If you find the hub is disconnecting from your WiFi connection or you are seeing a repeated number of offline or wireless disconnected messages then there could be a few reasons for this. This article will help you troubleshoot your WiFi connection and resolve the most common causes.
Router Placement
Sometimes, it is as simple as the hub is too far from your router or the signal strength is not quite high enough for the hub to hold a steady signal. You may want to consider moving the hub closer to your router or even use a WiFi extender. Just make sure that the extender can use 2.4GHz as this is what is required by the hub.
Network Congestion
If you have a lot of devices using the 2.4GHz channel then this can cause congestion on the network and result in a dropped connection for the hub. The solution here is slightly trickier but it may be worth experimenting with various devices to see if any are conflicting with the hub or causing the offline warning. Your ISP may be able to advise on setting a specific channel for the hub or moving the 2.4GHz connection to a different channel to help with this problem.
Interference
If the hub is located within a short distance of a large amount of metal or you have a number of electronic devices or smart home thermostats in close proximity to the hub then this can affect the performance and stability of the connection. Our advice here is to test moving the hub to a separate location to see if this resolves the issue.
Mesh or Whole Home WiFi
We have seen some cases where mesh or whole-home WiFi networks cause disconnection warnings. There are two things you can do to alleviate this problem:
Disable Roaming
Most mesh systems will allow you to disable roaming for a specific device. The hub will always stay in one location so will not benefit from mesh roaming. Once disabled the hub will lock onto the strongest signal and will not move from that access point. You can find the hub by looking at your network devices and checking the MAC address. This will always begin with FA:F0 and will appear as Unknown in the list.
Assign a fixed IP address
When a device connects to your WiFi it is assigned an IP address on your router that normally looks like 192.168.0.15 or similar. This address allows communication between the hub and the router. This IP address can change though so fixing the IP is a good idea.
The instructions for this can vary depending on your router but the key here is to look for a Advanced DHCP setting or Address Reservation menu within the router admin interface. Locate the hub (this will always begin with FA:F0 and will appear as Unknown) and make sure the IP address assigned to the hub is set as fixed. This will mean the hub has a constant connection to your WiFi using an IP that will never change.
Speak to your ISP about Line Quallity
The hub will go offline if the line quality is poor. It does this when it cannot reach a range of public IPs that we use to check we can connect to the outside world. The line quality provided by your ISP can therefore play a big part. In order to check this, we have a simple test you can run.
First, open any computer and make sure it is connected to the 2.4GHz network, the same as the hub. Then follow the instructions below to run a ping test:
Using Windows
- Tap the Windows key and the letter R
- At the prompt type cmd and hit Enter
- A window will open with a cursor. Type ping 8.8.8.8 -r and hit Enter
- Let the test run for at least 60 minutes
- Hit Control and C to stop the test
Using MAC/Linux
- Open a new terminal window
- Type ping 8.8.8.8 and hit Enter
- Let the test run for at least 60 minutes
- Hit Control and C to stop the test
At the end of the test, you will see a summary of the result. If the percentage packet loss is more than 5% then your line quality could be the issue so you do need to contact your ISP for assistance.