Joined: 30 May 2017 Posts: 582 Location: Rural Manitoba
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 18:34 Post subject: WRT3200acm & ESP8266 Devices
I know that this has come up many times over the past few builds, but I would like to initiate further comment on the subject of ESP8266 Devices and The 3200 & other WRT's which are affected by the problem of non-connection. This family of devices are used mostly for Home Automation and may include many devices. I specifically use Sonoff devices for monitoring and control.
First off, The stock firmware does not have any problem with these devices.
Disabling wmm is a temporary fix which allows these devices to connect, however it is best to create a virtual AP for use of these devices so that everything else can connect properly to a wm enabled AP. The downside of disabling wmm is reduced speed and loss of connection for many devices.
What I have discovered is that if you initially start the router with wmm disabled (2.4Ghz) the ESP8266 devices will connect properly. If then you enable wmm (save,apply) the devices remain connected but at a higher speed and all other devices connect properly and remain stable.
If however you reboot the router you loose the ESP8266 devices as they seem unable to connect. Doing the previous procedure of wmm disable/enable will get them back working properly.
I must note that on my 1900 V1 and 1200 V1 there is no problem with wmm. _________________ Starlink & DSL -> TPLink TL-R470T+
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WRT3200acm Master WDS 5GHz 80Mhz CH 100 (+6) r55819
Ath1 2.4Ghz Disabled
99 Static Leases
ExpressVPN
WRT3200acm r55819 WDS Station 5Ghz
Ath1 AP N/G Mixed Channel 11 HT40
WRT1900Ac V1 5Ghz r55819 WDS Station
(Defective, no 2.4Ghz but 5Ghz works great)
WRT1900AC V1 5Ghz AC 80Mhz WDS Station r55819
2.4Ghz AP Ch1 HT20 Mixed
WRT1900ACS SPARE r54914
WRT1900AC SPARE r54914
WRT1900AC V1 5Ghz AC 80Mhz WDS-AP r55819
2.4Ghz AP Ch1 HT20 Mixed
WRT54G DD-WRT v3.0-r37305 micro AP CH 6 Mixed - Not in use
I don't know if this is the same issue but throwing it out there as a suggestion to help others.
I have an Axis wifi camera and a 2012 Panasonic TV with a wifi usb dongle that started getting 2.4 ghz radio 'non-connections'. I think this began in the October time frame. They would connect but the connection was useless: high latency, dropped packets, very little usable bandwidth. Changing the 2.4 ghz radio from N/G mixed to g-only seems to have worked. The downside is all 2.4 ghz devices are now connected at 'legacy' mode, but that's good enough and they are stable.
If you have a WRT3200 or WTR32X enable the second radio and set it for 2.4Ghz on a different channel to the one used by ATH 1 - the chipset on this radio doesn't have the bug in the driver and if you only use this channel for your smart devices it wont slow down the rest of the network and it maintains itself on a reboot ! (sadly not posssible on the other WRTs with only 2 channels).
Joined: 18 Aug 2009 Posts: 597 Location: Antigua/Seattle
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2019 17:01 Post subject:
rwbarrett wrote:
If you have a WRT3200 or WTR32X enable the second radio and set it for 2.4Ghz on a different channel to the one used by ATH 1 - the chipset on this radio doesn't have the bug in the driver and if you only use this channel for your smart devices it wont slow down the rest of the network and it maintains itself on a reboot ! (sadly not posssible on the other WRTs with only 2 channels).
You can also pop the cover plastic off and connect a real antenna to that radio.
It only uses an internal antenna that's not very efficient, it takes the standard PCB connector so it's easy to add a gain antenna there, by placing it above or below (not on the same horizontal plane) the other 2.4 antenna you can greatly minimize co-channel interference between the two.
It'll change the way you can use it completely. _________________ WRT3200ACM
