WiFi won't connect to strong signal, low bandwidth AP

[Mishakim]

Is anyone else connecting to a Plume or similar mesh network? I finally got electricity into my detached garage (ongoing house renovation), and added a Plume pod out there, so the WiFi signal in the garage itself is strong, but the node actually has a very weak uplink to the rest of the mesh, and the car won't connect to it. I got the car to connect once in the past with the Plume pod on an extension cord into the part of the house closest to the garage, but that quit working, and now that the pod is actually in the garage, it won't connect. Doesn't give any error, just times out and gives up.

(for those that don't know, Plume uses a large number of low-power nodes called pods, rather than a small number of higher-power mesh nodes. The idea is that you have less signal spillage out of the network, but the downside is that extending the mesh to my garage is stretching the limits of the system. It seems to me like the car shouldn't realize that, though -- it should see a strong WiFi signal, and not care that the AP giving it that signal has a really weak uplink)

 

[PLUGZIN]

I’m not familiar with the plume mesh network. But wonder even though the car sees a strong Wi-Fi signal; when it tries to do a handshake with the router where the DCHP connection is made; the weak mesh signal can’t complete the handshake. Just a thought.

 

[Silicon Desert]

I’m not familiar with the plume mesh network. But wonder even though the car sees a strong Wi-Fi signal; when it tries to do a handshake with the router where the DCHP connection is made; the weak mesh signal can’t complete the handshake. Just a thought.

That's an interesting thought. May be the reason. I use 3 EERO mesh devices in our 4,000 sq ft home. One of them is in the garage. I have no issues.

How about you experiment with a laptop or smart phone and connect to the Plume in your garage and hit a site to test the upload, download, and ping times to see if the Plume is working as well as you want?

 

[ewoodrick]

Is anyone else connecting to a Plume or similar mesh network? I finally got electricity into my detached garage (ongoing house renovation), and added a Plume pod out there, so the WiFi signal in the garage itself is strong, but the node actually has a very weak uplink to the rest of the mesh, and the car won't connect to it. I got the car to connect once in the past with the Plume pod on an extension cord into the part of the house closest to the garage, but that quit working, and now that the pod is actually in the garage, it won't connect. Doesn't give any error, just times out and gives up.

(for those that don't know, Plume uses a large number of low-power nodes called pods, rather than a small number of higher-power mesh nodes. The idea is that you have less signal spillage out of the network, but the downside is that extending the mesh to my garage is stretching the limits of the system. It seems to me like the car shouldn't realize that, though -- it should see a strong WiFi signal, and not care that the AP giving it that signal has a really weak uplink)

Have you tried connecting to the node with something else. It could be that the Tesla is trying to connect and phone home, but it can't reach home because the access point can't talk to the others.

 

[outie]

Do you have any dlna device connected to the same network? Many smart TVs have this built in and it causes issues with Tesla WiFi staying connected to the network. There are several ways to test, like connecting to your mobile phone hotspot feature if enabled, or create a new isolated guest network that only the Tesla connects to.

 

[Mishakim]

Well, I ended up using a power line WiFi extender to get the car to update to 42.4. The plume pod provided about 4 Mb/s to my iPhone, so it may be that that just wasn’t enough for the Tesla. I also set up a VLAN on the plume mesh so when I do get the speed up it won’t get interference nice from other devices.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Well, I ended up using a power line WiFi extender to get the car to update to 42.4. The plume pod provided about 4 Mb/s to my iPhone, so it may be that that just wasn’t enough for the Tesla. I also set up a VLAN on the plume mesh so when I do get the speed up it won’t get interference nice from other devices.

Good to see you got things working. 4Mb/s ? Ouch. That was terrible. I assume you mean 4 MB instead of 4 Mb. A factor of 8 faster, but still terrible even if it was 4 MB. I also would expect that not to work well.

 

[Mishakim]

Good to see you got things working. 4Mb/s ? Ouch. That was terrible. I assume you mean 4 MB instead of 4 Mb. A factor of 8 faster, but still terrible even if it was 4 MB. I also would expect that not to work well.

no, I meant Mb, 4 megabits per second - normal speed test units, just a really low number (by modern standards).