Nest Hub Max keeps disconnecting from wifi daily

[tobiewolfen]

My Google Nest Hub Max keeps disconnecting from my WiFi at least once a day and requires a reboot. What's odd is that I have my router setup to notify me when a device goes offline, and when the Hub Max indicates it's lost connection the router still shows it online. My WiFi is the Deco mesh network that broadcasts 2.4 and 5Ghz with the same SSID.

None of my other Nest devices have this issue (speaker, thermostat) and what's even weirder is that my mom has a Hub Max but it doesn't have this issue and she has a Deco mesh router too (it's a model that's 2 years older than mine though).

I'm perplexed on what the issue is. I tried a factory reset and even tried moving it far away from other parts of the mesh network thinking perhaps its WiFi adapter is just dumb when switching between nodes. I even have my mesh to not allow the Hub Max to bounce between nodes. I'm at a loss, this very frustrating that such a sophisticated piece of hardware acts rather dumb with something no other device has an issue with. 

[Muddi]

Hey tobiewolfen,

Thanks for sharing details about the issue. My apologies for the late response.

I appreciate your efforts. I know how challenging it is when your Google Nest Hub Max keeps on disconnecting from your network. Let's dig deeper into this.

A few questions:

• When did the issue start?
• How far is your Nest Hub Max from the router?
• How many devices are connected to the router?
• What is the current firmware version of your Nest Hub Max? Please compare it with the one on your mother's device.

Please make sure that your Nest Hub Max is within 15-20 ft. away from your router to make sure that it is getting enough network signal. 

Looking forward to your response.

Cheers,

Muddi

[tobiewolfen]

The issue has been occurring ever since I bought it.

I speculated that the Nest Hub Max is having issues jumping between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz since they're both the same SSID on my mesh network. Surprise! Running strictly 2.4Ghz has stopped it from sporadically disconnecting and is steadily holding a connection. This obviously isn't sustainable in the long term as my devices that aren't IoT are missing out on faster speeds that 5Ghz offers, but it is worth passing onto others that the Nest Hub Max's WiFi adapter seems temperamental in an environment that has an SSID broadcasting on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. I literally moved the Nest Hub Max all over my house and reset it each time with the same results.

Now, my firmware is the same as my mother's, however her home network is using an older model of the mesh network than what I'm using. For anyone who's having this similar issue mine is the TP Link Deco X20. Unfortunately this mesh does not allow me to use different SSIDs for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, but I guess I can keep 5Ghz disabled and just use the 6Ghz band since the Nest Hub Max does not support that band and thus won't perpetuate this behavior. 

[tobiewolfen]

I've done some testing and can confirm that the Hub Max works perfectly on 2.4Ghz . When I have the 5Ghz band enabled on my mesh network, the Hub Max gets stuck on the disconnected screen when it hops into the 5Ghz band. This is conclusive that there's something about the 5Ghz band that the Hub Max does not like. Unfortunately TP Link has dumbed down their interface to where nothing can really be tweaked other than 80Mhz vs 160Mhz - neither setting makes a difference.

Looks like I'm going to try setting up a 2.4Ghz extender dedicated to the Hub Max and see if that is the solution needed. To be continued. 

[tobiewolfen · Accepted solution]

Well I solved my own issue... Do I qualify as a "community specialist"? 😃 I conclude that the Nest Hub Max is incompatible with a mesh network that broadcasts 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on the same SSID. Setting up a dedicated 2.4Ghz wifi extender with its own SSID is the fix for the Nest Hub Max.

Now for clarity on why this appears to be working as expected: The 2.4Ghz wifi extender has its own unique SSID that's piggybacking right off of the mesh network. This setup ensures that the Nest Hub Max will never jump up to a 5Ghz band.

Distance was never the issue; the Nest Hub Max was always in line of sight of a mesh network node 6-10 feet. To be clear, I monitored the connectivity of the Hub Max on the mesh network all day and noticed that on a reboot it started off on the 2.4Ghz band. When it tried jumping to the 5Ghz band, it immediately would start its animation that it was trying to reconnect only to then fail. The Deco app showed that the Nest Hub Max as connected to 5Ghz and its signal was "Very Strong". From what I could find on my TP Link Deco X20 mesh, the only settings that can be changed on 5Ghz is to set it to 80Mhz or 160Mhz. I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated that the interface is this dumbed down. Rather than going by reviews of, "It's great, it's wonderful!" I need to do my own research and ensuring that the interface allows tinkering like many of us IT members take advantage of.

All in all, it would have been nice if there is a firmware update for the Nest Hub Max to allow an advanced user to override a setting like the following:

Preferred Band: Auto / 2.4Ghz / 5Ghz

This alone would likely resolve connectivity that others are plagued with as well, and it would've saved me the hassle of setting up a dedicated wifi extender just for this one device that's sitting among many other devices that do not exhibit this behavior on my mesh network.

[Muddi]

Hi tobiewolfen,

Sweet! Happy to hear that setting a dedicated network on one of your repeaters resolved the issue and thanks for keeping me in the loop. There are some routers that don't let the Google Home/Nest device connect automatically when switching networks, that's why we also recommend the steps that you've done to other users to isolate the issue with network settings. I'm using Nest WiFi points in my house that switches networks as well but I don't experience any issues at all.

Let me know if you still have questions and concerns otherwise, I'll be locking this thread after 24 hours.

Cheers,

Muddi