Flex 2i weak signal

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9 comments

  • Official comment
    Sam R.

    Hell John, 

    If it isn't already, I would recommend connecting your Flex to the 2.4 gHz band of your WiFi (longer reach and more reliable). A DHCP reservation would also help. 

    Otherwise, since the Powernode seems to connect fine, there potentially could be interference between the Flex and the router. Bluetooth signals and microwaves, for example. Does moving the Flex about halfway closer make a drastic change to the wifi signal strength (might need to wait a few min or reboot the Flex for the change to reflect). 

    Regards,
    Sam R.

  • Conny Tornkrantz

    I had a similar issue, my router is in the basement and my node is on the second floor halfway from the router. When checking different times I had perfect signal and sometimes poor. I solved it with a WiFi extender running on 5,0 mgh band and now it is steady and exellent. Well spent money.

     

    Regards

    Conny T. - Sweden

     

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  • John Cromby

    Thanks Sam. Tried switching to 2.4g with manually assigned IP, it makes only a marginal difference - dropouts just slightly less frequent. I'll try moving it closer to see what difference it makes.

    I had problems setting it up too and it would only complete over a wired connection. Given that my phone picks up a full signal in the exaxt same spot, is there any possibility do you think that the Flex could be faulty?

    Thanks Conny, coincidentally I had already started looking at extenders as a possible solution, good to have your assurance that it might be a viable one.

     

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  • John Cromby

    So moving the Flex nearer the router helps but the signal remains fairly weak. Have also bought and installed an extender. It's much more stable now but even just 1m away from the extender the Flex signal is still only reported as either weak or poor. Sam, does this seem right to you, please?

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  • Conny Tornkrantz

    You shouldn't need to move the Flex nearer to the router, but carefully Place the extender. I learned a lot while trying out the best solution for me, like where to Place the extender to dedicate a channel in the router-settings (in my case channel 80).

    As my router works on both 2,4 and 5,0 mgh band I use the 5,0 for the node and 2,4 band for normal surf. Saying this you should try to find the best place for your extender somwhere between router and the Flex. It took me some evenings trying out but hopefully you will find a solution.

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  • Sam R.

    Hello John, 

    Conny's on the money. 

    I would also consider, if the extender has a LAN port, run an Ethernet cable from the Flex to the extender. In the past this is how I've had multiple players setup. 

    I don't think there's an issue with your Flex in specific, it might just be interference and blocking. You might even want to run a Factory Reset on the Flex and setup from scratch using the Ethernet method.

    Factory Reset: https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/200272046-How-do-I-perform-a-factory-reset-on-my-Bluesound-Player-Gen-2-2i-and-PULSE-

    Wireless Setup over Ethernet:https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/360000057968-How-do-I-connect-my-BluOS-Player-to-the-network- (see last section)

    Regards,
    Sam R.

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  • John Cromby

    Thanks again Conny and Sam.

    There were no walls or obstacles between extender and Flex, no appliances turned on, and only 1m between them - but still the signal was consistently poor/weak, and kept dropping out.

    After one of the dropouts Blueos randomly treated the Flex as a new player and asked me to setup again, so I did (original set up was via ethernet cable after wifi setup right next to the main router consistently failed). I don't know how/why it did this, I didn't initiate a factory reset.

    Since then the Flex consistently reports the signal as fair and hasn't so far dropped out again - so it seems the issue is perhaps resolved.

    I'm still baffled that the best wifi signal the Flex can achieve is 'fair' given its very close proximity to the extender, and - since Sam you seem confident that I don't have a faulty unit - this has made me reconsider my planned purchase of another Flex for a different part of the house. But things are working well now with the setup I have so many thanks again both of you.

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  • Conny Tornkrantz

    Hello again, I can't stop try to find out what is wrong and try to help you out. I don't have the Flex but I do have the Node running on WiFi. I know there is a lot of time consuming trying to get verything to work as good as possible. To just get a fair signal is not acceptable. I don't know what kind of router and what kind of extender you got, but this is how I did it. I have an Asus AC68U router is not the latest model but still have a great performance, the only place I can have it is in the basement. it works fine for normal surf in the rest of the house, but not for streaming music, just like you I got a poor to fair signal, sometimes even a good signal. Sometimes is not good for me, so I bought a Netgear Nighthawk X4 extender. After some adjustment I now have excellent signal. There is a distance from my basement to my first floor about ten meters or something like 33 fot and of course a distance in height. To add is a short wall and the extender is placed behind that wall. The extender is set to 5,0 band. Check out the following: Do the Extender and the Flex running on the same WiFi ? If not change to the extenders WiFi SSID. Have you tried to download an app on a smartphone or tablet or any other portable decive that can tell you what Wifi running from the extender and what kind of signal strength you got from the extender? Do your router and/or extender got an app to download? If so there is a good chance that you can see what is going on on your WiFi. To try to find out if there is something wrong with the Flex is to put it next to the router to se how strong the signal is. 

    The power in our town went out last night for 20 minutes. In the morning I checked everything and the signal was very low and stated poor, I checked the router and extender tried to make a new setup, it turned out that the Node had lost the prefered WiFi network so I was spending a lot of time checking the wrong thing, now I now what to do next time.

    Don't give up, I wish you the best to get Everything work out for you.

    Conny T- Sweden

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  • John Cromby

    Many thanks Conny for your time and all of your thinking about this. Unfortunately I have limited time and technical ability to investigate what is going on here. Since I last posted the Flex has remained consistently connected, though whenever I've checked the signal has never been stronger than fair. This is with the extender less than 2 m from the Flex in direct line of sight and with no appliances running nearby to interfere. Placing my phone in the same position as the Flex, the phone picks up an excellent signal. Since Sam appears confident that I don't have a faulty unit it seems reasonable to conclude that the design of the Flex is responsible for this discrepancy in signal strength. However since it now seems to be staying connected instead of dropping out all the time, it is usable and the fair signal will hopefully suffice. Thanks again for the time you have given to this.

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