Bad Wifi on a my Xiaomi Vacuum cleaner

[Pergola Fabio]

Hey Guys
i have a basic setup with some mesh nodes = rt-ac86u
One device my Xiaomi Dreame F9 vacuum robot always have a verry weak signal, i tried also bounding it to nearest aimesh nde, makes no difference
As soon its 2 rooms away , with doors open, the wifi bars drop from 4 to 1 , and got many ping timeouts
Other devices , like tuya smart wifi leds, mobilde devices, other robot cleaner (model) , in exact same place gives me full bars , its only one particular device

I dont think its an hardware issue on robot cleaner, because before when i had a AP from my isp provider, i never experienced timeouts

what could it be? its a quite basic Wifi setup

20 mhz , channel 11 (tried also 1 or 6), wpa2-personal AES, airtime fairness beamforming mimo all disabled
There is no wfi interference from neighbors, there arent any

any idea? tips?

thnx in advance

 

[degrub]

Have you tried resetting the wifi and downloading the latest version of the app as suggested in the user manual ?

wifi is a two way street. If the client is weak, then the connection will fail even if the AP signal is strong at that location since the client cannot reach the AP with its transmission.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

Latest app, what app do you mean? The client is indeed weak, what can be the cause of it?

 

[degrub]

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0302/5276/1220/files/DreameTech_Robot_Vacuum-Mop_F9_User_Manual_ee6ec008-a0b9-45e4-8d71-9e3f1771bd56.pdf?v=1612753182

Page 16, bottom row of table.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

yeah, i have latest app, but i dont use the app to check the wifi, i see the signal when i browse to the aimesh node
i have 2 F9 robot cleaners, one from my mother too, i borrowed it yesteday and tested on my wifi, its the same bad signal

dont understand, if iam close to the AP node, full bars, when i walk away with the robot cleaner i my hand, when i am like 10 meters away i see the wifi signal dropping
a few meters further , wifi is gone
other devices dont have the issue, perfect wifi there, no timeouts of whatsover when i do a ping

 

[degrub]

What are you browsing from ?
Not sure what you mean when you say "browse to the ai mesh node " ? i do not use asus.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

if you have multiple ASUS devices, we can create one WIFI mesh network from different AP's
when open the AP node, i can see there the vacuum attached to the nearest node, there i see a bad wifi signal, only 2 bars when its a room away

 

[degrub]

it sounds like the walls are blocking enough of the signal from either the robot or the AP.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

yeah, but other devices are working perfect in exact same spot, also IOT devices

 

[degrub]

they likely have different design or meet newer wireless standards. i could not find anything about it on their website.
If it is important, you might have to add a mesh node in the "dead" zones for the device.

 

[Tech9]

dont understand, if iam close to the AP node, full bars, when i walk away with the robot cleaner i my hand, when i am like 10 meters away i see the wifi signal dropping

AC86U 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is a bit weird. I have one device with very similar behavior - Brother MFC printer. Client map shows 3 bars, wireless log -60dBm, but the printer is extremely slow with unusable scanner. Other 2.4GHz devices connect and work well, but not the printer. The moment I move 2.4GHz to an AP right next to AC86U, the printer comes alive! I've tried 3 different routers in AP mode and they all work with the MFC, but not AC86U 2.4GHz. My AC86U routers are all repaired units used for nothing but testing and I never asked any questions about why is this thing happening.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

Hmm, that's seems indeed similar, it's indeed verry strange

 

[degrub]

let's go celebrate with a glass of nice Barolo

 

[Hazel]

Could it be that Xiaomi Vacuum Cleaners just don't have the best wifi chipsets onboard? I just Googled around a bit and found many similar complaints, not only for this model but in general Xiaomi and connection issues seem to go hand in hand. I can imagine that something like a vacuum cleaner causes a lot of interference and I don't know how well Xiaomi is able to shield their onboard wifi from that. I've always sticked with Roomba's, despite the price difference but never, ever had connection issues.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

Well, my other xiaomi roborock just works fine, maybe indeed another chipset... Too bad , i was maybe hoping an setting on the 86u could be changed

 

[coxhaus]

I don't know about your problem but I have an iRobot Roomba i7 and it works fine across my Cisco wireless APs. I have a large house and my first iRobot Roomba would only cover 3/4 of my house. I immediately upgraded to the i7 which will cover my whole house across multiple APs.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

Maybe it's indeed related to the 86u , gonna bind it tomorrow as a test to a 88u, it's further away, but if it has more bars, then i know it's a 86u issue

 

[Pergola Fabio]

indeed, now binded it to a ac88u, same location tested, even the ac88u is further away, and still have 3 bars instead of 2
something indeed going on with the 86u

 

[degrub]

If you can, swap the wall wart power supply brick with another one and see if the issue follows the brick.

 

[Pergola Fabio]

Today i swapped 86u with the my other node and reconfigured the nodes, maybe it was an antenna issue, but still the same

I give up