise me at this point based on those docs, my frustration with lack of configuration flexibility persists, but will have moved from the Netgear product to this 3rd-party integration with the product. I'll share updates here hopefully later today when I get hands-on with it to check the state of the 3 named entities that would trigger the speed test.
your Netgear RBR40 router is automatically running speed tests at regular intervals, consuming a significant portion of your data cap. Unfortunately, if the router's administration pages don't offer a straightforward option to modify the frequency of these tests, you may need to explore alternative solutions:
Investigate whether there are any third-party firmware options available for your router model that provide more advanced configuration options. Some open-source firmware projects, such as DD-WRT or OpenWrt, offer additional features and customization options compared to stock firmware. Alternatively, you might find scripts or custom solutions developed by the community that address this issue.
Consider setting up a separate device or software on your network to monitor bandwidth usage and schedule speed tests at less frequent intervals. This approach would involve using a dedicated device or software to periodically perform speed tests, rather than relying on the router itself.
Explore whether your router or any connected devices offer built-in bandwidth monitoring and management features. Some routers allow you to set bandwidth limits or prioritize traffic for specific devices, which could help you manage your data usage more effectively.
If you're consistently exceeding your data cap due to the router's speed tests, consider reaching out to your ISP to discuss alternative options or upgrading your plan to accommodate the increased data usage.
In the meantime, if blocking access to speedtest.net is the only viable solution to mitigate data usage, you may need to temporarily implement this measure until a more permanent solution can be found. However, it's worth exploring other avenues first to see if there's a way to configure or manage the speed tests directly from the router's settings or through additional tools and resources.