Re: Orbi and Neato Botvac Connected

Supp0rtLinux · ‎2017-08-09

I just replaced my pair of Airport Extremes with a new Orbi setup (one base/router and one wall plug satellite). I updated to the latest firmware during the setup. With one exception, everything works: iphone, ipad, macbook, windows laptop, appletv, wemo's, epson printer, tv, roku. The exception is my Neato Botvac Connected. Wifi setup on the Neato is much like a Wemo or a Fitbit scale... you connect to the device's internal wifi, have it scan for local SSIDs, choose your SSID and password, then it connects to your wifi. But the Botvac never connects. I've gone through all the basic and advanced steps; I've rebooted and reset; I've done it all. I've also opened a support request with Neato, but haven't seen a reply. What gets me is it worked just fine with the old Airport Extreme network, but refuses to work with the Orbi's. When it fails, the Neato app links out to a support doc referring to ports 80/443 being blocked. My experience is they're only blocked inbound, not outbound. And again... it works with the AE's with no special setup. I went so far as to do a MAC reservation to guarantee the Neato's IP, then added a rule to forward ports 80 and 443 to that IP and retried. It failed with the exact same error. So with everything but the Neato working and with no response from Neato support, I'm wondering if any other Orbi users have a working Neato Botvac Connected? If so, what did you do to get it working? I do have beamforming and MU-MIMO enabled. I've seen notes about those disconnecting older devices like Ring doorbells. But in this case, the Botvac cannot connect at all... its not connecting and then disconnecting. Wondering if I need to disable beamforming and mu-mimo? Last thing, the Neato has the latest firmware installed.

st_shaw · ‎2017-08-09

Two things you might try. 1) If you can manually enter the SSID on the Neato, then do that instead of scanning. 2) You could try enabling the Orbi guest network and connecting to that.

Supp0rtLinux · ‎2017-08-09

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if I could manually enter the SSID, I would have already. Its not an option. Haven't tried the guest network, but I'll give that a try...

Supp0rtLinux · ‎2017-08-09

So I owe you an apology... I can add the SSID manually when the app tries to scan for it. But that wasn't the issue. This issue is my SSID has a space as the first character (don't ask why but its by design). When the Neato tried to connect, I noticed it didn't seem to have an extra space between what they showed on the screen and the SSID. So I retried and manually entered the SSID with the space in the beginning and it worked. Looks like the Neato app can't handle a space as the first character of the SSID...probably parses for the a-z,A-Z,0-0 only or something along those lines. Regardless, its working now. Thanks for the idea...

st_shaw · ‎2017-08-09

@Supp0rtLinux wrote:
So I owe you an apology... I can add the SSID manually when the app tries to scan for it. But that wasn't the issue. This issue is my SSID has a space as the first character (don't ask why but its by design). When the Neato tried to connect, I noticed it didn't seem to have an extra space between what they showed on the screen and the SSID. So I retried and manually entered the SSID with the space in the beginning and it worked. Looks like the Neato app can't handle a space as the first character of the SSID...probably parses for the a-z,A-Z,0-0 only or something along those lines. Regardless, its working now. Thanks for the idea...

No problem. Glad you figured it out. Sounds like manually entering was the solution, but for an unexpected reason. Special characters in SSIDs and passwords can cause strange issues.

SnoShark · ‎2017-09-05

Any other tips you have? I just bought a Neato D3 Connected, I can't get it to connect to my Orbi Routers to save my life. Support claims it's because my 2.4ghz and 5.0 ghz have the same SSID. They have the same password? I'm not sure why that happens. Any tips / insights / ideas / suggestions is GREATLY appreciated!

peridoc · ‎2017-11-22

I have the D5 Neato and I can get it connected just fine, but after a day or so the vacuum reports that it is "Offline" and needs to be rebooted to reconnect to the App. Has anyone had this issue with the Orbi and been able to make the connection more stable or fix that?

Thanks!

SnoShark · ‎2017-11-23

After I finally got my D3 to connect, it started doing that online/offline thing too. It was so unreliable that I ended up returning it. I tried doing an address reservation to force the some IP, and that didn't seem to fix it. I struggled so much with the D3, I think the wireless is just crap on those things.