If you have read through other articles, or just can't figure out why your sensors won't connect, this article may be for you. Below is a list of many advanced WIFI configurations that are common in hospitality, and how they can affect the connection and performance of IOT devices:
- Sharing a router/connection with a neighboring unit
- Picture yourself walking in a parking garage looking for your car. You forget exactly where it is parked, so keep clicking the HONK button on your clicker. One click, nothing, another click in the other direction, nothing…. Finally click click HONK HONK! You find your car, notice how the clicker worked when you got closer, that is a lot like how your router works. There are some angles that are tricky, a wall could be too thick, plumbing could block the signal etc.
- When you want to optimize connection, try to ‘look’ at the router from exactly where the sensor would be, what does the signal have to go through to get a signal to the router? If you can minimize that, you will improve the connection reliability
- If devices are on a fringe of the network, they may have a lower priority or be less likely to reconnect in the case of an outage. They also may disconnect more often. This is much more shades of gray than any black and white answers.
- Connecting to a router through multiple walls will increase the chances of interference. Your router is a walkie talkie that helps your device get information from the ‘internet’. The internet can come from a satellite or land telephone line (hopefully not), but most often comes through a cat 5 ethernet cable. You are locally communicating with your router, and the router is downloading/uploading information to ‘the internet’.
- Download/Upload (not wifi) speed
- This doesn’t matter too much for NoiseAware. High download and upload speeds will indicate smooth zoom calls, but NoiseAware is sending much smaller files. We are privacy safe, we don’t transmit any audio files, only text files with the noise levels and some brief connectivity data. High speeds will make sure that your guests have adequate bandwidth, but if bandwidth is a concern you could set up the sensor on a separate network and have your guests use a ‘guest network’. High internet speeds are awesome, but the router connection is much more local, walkie talkie related and is just as important. Just because the download speed is high, does not mean you have more wifi range, it just means you can download big files faster or buffer high quality videos faster. NoiseAware uses very small files, very little bandwidth. However, if you have low bandwidth, you may see complaints from guests, they may try to reset the router more often or work to get their devices a higher priority.
- Managed WiFi
- There are thousands of possible configurations
- The specific configuration may make the initial installation of NoiseAware difficult, in these cases we must speak with the managed wifi provider to figure out what details of the configuration are blocking install.
- Managed WiFi is common in transient places like hotels, coffee shops and office buildings
- Managed WiFi means that a 3rd party has been hired to set up the internet in a professional and scalable way
- Router Settings
- Only connect to a basic 2.4 connection
- NoiseAware cannot connect to the 5g network at all
- Do not connect NoiseAware to the guest network, it will connect successfully, but will be disconnected in 7-14 days because guest networks only give temporary internet access
- Every router has a control panel that you can log in to when connected to the router. The access instructions are typically written on the router directly, and include an ip address you can enter in your router and a password. From this page, you can see if you are connecting to a 2.4g network, 5g network, guest network etc, what the names and passwords are
- Splash Pages
- You may need to whitelist the device to bypass the splash screen
- You may ask the managed wifi provider to connect to a different network, let them know you are installing a sensor that you want to stay connected to the network long term with minimal interference from other transient devices
- The guest networks are a great idea, they can help you capture guest contact information, and keep your guest devices labeled as guests. NoiseAware is not a ‘guest’, we want to stay online year round. This keeps the network clean and stops it from getting bogged down by a massive device list from all the guests coming and going
- Splash pages are a page that requires you to enter any personal information or accept terms and conditions. A splash page is an indicator that you are on a managed wifi network. When using NoiseAware on a managed network, here are some things you should consider:
- Guest Networks
- Do not install NoiseAware on a guest network. But we highly recommend utilizing guest networks for all of your guest internet access. The guest networks are a great idea, they can help you capture guest contact information, and keep your guest devices labeled as guests. NoiseAware is not a ‘guest’, we want to stay online year round. This keeps the network clean and stops it from getting bogged down by a massive device list from all the guests coming and going
- Mesh Network
- You can mess up a mesh network install in multiple ways. It is important that you do not have too many or too few access points.
- If your access points are too far from each other, the sensor may be installed in a location where they are too far from an access point OR they are connected to an access point that is OFFLINE because the access point is too far from the hub to maintain a consistent connection.
- If your access points are too close to each other, this can also create interference on the network. If the sensor is installed very close to 2 different access points, it is possible that the firmware on NoiseAware or the mesh network begin to compete to find the “best” connection. In these cases, you may see a sensor repeatedly go online, and offline and then online again. The sensor is constantly switching between access points and the router may constantly be reprioritizing the connection
- Mesh networks are new. They are a cheaper and easier way to bring some benefits of professionally managed WIFI to your (large) home. When set up properly, they work great, but they are also very easy to set up incorrectly. Mesh networks are ideal for anyone with large properties that wants to extend their WIFI range beyond that of a basic router. Mesh networks will have one hub acting as a router, and then connect to one or more other access points throughout the house that work as an extender(s).
- Using a WIFI Extender
- Like using a mesh network, it is possible that the sensor is connected to the extender, but the extender has fallen offline from the main router. Because they have different names, the customer would have to reset the extender or get the extender back online to get the sensor back online.
- Extenders pre-date mesh networks and work very similarly. One major difference between an extender and mesh network is that you can name the extender a unique network name and password. This can help guarantee that the network is not competing with the router with the same SSID.
- Intermittent connectivity
- If your internet connection is spotty, or you live in an area with frequent outages, it is more important to make sure that the sensor is set up close to the router with a good line of sight. Every time the sensor goes offline, there is a high probability it reconnects, but it's still probability (~99%). Over a long enough period of time, hopefully months to years, it is likely that the sensor will fail to reconnect, but should just need to be unplugged and plugged back in to go back online.
- WIFI survey, how they can help
- This is where you would map out the WIFI connectivity for every inch of your home. It would help you figure out where your blind spots are and what the optimal locations are for your router, mesh access points or extenders. This could be performed crudely by downloading a WIFI analyzer or any tool that displays RSSI to measure the signal strength as you pace through your home. The RSSI will be highest closest to your router, and slowly decrease as you move away and put more walls, vents, plumbing and appliances between the device measuring RSSI and your router. You want to make sure you are installing the sensor within a stable range, as you want to it stay connected 24/7 even when you have more guests and more devices in the home. We do not use much bandwidth at all, in most cases range is a more important factor for connectivity than download or upload speed.
- Satellite internet
- The internet offered by satellites is historically poor. It offered slow speeds, but was very useful in areas that are not close to a grid and connecting internet could cost more than ten grand. Starlink is now being offered in rural areas without ground lines and is much improved. We should work fine, depending on the router and all other factors of the property.
- Fringe connectivity
- Installing the sensor on the fringe of connectivity is also risky. Your internet connection is spotty on the fringes. Every time the sensor goes offline, there is a high probability it reconnects, but it's still probability (~97%). The chances of reconnection are just worse when you are on the fringe of the network. Over a long enough period of time, it is likely that the sensor will fail to reconnect. We would define fringe connectivity as any RSSI worse than -65db, RSSI is strongest closest to the router and decreases as you move further away and have more obstructions blocking the signal.