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Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

SaturnV
Tutor

Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

I had a WNDR 4700 router with several Powerline AV500 repeaters. I have a large house with several NEST Thermostats and a HP 8600 printer. Have almost 20+ devices hooked to the Internet. There is a very strong signal by all the devices.I had severe problems with losing connectivity to NEST Thermostats and the HP printer, ie the Thermostats and the Printer would show that they are connected to the Internet and have a valid IP address. However looking at Router Connected devices via Genie, the device would not show up, and device was not acessible from the Internet or the Local Network. The problem would be fixed by power cycling the Client Device OFF and then ON, thereby the client device would get a fresh IP address. Apparently the Router would reassign the Client IP address if the Client had been quiescent,ie when the Nest Thermostat was in the Power Save Mode.This is very inconvenient when the client device is far away or when you are not at home. I tried assigning fixed IP adresses to the affected devices, but the problem still persisted.

I got fed up and bought a R7000 router and am now using only one EXE6100 as an extender. The problem is not completely gone ! Looking at the NEST help page I noted that it asked to make sure that the DHCP lease time was long, and the the Router was compatible with the Power Save Mode devices.

 

How do I make these settings on the the R7000 router ?

Message 1 of 8

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TheEther
Guru

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices


@SaturnV wrote:

Thanks for your inputs.During the last week I have removed the PowerLine repeaters completely , and the only repeater is the EX6100. I think that the Thermostats are better behaved without the Powerline repeaters. Since then I have only had a problem with my HP8600 printer.

I could make further changes, and I have some questions, and I would appreciate comments from anyone.

Is the lease time any different if the devices are directly connected to the R7000, or thru the the EX6100 repeater ?

 

 

The EX6100 doesn't have a DHCP server, so the R7000 will still provide leases to clients connected to the EX6100, and they will still be 1 day.

 


Is it better to connect them directly to R7000, or does it matter ?

 

 

 

If high bandwidth is required, then connecting directly to the R7000 might be better, provided that the signal can reach.  Otherwise, connecting to the EX6100, if it's closer, may provide more consistent, though possibly less, bandwidth.  An extender needs to divvy up its airtime between communicating with the router and wireless clients, so there's a pretty significant bandwidth penalty for clients.  Note, this penalty can be eliminated by connecting the extender back to the router via Ethernet or Powerline.  

 

This is probably all moot for the thermostats, which likely have very modest bandwidth requirements.  While graphics-intensive print jobs can be up to several megabytes in size, I imagine that a slower connection won't be an issue.

 

Does it matter if the EX6100 repeater has the same SSID as the R7000, or is it better if the repeater SSID is different ? 

 

Good question.  Anybody with a dual-band router faces the same dilemma.  

 

There are pros and cons.  One SSID is easier to manage than two when you have many devices.  OTOH, you will not be able to control whether a device connects to the EX6100 or the R7000.  This can come into play when roaming about the house.  Obviously, this is not a problem with printers and thermostats, but with smartphones it can be issue.  Switching from one access point to another can result in a temporary disruption to the device's connection. 

 

Another issue with a single SSID is with distribution of devices.  In an enterprise settings, multiple Wi-Fi access points can interact to hand off devices to one another for optimal spread.  You won't get such behavior with consumer-class networking gear.  You could end up with too many devices joined to either the EX6100 or the R7000, resulting in poor Wi-Fi speeds.

 

With separate SSIDs, you have the option of configuring one or both SSIDs on devices.  If you configure one, then you literally control which access point is used.  If you configure both, then the situation is similar to above.  That is, when presented with two SSIDs, the device gets to decide which one to connect to.  Unfortunately, devices don't always make the optimal choice.  And often when they do make a choice, they will refuse to switch to the other network unless the signal has degraded far beyond what a user can tolerate.  I used two configure the 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz SSIDs in my smartphone, but it often picked the 2.4 GHz network even though the 5 GHz was much, much faster, so I changed my smartphone to exclusively use 5 GHz.  The slightly less range inherent to 5 GHz was an acceptable sacrifice.

 

Hopefully, this has given you enough information to make your own decision.

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Message 8 of 8

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Retired_Member
Not applicable

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

try using address reservations              advanced..... setup....lan setup....Add

 

 

Works great on my Trane XL824

Message 2 of 8
SaturnV
Tutor

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

I have already done that. That helped but is not sufficient.

Message 3 of 8
Retired_Member
Not applicable

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

"How do I make these settings on the the R7000 router ?"

 You don't. not available.

 

FYI,

Static or fixed as you say Is NOT the same as address reservations. Not sure if you realise it.

Message 4 of 8
SaturnV
Tutor

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

I did indeed use Address Reservation. I may not have used the correct terminology by saying "fixed addresses". Thanks for your correction.

Message 5 of 8
TheEther
Guru

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

IIRC, the DHCP lease time provided by the R7000 is 1 day.  That should be more than long enough for the thermostat's needs.  Are you seeing the R7000 reassigning client IP addresses sooner than 1 day?

 

It's possible some other part of the network is going to sleep.  Many Powerline adapters have power saving modes.

 

Are your thermostats connected to the EX6100's or the R7000's Wi-Fi network?

 

Is the EX6100 connected wirelessly to the R7000 or through the Powerline repeaters?

 

According to this Netgear Knowledge Base article, the EX6100 supports WMM Power Saving.  The R7000 is not listed, but the article is so old that, frankly, I would be surprised if the R7000 did not have support.  Otherwise, there'd be a lot of angry smartphone owners with drained batteries.

 

Do you experience this problem with wireless laptops or smartphones joined to the same Wi-Fi network as the thermostats?

Message 6 of 8
SaturnV
Tutor

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices

Thanks for your inputs.During the last week I have removed the PowerLine repeaters completely , and the only repeater is the EX6100. I think that the Thermostats are better behaved without the Powerline repeaters. Since then I have only had a problem with my HP8600 printer.

I could make further changes, and I have some questions, and I would appreciate comments from anyone.

Is the lease time any different if the devices are directly connected to the R7000, or thru the the EX6100 repeater ?

 

Is it better to connect them directly to R7000, or does it matter ?

 

Does it matter if the EX6100 repeater has the same SSID as the R7000, or is it better if the repeater SSID is different ? 

 

Thanks

Message 7 of 8
TheEther
Guru

Re: Connection Loss to Nest Thermostat and HP devices


@SaturnV wrote:

Thanks for your inputs.During the last week I have removed the PowerLine repeaters completely , and the only repeater is the EX6100. I think that the Thermostats are better behaved without the Powerline repeaters. Since then I have only had a problem with my HP8600 printer.

I could make further changes, and I have some questions, and I would appreciate comments from anyone.

Is the lease time any different if the devices are directly connected to the R7000, or thru the the EX6100 repeater ?

 

 

The EX6100 doesn't have a DHCP server, so the R7000 will still provide leases to clients connected to the EX6100, and they will still be 1 day.

 


Is it better to connect them directly to R7000, or does it matter ?

 

 

 

If high bandwidth is required, then connecting directly to the R7000 might be better, provided that the signal can reach.  Otherwise, connecting to the EX6100, if it's closer, may provide more consistent, though possibly less, bandwidth.  An extender needs to divvy up its airtime between communicating with the router and wireless clients, so there's a pretty significant bandwidth penalty for clients.  Note, this penalty can be eliminated by connecting the extender back to the router via Ethernet or Powerline.  

 

This is probably all moot for the thermostats, which likely have very modest bandwidth requirements.  While graphics-intensive print jobs can be up to several megabytes in size, I imagine that a slower connection won't be an issue.

 

Does it matter if the EX6100 repeater has the same SSID as the R7000, or is it better if the repeater SSID is different ? 

 

Good question.  Anybody with a dual-band router faces the same dilemma.  

 

There are pros and cons.  One SSID is easier to manage than two when you have many devices.  OTOH, you will not be able to control whether a device connects to the EX6100 or the R7000.  This can come into play when roaming about the house.  Obviously, this is not a problem with printers and thermostats, but with smartphones it can be issue.  Switching from one access point to another can result in a temporary disruption to the device's connection. 

 

Another issue with a single SSID is with distribution of devices.  In an enterprise settings, multiple Wi-Fi access points can interact to hand off devices to one another for optimal spread.  You won't get such behavior with consumer-class networking gear.  You could end up with too many devices joined to either the EX6100 or the R7000, resulting in poor Wi-Fi speeds.

 

With separate SSIDs, you have the option of configuring one or both SSIDs on devices.  If you configure one, then you literally control which access point is used.  If you configure both, then the situation is similar to above.  That is, when presented with two SSIDs, the device gets to decide which one to connect to.  Unfortunately, devices don't always make the optimal choice.  And often when they do make a choice, they will refuse to switch to the other network unless the signal has degraded far beyond what a user can tolerate.  I used two configure the 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz SSIDs in my smartphone, but it often picked the 2.4 GHz network even though the 5 GHz was much, much faster, so I changed my smartphone to exclusively use 5 GHz.  The slightly less range inherent to 5 GHz was an acceptable sacrifice.

 

Hopefully, this has given you enough information to make your own decision.

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