Connecting a Pool Heater

[fatlad]

Hi, I'm trying to connect a WiFi enabled swimming pool heat pump and having some issues. According to the instructions, it uses the Tuya Smart Life App. For a bunch of reasons I've had to use a TPLink Powerline Adapter (TL-WPA8631P) to get a wifi signal near the heater, but when I put the heater into pairing mode, the app is telling me the network is unusable. I looked at the Help section of the app and as with many IoT gadgets, it says it's 2.4Ghz only, so I disabled the 5GHz band to be sure. It says it has to be WPA2/PSK with AES, so I set the network to use that. It also says the network cannot be 80211n only, so I set the mode to b/g/n Mixed. It still says the network is unusable. So now I'm stuck. Is it a problem with the network or just some shoddy cheap Chinese WiFi in the heater?

I installed the Wifiman app to check the network and the signal is fine next to the heater. It's an Android phone that's a few years old and when I look at the network I see PHY Mode as Wifi 4 - 802.11n, MIMO 2x2. Does that just mean my phone is using 802.11n? I was kind of expecting to see something like Wifi 4 - 802.11b/g/n MIMO 2x2 to know that other modes are available on the network. It's like I need to force the network to g or n, but the only options in the AP control panel are b/g/n (which I'm using), g/n (which I tried and didn't work) or n only (which the instructions explicitly say won't work).

Any thoughts or help much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[eibgrad]

If I had to bet, it probably is shoddy wireless, much like most of the wireless you find on smart TVs. That's why I avoid wireless as much as possible, relegating it (ideally) to mobile devices.

Sometimes devices will have been developed and tested w/ older networking equipment, and sometimes newer networking equipment will have trouble w/ the older standards. Given everything you've described, it sure seems like it wants to use wireless G. That's why I keep one or two old wireless G/N routers on the shelf, in case compatibility becomes an issue. It also means I don't have to compromise my primary network by supporting outdated (and perhaps less secure) networking standards.

In the case of a Smart TV, I'll either (preferably) bridge it to the router w/ powerline (w/ ethernet at both ends), or I'll use a wireless ethernet bridge, essentially replacing the TV's built-in wireless adapter for my own. Of course, the former doesn't help unless the TV (or in your case, the pool heater) has a wired ethernet port.

That's why I always check when purchasing any network-enabled device that it also has an ethernet port (esp. for non mobile devices). Too many such devices these days (including laptops) assume it's of no value and just drop it. Bad idea imo.

 

[fatlad]

Unfortunately, no wired ethernet port otherwise that would have been my go-to as well.

 

[Crimliar]

What happens if you set up a hotspot on your phone that mimics your home Wifi, and use that to set up the heater, and then when it's running turn the hotspot off and the WiFi back on?
*Also many Tuya smart devices have a secondary "Acess Point" set-up mode.

 

[fatlad]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I actually managed to get this working. It was nothing to do with the network and everything to do with the instructions. Pushing the buttons the instructions said seemed to fire up the Access Point mode as Crimliar mentioned because I could see a wifi generated by the heater, whereas to put it into pairing mode required two different buttons to be pushed. I found the answer in a YouTube video for a different but similar model of pool heater. It's working now, so thank you all.