car not finding home wifi - suggestions

[RedMod3]

I'm thinking of doing the same.
Can I ask which make/model of WAP you used?

I have a Draytek 2927 Router and use Draytek AP710, AP810 and AP902 APs; I use an AP810 in the garage as I needed a wired connection to my solar inverter. Our place has solid walls and the APs give me near 100Mb connections almost everywhere.

Edit: you can often get the Draytek APs cheap on eBay, as I did; they are very good, don't go for cheap c***.

 

[LukeUK]

I've got a couple of Ubiquiti UniFi APs, indoor and outdoor.

UniFi WiFi - Ubiquiti

WiFi perfected. Thoughtfully designed access points with enterprise-class performance, effortless scalability, and an unrivaled management experience.

www.ui.com

 

[RLAT59]

Not 100% sure but the phone wifi app says there is a signal and surprise surprise the granite wall of the outhouse has wacked it down to 1 bar even though it's only 2m away but the car has a signal.

The reason I'm not sure is that I cant seem to see the new IP address for the powerline adaptors on the IP Scanner but I now have a signal so I'm not complaining,

The powerline adaptors do seem to be on a different channel to the main wifi but as they are in the outbuildings and observatory its unlikely that I will be moving between the 2

Powerline adapters work if on the same phase of the supply (not necessarily the same circuit) and within 300? Metres. Options exist for cable to adapter and cable to a second router or cable to adapter and second adapter is a wireless broadcast - either of the same WPS code or the one unique to the output adapter It's the second I use purely because it’s quicker to set up and the code is on the plug-in for when I need to relink stuff. Of course an intelligent owner would just make up a label with the household WPS code and stick their own label on - but I don't see me carting laptops from house to barn with any frequency.
Mobile signal strength here is close to zero - sometimes single bar on a nice summers evening in still air with the phone held above my head and facing a rising full moon while chanting from the book of the dead. I can get 3G if I drive across 2 fields and up Fairfield hill to gain 140 metres altitude.

I just started having the issue. The car is picking up all the networks except the one at home. The phone in the car picks up the network easily. Do we do the proverbial turn off and on?

 

[N0ddie]

I had the same problem with my "car space" WiFi signal being non-existent. I ended up installing a POE WiFi access point and now can connect to my WiFi from halfway down the street

A pic for reference:

 

[Nick77]

Does the car's WiFi card have an upper limit to its download speeds?

I'm thinking of putting a Powerline WiFi Extender at the front of my house, and don't want to bother buying a really fast bandwidth one if I don't need it. The last Navigation update I had was 7GB and took ages maxing out my phone's hotspot at just over 2Mbps upload speed.

For instance if I have Gigabit speed and get 100Mbps download speeds, will the car max out or will it download at those speeds? Disregarding any losses for the 10-15 ft distance to the car.

 

[RedMod3]

I'm thinking of doing the same.
Can I ask which make/model of WAP you used?

I use a Draytek Vigor 2927ac router and a Draytek AP 810 as I need another wired connection in the garage. If you just need WiFi, run the ethernet cable to an AP 710 like this and it does the job just fine. Draytek Vigor AP-710 Wireless Access Point | eBay

 

[Adopado]

Does the car's WiFi card have an upper limit to its download speeds?

I'm thinking of putting a Powerline WiFi Extender at the front of my house, and don't want to bother buying a really fast bandwidth one if I don't need it. The last Navigation update I had was 7GB and took ages maxing out my phone's hotspot at just over 2Mbps upload speed.

For instance if I have Gigabit speed and get 100Mbps download speeds, will the car max out or will it download at those speeds? Disregarding any losses for the 10-15 ft distance to the car.

The car just needs decent wifi signal connectivity ... ultimate speed is not a priority, just reliable signal connectivity. Obviously if you are sitting in your car with a phone hotspot you want speed but when you have your permanent set up near where you park it has all night to do its thing. (Hopefully better than 2Mbps though!!)

 

[Nick77]

The car just needs decent wifi signal connectivity ... ultimate speed is not a priority, just reliable signal connectivity. Obviously if you are sitting in your car with a phone hotspot you want speed but when you have your permanent set up near where you park it has all night to do its thing. (Hopefully better than 2Mbps though!!)

Cheers. I park on the street right outside my house or one or two cars down.

My Virgin connection is 650Mbps. I bought a Netgear WiFi extender for £30 and plugged it in under the front window (about 20ft away from the router). Car couldn't find the extended network at all and it was only parked one car away! I checked Speedtest on my phone's wifi while sitting in the car and it only had one bar and the speeds were crap - 40Mbps on 5Ghz (which the car doesn't have I believe) and 4Mbps or nothing at all on 2.4Ghz.

The extender was receiving about 200Mbps according to Speedtest when sat next to it so was a bit disappointed with the results. I've sent it back!

Think I'd have to pay for a proper WiFi Powerline AP to get the full speed to the front window via ethernet, and then hope the car can pick it up better. It's a more expensive option though.

 

[sparkymark75]

Cheers. I park on the street right outside my house or one or two cars down.

My Virgin connection is 650Mbps. I bought a Netgear WiFi extender for £30 and plugged it in under the front window (about 20ft away from the router). Car couldn't find the extended network at all and it was only parked one car away! I checked Speedtest on my phone's wifi while sitting in the car and it only had one bar and the speeds were crap - 40Mbps on 5Ghz (which the car doesn't have I believe) and 4Mbps or nothing at all on 2.4Ghz.

The extender was receiving about 200Mbps according to Speedtest when sat next to it so was a bit disappointed with the results. I've sent it back!

Think I'd have to pay for a proper WiFi Powerline AP to get the full speed to the front window via ethernet, and then hope the car can pick it up better. It's a more expensive option though.

Your house may be acting as a faraday cage and be blocking the majority of the signal. You may have to place an AP outside the confines of your house, similar to what @N0ddie has done, to get a nice strong signal.

 

[Adopado]

Cheers. I park on the street right outside my house or one or two cars down.

My Virgin connection is 650Mbps. I bought a Netgear WiFi extender for £30 and plugged it in under the front window (about 20ft away from the router). Car couldn't find the extended network at all and it was only parked one car away! I checked Speedtest on my phone's wifi while sitting in the car and it only had one bar and the speeds were crap - 40Mbps on 5Ghz (which the car doesn't have I believe) and 4Mbps or nothing at all on 2.4Ghz.

The extender was receiving about 200Mbps according to Speedtest when sat next to it so was a bit disappointed with the results. I've sent it back!

Think I'd have to pay for a proper WiFi Powerline AP to get the full speed to the front window via ethernet, and then hope the car can pick it up better. It's a more expensive option though.

40Mbps is absolutely fine! You guys with the fast fibre forget how the rest of the world lives ...but yes, the car can be very picky and requires messing around to optimise ...

 

[tomorrowman]

40Mbps is absolutely fine! You guys with the fast fibre forget how the rest of the world lives ...but yes, the car can be very picky and requires messing around to optimise ...

I'll keep my mouth shut with my gigabit connectivity then

 

[sparkymark75]

40Mbps is absolutely fine! You guys with the fast fibre forget how the rest of the world lives ...but yes, the car can be very picky and requires messing around to optimise ...

It’s probably more the quality of the signal rather than the connection speed. Apparently the Model 3 can use 5GHz but I’m not sure how accurate that is. It’s not mentioned in the manual that I can see.

 

[Nick77]

40Mbps is absolutely fine! You guys with the fast fibre forget how the rest of the world lives ...but yes, the car can be very picky and requires messing around to optimise ...

It would be great but that's just what my phone sees sat next to the extender. If the car saw that I'd have been happy and kept it.

 

[MrT3]

It would be great but that's just what my phone sees sat next to the extender. If the car saw that I'd have been happy and kept it.

As a test try it on an extension lead and move it to the window sill, that will prove the wifi signal is getting blocked/reflected by the wall.

 

[RedMod3]

I'd recommend that is you want to extend the wi-fi, that you do it properly and do not use an extender. Use a cat6 cable and an Access Point.

I get over 300Mb download via an AP with no degradation of ping.

 

[Nick77]

As a test try it on an extension lead and move it to the window sill, that will prove the wifi signal is getting blocked/reflected by the wall.

It's a good idea, but I already sent it back earlier today.

 

[page3]

Does anyone know what sort of size and frequency updates are? Since openreach broke my physical connection 12 months ago I’ve still not managed to get anyone to fix it, so now use 4G exclusively. It’s actually more reliable and significantly faster, however EE do not offer an unlimited plan (despite their marketing material saying otherwise- it has a 600 Gb/month FUP).

 

[MrBadger]

Firmware updates are typically just over 2GB from what I recall. They are as often as you accept the download if/when offered. But if you wanted to take a monthly update (and ignore any others that may be offered) you would probably be in right ballpark for a useful update cadence. What you want to avoid is taking an update too soon after its initial release - its not unusual for an update to be quickly superseded, as recently demonstrated with the 2024.24/2021.24 release.

 

[Nick77]

Navigation updates are quite large though. I did one last week which was 7GB.

 

[MrBadger]

Pretty infrequent though. I've taken 3 in 2 years and one of those was identical to one that i already had - as mentioned before, not unusual for an update to be quickly superseded, or in this case, rolled back. Biggest difference with nav updates (and entertainment updates such as games) over regular software updates, is that they come and get installed unannounced, and often you only come aware of the update because you just happen to notice the version changed, They will be the harder ones to manage over a limited connection.