Is it a problem if my Tesla Wall Connector uses a different wi-fi (wifi) network?

[rhaining]

Will be getting my Model 3 soon.

Is there any downside to having my Tesla Wall Connector provisioned to use a different wifi network than the rest of my devices + phones + car?

I've had a terrible time trying to get my TWC to join my main wifi network. I recently switched to a new quad-band Orbi 6E system. (Overall very happy with the upgrade -- much faster and more reliable connection to full house, no dead spots, no lags, despite saturated wifi around me.) However, the TWC just plain won't connect to my primary wifi network. I'm 95% convinced it's because the TWC is 2.4GHz only and not advanced enough to negotiate the various protocols a modern mesh wifi router tries to use. (The TWC is a brand new device in 2022, there's no excuse for it to have such problems. :^( )

In any case, I found a workaround. The TWC is perfectly happy connecting to the guest wifi network. Same routers+satellites, but the guest wifi may be 2.4GHz only. (Still not 100% sure what the problem is/was.) In any case, TWC is connected to the internet.

Is it a problem that it won't be able to communicate with my phone or car? E.g. the TWC should be able to get OTA updates now, but I'd read on another post that Tesla can monitor if the TWC is reporting charging problems, and it's unclear if that sort of thing would work properly if they're on different networks.

 

[jjrandorin]

Will be getting my Model 3 soon.

Is there any downside to having my Tesla Wall Connector provisioned to use a different wifi network than the rest of my devices + phones + car?

I've had a terrible time trying to get my TWC to join my main wifi network. I recently switched to a new quad-band Orbi 6E system. (Overall very happy with the upgrade -- much faster and more reliable connection to full house, no dead spots, no lags, despite saturated wifi around me.) However, the TWC just plain won't connect to my primary wifi network. I'm 95% convinced it's because the TWC is 2.4GHz only and not advanced enough to negotiate the various protocols a modern mesh wifi router tries to use. (The TWC is a brand new device in 2022, there's no excuse for it to have such problems. :^( )

In any case, I found a workaround. The TWC is perfectly happy connecting to the guest wifi network. Same routers+satellites, but the guest wifi may be 2.4GHz only. (Still not 100% sure what the problem is/was.) In any case, TWC is connected to the internet.

Is it a problem that it won't be able to communicate with my phone or car? E.g. the TWC should be able to get OTA updates now, but I'd read on another post that Tesla can monitor if the TWC is reporting charging problems, and it's unclear if that sort of thing would work properly if they're on different networks.

Welcome to TMC,


I dont think it will be a problem, but I have a gen 2 wall connector, not a gen 3. A lot of "IoT" (internet of things) type devices have issues with mesh routers that use 1 SSID for both 2.4 and 5Ghz. Thats actually one of the features I look for (ability to split SSIDs) in a mesh system.

You would be surprised (or maybe not?) at how many IoT type devices dont support 5Ghz if its an internet connected "appliance" type thing (washing machines, dryers, coffee makers, fridges, dishwashers, BBQ grills, etc etc) they probably dont support 5Ghz.

You should be able to leave it the way you have it, but if you dont like that, see if the Orbi mesh lets you separate the SSIDs. Back when I tried their previous system (wifi 5), I believe there was a way to separate out the SSIDs but they didnt make it "clicky" easy.

Alternatively, leave it the way you have it, it doesnt have to be able to connect to anything else on your network, I am virtually positive. Many people will actually build an "IoT" virtual lan (vlan) to segregate all that stuff off from their regular network, because it also tends to not have the best security, or any way to increase security on it.

Probably longer answer than you wanted, but there ya go.

 

[euro.r]

I would say the TWC and/or your car will still report charging problems through their respective uplinks to the Internet. For example, if charging is interrupted, your car will report that and your phone will get the notification through your normal wifi network. If the TWC also reports this problem, it will report it through your guest network which has access to the Internet. I don't have a TWC so I don't know if it's somehow tied into your Tesla account? If it is, I imagine this is how reporting from both the TWC and your car/app is synched with your account. I can't see why Tesla won't also be able to monitor/gather metrics as long as the TWC is Internet-connected.

I also know your experience about trying to join a 2.4 device to a new router. I recently also upgraded my router to a wifi 6 device and had incredible issues joining my home's PV monitoring device to it despite me running other 2.4 devices, some which are quite old. My solution was the same as yours; run the guest network only on 2.4 and voila. In my case, my monitor and wifi dongle are old but no excuses for the TWC.

 

[Msjulie]

Can't see why - my car is on a guest network at home - ie the car gets internet access but not the same subnet as the rest of the house

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Is there any downside to having my Tesla Wall Connector provisioned to use a different wifi network than the rest of my devices + phones + car?

I don't think it's a problem.

BTW, not sure if this applies to you but sadly it's been reported over and over for years now that Tesla's Wall Connector will not connect if you have WPA3 turned on. Doesn't matter that it's all supposed to be backward compatible with WPA2, WPA, etc., another Tesla bug they don't have any interest in fixing. Folks have reported success by having it connect to Guest Network where WPA3 is not on or reverting back to WPA2 on their main network (which is what I did).

Mike

 

[ATPMSD]

The only thing the WiFi internet connection is used for is for over-the-air firmware updates and to allow Tesla to perform remote diagnostics. Any WiFi network the device can log onto that allows Internet connectivity is fine.

The TWC is configured and managed via accessing the Wall Connector’s local WiFi AP.

 

[rhaining]

All replies have been super helpful, thank you!

I'm going to leave the TWC as-is and see if there are any downsides.

Orbi 6E does make it easy to enable both a separate guest network and a separate IoT network. I haven't tried the latter yet, but I'm not sure it would be any better -- still separate network (I believe).

I wasn't aware of the WPA3 limitation. In my router's configuration, I don't see a way to disable WPA3, plus I wouldn't really want to just to enable the TWC to be on the same network. OTOH, I've found a 2nd problem with the upgrade, which is that my wireless all-on-one printer/scanner/etc. will print wirelessly just fine but not scan. In fairness, I think it's over a decade old. But I still need to find a solution for that that doesn't involve a separate network, as I need my other devices to be able to see it and scan from it. (Maybe time to upgrade but am worried that new printer wouldn't necessarily work any better.)

 

[tm1v2]

OTOH, I've found a 2nd problem with the upgrade, which is that my wireless all-on-one printer/scanner/etc. will print wirelessly just fine but not scan. In fairness, I think it's over a decade old. But I still need to find a solution for that that doesn't involve a separate network, as I need my other devices to be able to see it and scan from it. (Maybe time to upgrade but am worried that new printer wouldn't necessarily work any better.)

@rhaining Are you technically inclined with computers? If you are, how about setting up a local fileserver for your MFP/scanner to upload to? It doesn't take much computing power or storage just for scanned files, even a very low powered ARM SBC with a MicroSD card is plenty, as long as it can run modern upstream Linux. Or if you have any kind of server machine on your network already, run the fileserver there.

Then no need for any fancy client scanning software. Configure and start a scan right on the MFP/scanner itself, it uploads to the file server (typically via FTP), and then you fetch it from there on your computer (e.g. via SFTP or whatever protocol you find convenient).

I wish MFPs had this built in so non-technical people could use the same workflow, with the MFP itself as the fileserver, just plug in an SD card or such for storage. IMO it's nicer than messing with TWAIN network scanning and such.

 

[rhaining]

@rhaining Are you technically inclined with computers? If you are, how about setting up a local fileserver for your MFP/scanner to upload to? It doesn't take much computing power or storage just for scanned files, even a very low powered ARM SBC with a MicroSD card is plenty, as long as it can run modern upstream Linux. Or if you have any kind of server machine on your network already, run the fileserver there.

Thanks for the suggestion, but it's a bit more work than I'm willing to put in. I may just end up running a cable to my main machine, which should enable scanning both directly from the MFP and from the computer. They're close enough for a cable, I just never needed one prior to the Orbi 6E.

But also, I wanted to let thread readers know that I haven't seen any problems with leaving the TWC on the guest network. It charges fine, presumably the TWC patches fine (no opportunity to observe yet), and I haven't seen any issues either in the car UI or phone UI. So overall, looks like there's no need to have them on the same network and so probably best to leave it on a less trusted network.

 

[tm1v2]

Thanks for the suggestion, but it's a bit more work than I'm willing to put in. I may just end up running a cable to my main machine, which should enable scanning both directly from the MFP and from the computer. They're close enough for a cable, I just never needed one prior to the Orbi 6E.

But also, I wanted to let thread readers know that I haven't seen any problems with leaving the TWC on the guest network. It charges fine, presumably the TWC patches fine (no opportunity to observe yet), and I haven't seen any issues either in the car UI or phone UI. So overall, looks like there's no need to have them on the same network and so probably best to leave it on a less trusted network.

@rhaining I think the only possible issue with TWC on Guest WiFi might be if you had multiple and needed to use the power sharing functionality. I don't know if the power sharing communications are local or go via Tesla's servers, but I would guess they are local, and on many routers the guest WiFi functionality isolates (blocks) traffic between clients, so the TWC might not be able to talk to eachother.

With only one TWC, or if power is not shared / oversubscribed, then no issue.

 

[stopcrazypp]

All replies have been super helpful, thank you!

I'm going to leave the TWC as-is and see if there are any downsides.

Orbi 6E does make it easy to enable both a separate guest network and a separate IoT network. I haven't tried the latter yet, but I'm not sure it would be any better -- still separate network (I believe).

I wasn't aware of the WPA3 limitation. In my router's configuration, I don't see a way to disable WPA3, plus I wouldn't really want to just to enable the TWC to be on the same network. OTOH, I've found a 2nd problem with the upgrade, which is that my wireless all-on-one printer/scanner/etc. will print wirelessly just fine but not scan. In fairness, I think it's over a decade old. But I still need to find a solution for that that doesn't involve a separate network, as I need my other devices to be able to see it and scan from it. (Maybe time to upgrade but am worried that new printer wouldn't necessarily work any better.)

I'm guessing you may have to reinstall your twain scanner driver or do a repair install on it. Not sure what OS you are using but this article has steps for most of the popular printers:
How to install TWAIN driver on Windows 10