Frequent Powerwall 2 WiFi Disconnects

[pexcom]

Hi all.

I've had my twin powerwall 2 installation now for a few years and I use home assistant to do some of the local monitoring, and that all works great.

Home assistant sends me a notification if the powerwall becomes unreachable on the network and sometimes the disconnect/reconnect will happen 6 times a day with the Powerwalls going AWOL for up to 30 minutes. This is something I may never have known was happening without Home assistant losing its LAN connection, as powerwall would just use cellular if WiFi wasn't available.

I have searched for the issue and found a great article on it, and recently put a tplink 702n into the gateway cabinet. Running an ethernet cable wasn't practical.

The 702n is in client mode, and effectively the gateway is fooled into thinking it's connected via LAN.

Disconnects are now a memory.

I post this here in case it may help others, I'm not sure the exact product is still available, but there certainly is a newer replacement that does the same job.

I chose the tplink because it's a micro size device.

The latest software updates although making a wifi reconnection easier, has not arrested the problem with the disconnection in the first place.

 

[miimura]

My Powerwall system ran on cellular only for 3.7 years. When Tesla sent out the message about 3G sunsetting, I tried WiFi. It was miserable. I had an unused Cat6 cable nearby, so I spent the time to run the outdoor conduit to the Gateway. It's very reliable now on Ethernet. I can see how either a WiFi to Ethernet client box or a Powerline Ethernet bridge would be a huge improvement over the Gateway's built-in WiFi.

 

[Damclarkd]

Hi all.

I've had my twin powerwall 2 installation now for a few years and I use home assistant to do some of the local monitoring, and that all works great.

Home assistant sends me a notification if the powerwall becomes unreachable on the network and sometimes the disconnect/reconnect will happen 6 times a day with the Powerwalls going AWOL for up to 30 minutes. This is something I may never have known was happening without Home assistant losing its LAN connection, as powerwall would just use cellular if WiFi wasn't available.

I have searched for the issue and found a great article on it, and recently put a tplink 702n into the gateway cabinet. Running an ethernet cable wasn't practical.

The 702n is in client mode, and effectively the gateway is fooled into thinking it's connected via LAN.

Disconnects are now a memory.

I post this here in case it may help others, I'm not sure the exact product is still available, but there certainly is a newer replacement that does the same job.

I chose the tplink because it's a micro size device.

The latest software updates although making a wifi reconnection easier, has not arrested the problem with the disconnection in the first place.

Curious if you are using the Tesla Powerwall Integration in HA? For the life of me I cannot get the integration to keep the login credentials longer than about 5 minutes. I have had to disable it as it just would not stick.
Cheers

 

[bmah]

The Powerwall gateway WiFi is...less than optimal. I've occasionally had it randomly drop its wireless connection for no reason and fall back to cellular (yadda yadda, UniFi access point close by, nothing else behaves this way, yadda yadda). It has multiple APs within range and it seems to be incapable of roaming from one to another. Also it seems to take an extremely long time (sometimes hours) to realize that a rebooted/power-cycled AP is up and available.

After some research, I concluded that doing a wireless Ethernet bridge (between two UniFi APs) and running a cable to the Powerwall gateway would actually work better than using the gateway's WiFi. This seems to need a little tweaking as well, but so far the gateway doesn't have any problems staying connected via the Ethernet.

Bruce.

PS. Gateway 1.

 

[jboy210]

The Powerwall gateway WiFi is...less than optimal. I've occasionally had it randomly drop its wireless connection for no reason and fall back to cellular (yadda yadda, UniFi access point close by, nothing else behaves this way, yadda yadda). It has multiple APs within range and it seems to be incapable of roaming from one to another. Also it seems to take an extremely long time (sometimes hours) to realize that a rebooted/power-cycled AP is up and available.

After some research, I concluded that doing a wireless Ethernet bridge (between two UniFi APs) and running a cable to the Powerwall gateway would actually work better than using the gateway's WiFi. This seems to need a little tweaking as well, but so far the gateway doesn't have any problems staying connected via the Ethernet.

Bruce.

PS. Gateway 1.

My experience with Wifi has been similar. The signal attenuation even at very close distances through things like stucco walls with their embedded wires really kills Wifi. A CAT 6/5e Ethernet cable fixes the connectivity problem.

The only strange thing is the app still occasionally asks to set up Wifi even though the Ethernet connection is solid. I guess the Wifi gets too attenuated even with the Access Point 10 feet and one outside wall away.

 

[miimura]

My experience with Wifi has been similar. The signal attenuation even at very close distances through things like stucco walls with their embedded wires really kills Wifi. A CAT 6/5e Ethernet cable fixes the connectivity problem.

The only strange thing is the app still occasionally asks to set up Wifi even though the Ethernet connection is solid. I guess the Wifi gets too attenuated even with the Access Point 10 feet and one outside wall away.

After I connected my Ethernet to my Gateway 1, the app nagged me to Configure WiFi again. There is a link that says "I don't have WiFi" and I clicked that and it hasn't nagged me again.

 

[jboy210]

After I connected my Ethernet to my Gateway 1, the app nagged me to Configure WiFi again. There is a link that says "I don't have WiFi" and I clicked that and it hasn't nagged me again.

That is what I get every 2-3 months. Not sure why. I just reenter the same Wifi info and it goes away. And the data on the display is being updated even when that prompt is being shown.

 

[miimura]

That is what I get every 2-3 months. Not sure why. I just reenter the same Wifi info and it goes away. And the data on the display is being updated even when that prompt is being shown.

The point I was trying to make is that as long as it has the WiFi info, it will keep losing the connection and asking you to configure again. The way I did it, it will never use WiFi and never ask me again. Ethernet for the win.

 

[jboy210]

The point I was trying to make is that as long as it has the WiFi info, it will keep losing the connection and asking you to configure again. The way I did it, it will never use WiFi and never ask me again. Ethernet for the win.

Oh! Well, that is surely one what to get it to never ask for the Wifi info.

 

[DrKoi]

@pexcom How do you power it? Do you need to run a power cable into the Gateway to power the 702n, or can it use PoE from the Gateway, or ... ?

And did you have to open up the Gateway to access the ethernet port?

I'm also using Home Assistant and the frequent WiFi disconnects are messing up my data, so your solution sounds promising!

 

[pexcom]

Curious if you are using the Tesla Powerwall Integration in HA? For the life of me I cannot get the integration to keep the login credentials longer than about 5 minutes. I have had to disable it as it just would not stick.
Cheers

Hi.

Yes I use Home assistant as per theincluded images. The latest version of the integration seemed to work out of the box for me in that regard, it was just the Wifi issues, multiple times per day and sometimes down for a minute or a few hours without intervention.

 

[pexcom]

@pexcom How do you power it? Do you need to run a power cable into the Gateway to power the 702n, or can it use PoE from the Gateway, or ... ?

And did you have to open up the Gateway to access the ethernet port?

I'm also using Home Assistant and the frequent WiFi disconnects are messing up my data, so your solution sounds promising!

One might say there is of course mains AC voltage available in the GW2, A mains voltage to USB adapter could be carefully hardwired into the GW2, thus providing the 5 VDC for the client bridge **wink**. That would give you a tidy install and a short ethernet cable 30-50cm (12-18 inches) to the GW2 ethernet port.

 

[Zorg]

Ok, my Gateway Wifi keeps complaining and is unable to reconnect, despite numerous attempts.
- Any recommendation for wifi to ethernet adapter?
- Any picture from someone who's done it to see how you've installed it?

Thanks in advance

 

[jboy210]

Ok, my Gateway Wifi keeps complaining and is unable to reconnect, despite numerous attempts.
- Any recommendation for wifi to ethernet adapter?
- Any picture from someone who's done it to see how you've installed it?

Thanks in advance

You might try something like this device or search for other Wifi to ethernet bridges. I have not tried it, but at least it gets you away from using the Wifi transceiver in the gateway.

FWIW, I ended up following @miimura and turning off the Wifi on the Gateway and depending only on my Ethernet connection. Problem solved.

 

[jgleigh]

How do you turn off the WiFi completely? And doesn't it need WiFi to communicate with the CT modules (mine are all remote)?

I'm having intermittent Gateway lockups and I'm wondering if they correlate with WiFi issues.

 

[miimura]

AFAIK, you can't turn off the WiFi, you just leave it unconfigured for connection to the Tesla mothership. The app used to keep nagging me to configure it, so I clicked a link that "I don't have WiFi" and it stopped nagging me.

 

[jboy210]

How do you turn off the WiFi completely? And doesn't it need WiFi to communicate with the CT modules (mine are all remote)?

I'm having intermittent Gateway lockups and I'm wondering if they correlate with WiFi issues.

What do you mean by Gateway lockups? If you mean errors in the app regarding unable to communicate or period where the numbers in the app are way out of date then that is what not configuring the Wifi in the app fixed for me.

 

[jgleigh]

The Gateway completely stops responding and it shuts down the Powerwalls and the inverters. Yesterday it appeared to coincide with a WiFi glitch, but I wasn't home so hard to say for sure. Sometimes it will recover and other times I have to reboot the Gateway to get it working again. Usually right before it dies I'll see both solar and home at 0.3kW. Yesterday it was offline for most of the day since I wasn't around to notice it wasn't working.

The SSID is still being broadcast, but you can't connect. And the Gateway won't respond via local network connections.

 

[jgleigh]

Well it just happened again and I noticed the Gateway isn't connected to my WiFi network anymore so it seems possible the crappy WiFi module is loosing its connection and then decides to shut the whole Gateway down since it can't see the network instead of dropping back to Cellular. Or else there's something seriously wrong with my Gateway.

 

[jgleigh]

Here's what it looks like in the app when it dies.