Google Wifi Router reports a weak connection despite having a wired connection.

[nophead]

I replaced a Point with a Wifi Router in May because the Point uses 5GHz to mesh and while it works most of the time it drops out when neigbours change their Wifi and never has the brains to change to a free channel. I thought I had solved the problem because being wired by Ethernet to a 1 Gbit network that goes back to my Nest Wifi router it always said it had a strong connection. Today though the Home app has started saying it has a weak connection and I need to move it. WTF, why do I need to move a router that is connected by Ethernet? It makes no sense.

Also I moved the original point to the other side of the house and now that has a weak connection because it used to get is signal from the Wifi router in the next room.

How can a make a Mesh system that works reliably? I live in a two story 4 bedroom detached house, each floor being 100 square meters. I now have three Google devices and still can't get a consistant Mesh system.

[David_K]

It sounds like you have a partial ethernet backhaul and disjointed mesh setup where some of your Wifi points are hardwired, and others are not? These kinds of setups are much more likely to cause problems, that are very hard to diagnose. The primary one being that if one of your non-hardwired Wifi points can establish even a weak connection back to your primary Wifi point it will do that, over connecting to an intermediate closer Wifi point, because it prefers the least hops to get back to the primary Wifi point. This is also the reason Google recommends placing your primary Wifi point as close as possible to the centre of your home.

The best advice I can give you is to do one or the other, not both. Either build a pure mesh topology (i.e. don't hardwire any of the points via ethernet) and follow Google's placement guidelines. Or, build a full ethernet backhaul setup where all your Wi-Fi points are hardwired.

[nophead]

I can't use a pure WiFi mesh because 5GHz is unreliable in my house. Signals from my neighbours are stronger coming in through the windows than my own signal which has to go through walls. And for some reason everybody uses channel 36. If it used any of the other channels there would be no problem as they are all empty. I would probably need a point in every room which is bonkers and a waste of electricity. I don't even want any 5GHz WiFi. 2.4GHz works much better through walls and it is fast enough for anything I need.

If I switch off the Point then it is a purely wired system but the WiFi router still says it has a weak connection. It is connected to a 16 port switch with the cable supplied with it and the lights on the switch indicate it is connected and data is flowing. I don't understand why it is trying to connect over 5GHz to the Nest router when it has a faster wired connection to it. I had assumed the last month it was saying it had a great connection because of the wire but perhaps it was just one of the periods where 5GHz works. It can work for months with a great connection and then a strong signal arrives from a neighbour and it loses connection. That was why I replaced the Point with a wired Wifi router and had to buy a new speaker to replace that functionality. Great for Google's sales but I am begining to think the whole system is a waste of money. 

[nophead]

I wonder if it is a bug in the new version of the Home app.  It will have a poor signal via the 5GHz mesh but it doesn't matter because it has a wired connection. Maybe the new version of the app doesn't recognise this. Although anything connected to  it, even a few inches away is only reporting an OK connection. Devices in the same room as the main Nest router all say great connection.

[nophead · Accepted solution]

Well this is embarrasing. I discovered the link between two of my switches was broken, so there was no ethernet link to the Wifi Router from the Nest Router. The reason I hadn't noticed is because the Wifi router was bridging the gap between my switches using the weak 5GHz signal, so everything else was still connected. Having fixed it all the devices connected to the Wifi router have upgraded to being a good connection. 

[LovelyM]

Hello everyone,

Thank you, David King, for giving out this helpful advice.

@nophead, thanks for reaching out. It looks like you were able to figure out the reason for the issue and resolve it. I'm glad to know that you're getting a good connection now. Let me know if you still have questions or concerns; otherwise, I'll be locking this thread after 24 hours.

Best regards,

Lovely

[nophead]

My Point varies between having a good connection to a weak connection to not working at all without anything changing in my detached house It is because, although it is only a few metres from the Nest router, it has to go through a floor and 5GHz doesn't like going through anything.  Using 5Ghz for a Mesh seems stupid to me.

Upstairs in my house signals from neighbours are stronger despite them being a lot further away.

Why is everything on the 5GHz band on channel 42? Why doesn't anybody use the many unused channels available? Since they are never used, if I can manual specify another channel it would solve the problem.

Why does switching the point on and off restore the connection? It doesn't switch channels, so what has changed?

The room where the point is has wired Ethernet. Is there a wired mesh extender that is compatible with the Nest Wifi router? I like the seamless switching but having to turn the point on and off every few days is a pain and I spent the winter elsewhere and need it to be reliable. I don't want to add another point because it is a waste of electricity and would need to be in a stupid place, like halfway up the stairs.

[nophead]

So I replaced the Point with a Google Wifi Router in the same location but connected via Ethernet. It seems to give exactly the same coverage and always has a good connection obviously.

The only problem is now I don't have the speaker. I don't know why Google thinks it is good idea to drop the Ethernet port on their later products. 5GHz is not a good way to make a mesh unless you have one in every room as it will not go through two walls reliably. It can work for months and then it doesn't when a distant neighbour gets a new router. I think 5GHz gets in from outside through the windows easier than it does going through internal walls.

[LovelyM]

Hello nophead,

Thanks for posting. 

I'm going to merge this thread with another thread of yours, so we can communicate effectively. You can follow the main thread for updates because this one will be locked automatically once merged.

Best,
Lovely

[nophead]

In the Wifi Devices view of the Google Home Android app with a Nest Wifi Router and one Wifi point the total download speed seems to be the sum of all the individual device download speeds but the upload speed seems to be about twice the sum of the upload speeds of the devices. Also when a speed test is run the upload speed shown is faster than the sync speed of my ADSL modem, so I think that is probably doubled as well. For example I get 11 Mbps when I am synced at 7.341 Mbps and other speed tests show 5.7 Mbps.

The download speed test is a little below the sync speed and I get similar results from other speeds tests, so is believable.

Has anybody else noticed this?

[nophead]

No replies! Surely this must affect other users. Looks like it will never be fixed.

[nophead]

Another problem I noticed with the Home app is the connection state information can be wrong or perhaps very out of date. For example it says a Sonoff two meters from my router has a weak connection but when I ask the Tasmota software running it on it is has an RSSI of 100 as expected. It did have a weak signal yesterday while I was reorganising my network.

[LovelyM]

Hi nophead,

Thanks for visiting the Community. 

It looks like you already confirmed that this issue was resolved in another thread. I'll merge this with the main post here. If you ever have additional concerns or questions, feel free to create a new post since this will be automatically locked once merged.

Thanks,
Lovely

[nophead]

No these are separate issues. The Home app seems to double the reported upload speed and its reports of singal strength seem unreliable. For example my phone is one metre from the Wifi router and it says OK connection but occasionally says great connection.

[LovelyM]

Hi nophead,

Got it! Thanks for the clarification. If you haven't already, please uninstall and reinstall the Google Home app. Give me the Google Home app version that you're currently using as well. 

Sincerely,
Lovely

[nophead]

I think it is version 3.2.1.7. It updated itself in June with a major update that features an irritating cartoon for no good reason I can think of.

This aspect reporting the wrong upload data rate and also the wrong upload speed in the Broadband speed test has not changed since I first reported the problem, which was before the last update.

If I uninstall it will I lose my settings or are they stored in the cloud. I don't want to set it up again.

[LovelyM]

Hey nophead,

I understand. The settings are already stored in the cloud, so they will be retained after you uninstall and reinstall the Google Home app, as long as you signed in with the correct Google Account. If the issue remains, please send feedback to our product team so they can check on the crash log reports from the app. 

Keep me posted. 

Thanks, 
Lovely

[nophead]

Deleting and reinstalling the App made no difference.

I made a screenshot showing the problem during a web based broadband speed test but the feedback system doesn't allow me to send that, only one that it takes when I select feedback, which of course doesn't show the problem.

My router connects at 7.25 Mbps upload speed and a broadband speed test web site reports 6.5 Mbps upload . It was running on the Mini-ITX device which shows 6.99 Mbps during the test but the total jumps up to 14.2 Mbps, which is twice the value it should be and impossosible over a 7.25 Mbps connection. The upload speed when the test isn't running is only about 100 Kbps.

Doing a speed test in the Home app always shows 11 Mbps, which is about 50% too big.

The download speeds and total  look correct. When I am using a VPN from my house in the UK to Tenerife the speed is limited by my upload speed and the device running the VPN shows download and upload about the same, as expected, but the total figure shows the total upload twice as big download, again impossible. 

[LovelyM]

Hey nophead,

Sorry for the late revert. Thanks for giving out this detailed information. If you can, please forget the Wi-Fi network on your Mini-ITX device before reconnecting. Conduct a speed test afterwards and see if it still shows twice the speed as before.

Regards, 
Lovely

[LovelyM]

Hi nophead,

I appreciate you filling out the form! Please check your Inbox from time to time, as our team will be getting in touch with you over email.

Thanks,
Lovely

[nophead]

Will do. I would be surprised if the problem is unique to me though.

[LovelyM]

Hello ldcurran59, 

No worries. Our senior specialist team will check on the diagnostic reports of your network to better understand why your issue is happening. 

Cheers, 
Lovely

[nophead]

The Mini-ITX computer doesn't have Wifi it is connected by an Ethernet cable. It isn't just the device that Home shows inflated upload speeds faster than my ADSL line rate, it is all devices.  For example my current sync speed is 7.25 Mbps and a Google speed test run in Chrome on another PC, running a different OS shows, 6.69 Mbps but Home showed 9 Mbps upload from the device and 14 Mbps in total during the test. And a speed test run in the Home app always shows my upload speed as 11 Mbps, which is impossible with a sync speed of 7.25 Mbps.

[LovelyM]

Hello nophead, 

I understand. Kindly submit this form to us with the information asked so our senior specialist team can look into this more closely.

Sincerely, 
Lovely