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Forum Discussion
Is the 'connected devices' view in the app broken?
Hello,
I have a 3 story home, ground floor my RBR870 is placed and the other 2 floor both have an RBS, the network map shows how the devices are connected.
What is not logical:
RBR (ground floor) is connected to first floor iPad
RBS1 (1st floor) is connected to 2nd floor Energy socket wifi device
RBS2 (2nd floor) is connected to ground floor front door doorbell
In all of the above cases there is a Orbi device much closer and should have a much stronger signal strength. Especially the doorbell where the connecting to the ground floor RBR would be expected. If not the RBR then connecting to the 1st floor Orbi would be a so much more logical option then the 2nd floor Orbi.
Question is here, is the devices view broken in the app or is something more principal broken where devices do not connect to the strongest/closest Orbi device and therefor have slower connections?
If it is the second, that would be a serious flaw in the working of the Orbi Mesh system.
network configuration
6 Replies
I have a 970 and have not noticed this behavior, although I will say the device list can be wonky at times, plus it has a lag of reporting the correct info - but no more than a minute or two. But at other times, I have seen it say WiFi-connected devices are wired, and I have seen connections reported to the wrong Orbi - like you are seeing. Often times for me, a reboot fixes this.
That said - the path of wireless signals can be deceiving. To be sure, have you tried using an app to actually see what the signal strength, in dBm, is from each Orbi device near your doorbell and socket (which I presume are stationary!)?
If you have a Mac, I use the free app from the App store WiFi Explorer Lite - it's excellent and simple to use. You will see real time what the signals are, just walk your Mac over near the doorbell and wait a minute. If you only have Windows PCs, I am sure there are free apps that do the same thing - you need to see dBm.
Unfortunately, using an iPad or iPhone won't work - Apple restricts that wireless data from the network to be gathered by apps, it appears.
If the dBm measurements are close, since there is variation in the signal strength over time (you can see some fluctuation watching WiFi Explorer Lite), that when the doorbell made its decision to connect, that Orbi was the strongest device; later on, another device had a slightly stringer signal, but not strong enough to switch. If you think about it, there needs to be some number of dBm improvement required for a device to switch (5 dBm? we don't know) - otherwise, with normal fluctuations a device would be ping-ponging between devices all day.
Now, if any of your devices are connected say at 2.4GHz to a further-away Orbi, and there is a 5GHz connection from a closer Orbi, that's much more of a concern.
What FW version are you on? A new FW update just came out in the last 2 weeks for the 870, 10.5.17.3.
I saw I had an update this morning, now remotely updating the devices.
The release notes would be nice to see if there are any fixes in that area.
Crasje I thought you would enjoy this, I found it in one of my bug reports on the device list. Everything on my network was wired and attached to the router! So while I gave you some things to dig in to if you are so inclined, my advice would be not to worry about it if the network is otherwise running well - connections solid, speeds good, etc.
I have learned not to trust the device report if something there is odd or in conflict with other data, objective or subjective, I perceive about my network!
I am going to see what connects to what when I restart the strangely connected devices. See if they then still connect to the wrong device.
I now have a 2.4hgz electricity socket thing (i can remotely control) on the second floor in my home office that is connected to the ground floor router.
No wonder the linkrate was 1mbps this morning and 43 mbps now. Anything else on the same floor has at least 500-700mbps (I have a 1 GB i-net connection)
