topic Re: Weak Connection in Nest Wifi

Weak Connection

brownel02 — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 17:35:05 GMT

I have a split level home of roughly 2700sf. My nearest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away. No new services/devices have been added to my house although 1 wall was removed to create a more open concept. My services come into the basement (power, cable, internet...).

Case 1: For the past 3 years I have had my 1st Google Wifi set up in the basement attached to my router. My 2nd point is in my dining room (1 room and 1 floor away), 3rd point is in the living room (2 rooms away but within eye sight, no walls).

I started having internet issues about 3 months ago (weak connection, dropped service, tv (in living room) buffering. All speed tests show 450+Mbps and all connecting lines are CAT6. I followed these instructions (they have been given multiple times on this forum):

*Do a full power cycle of the network - this will allow the entire network to re-establish connections. Here's how to do it properly.

Disconnect the power cable and Ethernet cable from the Google Nest Wifi router.
Disconnect the power cables from the other Wifi points.
Disconnect the power cable from the modem.
Allow the power to stay disconnected from all for 5 minutes.
Connect the power back to the modem only and wait for it to fully boot back up.
All lights should be lit up before moving to the next step.
After the modem is back online, connect the Ethernet cable to back to the Google Nest Wifi router's WAN port (globe symbol).
Connect the power cable back to Google Nest Wifi router and to other Wifi points.
Allow the all Wifi points to be fully back on.

These instructions made no difference to the signal quality, still showing as Weak on both of my wifi points.

Case 2: I moved my Main Google Wifi to the 1st floor running new CAT6 back to my router (30'). My 2nd wifi spot is now in the living room (eye sight to the main Google wifi modem) but the signal still shows as a Weak connection. No 3rd wifi puck is currently installed.

Any help on getting my service back to stable before I ditch these pucks?

Thanks

Re: Weak Connection

brownel02 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:01:25 GMT

Any help here? Any thoughts?

Re: Weak Connection

olavrb — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:54:08 GMT

Is running wired backhaul (ethernet cable between the points) an alternative for you? If pulling cable between them is problematic, ethernet can also go through power line (PowerLine, HomePlug) or coax (MoCA).

https://support.google.com/wifi/answer/7215624?hl=en

Re: Weak Connection

brownel02 — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:14:39 GMT

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having wifi (running lines all over the house)? And I am still not sure why my wifi point (in direct sight of my router) has a weak connection. Surely ~25 feet is not too far for the mesh to work.

Re: Weak Connection

olavrb — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 21:07:02 GMT

I think of WiFi as a suitable way of connecting non-stationary, movable devices. Wire will always be superior for speed and reliability. Thus one should always prefer wired routers and access points, if possible, so that you get the best experience possible for the devices you connect wirelessly. And the less devices you have connected wirelessly, the better performance wirelessly connected devices will have.

That being said: 25ft. Having points too close can damage performance due to interferrance. See:

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7183150?hl=en

I live in a apartment with solid concrete walls, no coax, so I've chosen to have wireless backhaul with my 2x Nest Wifi routers. So here I am, preaching wired backhaul, but using wireless backhaul myself. 🙂

Re: Weak Connection

Jeff — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:43:56 GMT

Hi, brownel02.
I just wanted to check in real fast to see if you saw olavrb's last reply and to find out if you still needed any help on this. If you're still needing assistance, please just let me know and I'll be happy to continue helping.
Thanks.

Re: Weak Connection

Jfritton74 — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 02:06:55 GMT

This is happening for me as well. I just purchased the Google wifi three pack, set them all up and for about two weeks the mesh connections were showing as great. All of a sudden all connections are now showing as "weak" even though there has been no change to the network or locations whatsoever.

I tried the power cycling advice and it hasn't worked. Any thoughts?

Re: Weak Connection

Jeff — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 19:23:43 GMT

Hey, everyone.

As we continue to look into this, would you all be able to send in feedback from your device? This lets our internal teams not only receive a report of your issue directly, but it gives them more detailed data about your situation. We're looking into this still, but your help could speed it along. I'll put the info for doing that below.

Step 1. Turn on device reports

Make sure your mobile device or tablet is connected to the same Wi-Fi or linked to the same account as your Chromecast, or speaker or display.
Open the Google Home app .
Select the device you want to share feedback about.
At the top right corner of the screen, tap Settings Recognition & sharing.
Turn on Send [device model] device usage and crash reports to Google. (Example: Send Google Home device usage and crash reports to Google.)

Step 2. Share your feedback

Open the Google Home app .
At the top right, tap your account.
Tap Feedback tap the type of device you'd like to submit feedback for.
To display available emails, in the "From:" section, tap the arrow on the right. Select your email address.
In the feedback summary, write a brief description of your issue.
Be sure to check the box for Screenshot and System logs.
To submit feedback, at the top right corner, tap Send .

Thanks.

Re: Weak Connection

guyguy — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 03:00:48 GMT

yeah they are garbage no help from support throw them out

Re: Weak Connection

brownel02 — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 16:44:44 GMT

I appears that the answer is to wire them to your main router/switch or each other. Yup, that totally defeats the purpose of having a mesh network. I ran several trials pulling the power to all devices, routers and switches between trials and the result is still the same, crap! This only started happening to me a few months ago but has continued since regardless of configuration.

Test 1: Main point in dining room wired direct to my router (CAT6 about 30 feet). Wifi point 2 installed in living room (line of sight to the main point and 27 feet away). Result: Wifi point 2 = Weak connection

Test 2: Leaving the main point (as it is wired back to my router) I moved #2 point two rooms over (2 walls in between devices and about 35 feet). Result: Wifi point 2 = Weak connection

Test 3: Moved wifi point 2 upstairs to the opposite end of the house (split level so only 8 steps and 2 walls between devices, ~35 feet). Result: Wifi point 2 = Weak connection

I believe guyguy is on to something! Support is no help. My initial layout did not change when I started having issues. I have no neighbors within a 1/2 mile and no new equipment was added. Signal went from great to weak. See my OP.

Re: Weak Connection

Jeff — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 18:35:54 GMT

Hey, brownel02.

Sorry for the connection strength issues you're having. As others are seeing this, it's an issue we're tracking now and are working on internally and I know how frustrating it can be to have this going on with your network. I'm going to pass your info onto another team and they will be reaching out to you via the email you have used to sign up for the forums.

In the meantime, I'll continue to update the forums as I have more information to share on this issue.

Thanks.

Re: Weak Connection

addis001 — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 17:38:52 GMT

Same.. My Main Point is wired directly to my switch, and switch to google fiber modeom. I have a point in my dining room-- started having weak connection 6-8 months ago.. I moved it closer, and has a good connection now in the hallway. Then it started having weak connection again.

It is only 12 feet away. the only thing between the two points is a couch!!!

Re: Weak Connection

Marty — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 18:20:49 GMT

I am experiencing the issues as reported by others. I have two routers, one is set up as as a point with ethernet backhaul. However this now reports weak connect although it is physically connected to the main Nest router. All was good until a couple of weeks ago.

My setup is two routers at opposite positions at the ground floor. Then 3 points at the first floor spaced pretty evenly. Two are within line of sight..

Re: Weak Connection

Momo21 — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 20:33:26 GMT

I'm having the same problem now. One router and one point. No issues for 18 points until I experienced the exact same thing the Op mentioned. I'm not in a position to go 100 % wired. Can you kindly advise?

Re: Weak Connection

mi5key — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 04:59:16 GMT

Same here, 1 router, 2 points. Weak Connection between them.

Re: Weak Connection

gaznet — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 16:35:02 GMT

I’m having the same issue, weirdly with two pucks that are 15ft apart and have line of sight, my other 4 pucks are great and they are working fine between walls and floors.

I’ve swapped pucks around and found that any other puck in either of the two offending spaces also show as weak (even though it’s down a hall and have line of sight of each other).

Could it be some weird interference? Or is it that one puck has a weak connection and the second one is also showing as weak because of this?

Re: Weak Connection

Jeff — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:02:02 GMT

Hey, everyone.

It's been a while, but I still don't have anything new to share on this. I did want to check in and let you know that it's still being looked at internally and I'll update when I know more.

Thanks.

Re: Weak Connection

Bel — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 20:40:43 GMT

Yes I am experiencing a similar issue. Have a router and 1 point in multi floor flat. Have had amazing service for past 18 months but in last 2 weeks the point has had poor mesh connection and also went offline randomly. Once I reset point is connected and provided good service again for 24 hrs but has subsequently returned to poor connection. No other changes to the house or Internet provider or points so no idea what triggered the change in performance.

Re: Weak Connection

Jeff — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 21:57:25 GMT

Sorry about that, Bel. Thanks for adding your experience in here, however. Every report helps us to sort out what's going on with this. Hopefully I'll have an update on a fix soon.

Thanks.

Re: Weak Connection

BobBacon — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 17:13:36 GMT

Similar issue here, three points, wired backhaul to router for about two years. One point is now showing as weak and getting weaker over time. Was there an software update that could have caused this?