Moen U Shower will not connect to AX86U Pro but was fine with AC86U

[snovvman]

The U Shower has buggy WiFi. It's 2.4Ghz-n, but very picky about the type of AP it's willing to connect. With my AC86U, it had no problems connecting. With AX86U Pro, it will not connect. I've replicated the settings between the AC and AX. Roaming assistant, airtime fairness, MIMO, OFDMA, explicit and universal beamforming are all disabled. Is there anything else I should look to try? Thanks.

 

[Tech9]

I have the same problem with my Wi-Fi toothbrush. Alexa doesn't recognize my teeth anymore.

 

[snovvman]

I have the same problem with my Wi-Fi toothbrush. Alexa doesn't recognize my teeth anymore.

Lol. Why would anyone want a Wi-Fi enabled toothbrush! ;-)

 

[bennor]

The U Shower has buggy WiFi. It's 2.4Ghz-n, but very picky about the type of AP it's willing to connect. With my AC86U, it had no problems connecting. With AX86U Pro, it will not connect. I've replicated the settings between the AC and AX. Roaming assistant, airtime fairness, MIMO, OFDMA, explicit and universal beamforming are all disabled. Is there anything else I should look to try? Thanks.

Are you using the same WiFI channel(s) as the AC86U?
Is Smart Connect enabled?
Have you tried using Guest Network and putting the device on the Guest Network WiFi?

Some WiFi clients are just very picky about the WiFi settings including channel used. I found I had to turn off Smart Connect and use a unique SSID for each WiFi band. I have one WiFi device that won't connect to certain 5Ghz channels.

 

[Tech9]

Why would anyone want a Wi-Fi enabled toothbrush! ;-)

Because I want Alexa to count my teeth and send me a notification on my smartphone if the expected total changes. Online services also need to know the quality of toothpaste I use, frequency of brushing and duration. Similar to your smart shower thing.

 

[snovvman]

Are you using the same WiFI channel(s) as the AC86U?
Is Smart Connect enabled?
Have you tried using Guest Network and putting the device on the Guest Network WiFi?

Some WiFi clients are just very picky about the WiFi settings including channel used. I found I had to turn off Smart Connect and use a unique SSID for each WiFi band. I have one WiFi device that won't connect to certain 5Ghz channels.

Thanks. I will try these suggestions. For a device that is 2.4Ghz only, how would Smart Connect affect the connection? I presume the client would only "see" the 2.4Ghz band?

Because I want Alexa to count my teeth and send me a notification on my smartphone if the expected total changes. Online services also need to know the quality of toothpaste I use, frequency of brushing and duration. Similar to your smart shower thing.

Perfect use case! I will immediately buy one. I just hope it supports 5Ghz MIMO because I'm sure it needs bandwidth! Also, I hope future firmware updates will share the audio and video of my brushing sessions with online services so that they can provide feedback on the quality of my brushing environment and ambiance.

 

[bennor]

For a device that is 2.4Ghz only, how would Smart Connect affect the connection? I presume the client would only "see" the 2.4Ghz band?

Look at it as a troubleshooting step to disable Smart Connect and manually configure your WiFi. Some have found Smart Connect isn't so smart and they have better luck disabling it.

 

[bbunge]

The U Shower has buggy WiFi. It's 2.4Ghz-n, but very picky about the type of AP it's willing to connect. With my AC86U, it had no problems connecting. With AX86U Pro, it will not connect. I've replicated the settings between the AC and AX. Roaming assistant, airtime fairness, MIMO, OFDMA, explicit and universal beamforming are all disabled. Is there anything else I should look to try? Thanks.

I have some old clients that just like old security protocols. For those I set up a guest WIFI on the 2.4 GHz band, WPA/WPA2, with a simple SSID and password (eight character password of just alpha characters - no spaces or special characters). You can leave the Dual Band Smart Connect on as your newer clients can deal with it.

Also best to leave the Professional WIFI settings at defaults. Changing them can really mess a system up.

 

[OzarkEdge]

The U Shower has buggy WiFi. It's 2.4Ghz-n, but very picky about the type of AP it's willing to connect. With my AC86U, it had no problems connecting. With AX86U Pro, it will not connect. I've replicated the settings between the AC and AX. Roaming assistant, airtime fairness, MIMO, OFDMA, explicit and universal beamforming are all disabled. Is there anything else I should look to try? Thanks.

Did you try disabling 802.11ax / WiFi 6 mode?

OE

 

[snovvman]

Thanks for all the input. Update: It looks like setting the authentication method to WPA2 instead of WPA2/WPA3 worked. I will do more testing tomorrow and report back. I want see if flipping back to WPA2/WPA3 will cause it to fail again.

I am running Merlin's latest. I've noticed that when I make many changes in short succession, it causes the meshed APs to become wonky. I want to do the testing to see if in fact WPA was the cause.

 

[snovvman]

Confirmed. WPA3/WPA2 was the problem. Set it to WPA2-only and problem solved.

 

[jksmurf]

I have some old clients that just like old security protocols. For those I set up a guest WIFI on the 2.4 GHz band, WPA/WPA2, with a simple SSID and password (eight character password of just alpha characters - no spaces or special characters). You can leave the Dual Band Smart Connect on as your newer clients can deal with it.

Also best to leave the Professional WIFI settings at defaults. Changing them can really mess a system up.

Yep, agree with this, I do this for my older clients too.

The only bugbear about doing this though is that only GuestWifi (GW1) gets out to AIMESH nodes, not GW2 or GW3, unless you set up VLANs with the YazFi Addon; but that seems a pretty complicated way to do it compared to the GUI. [EDIT; this appears not to be correct, see comments that follow]

I use GW1 for guests and GW2 for IoT things on 2.4GHz; but these 2.4GHz clients have to connect to GW2 on the main router only, so if these devices are far from the main router (even if close to a mesh node) the signal might be weak.

I thought Guest Network Pro on the main Router device only (with 3.0.0.6) would fix this for all nodes including older non-3.0.0.6 ones, but tech9 says nope.

 

[Tech9]

unless you set up VLANs with the YazFi

YazFi doesn't use VLANs and doesn't work with AiMesh.

The potential issue with some clients is PMF, required for WPA3.

 

[Crimliar]

*Some years back I had a Braun toothbrush that connected to a monitoring device and that connected to an app! It'll have been something I bought through work for a pittance because it was a complete flop. Worked much better if you turned off the monitor and didn't use the app. Its smart capabilities consisted of a nag timer for various zones. Really got the impression that orientation sensors don't enjoy environments where there is an excessive amount of vibration!

 

[Tech9]

@Crimliar without Wi-Fi toothbrush:

 

[jksmurf]

YazFi doesn't use VLANs and doesn't work with AiMesh.

Apologies, you are indeed correct, my mixup about the VLANs. Yes I read about it not working with AIMESH. It does allow Guest Networks to be extended to Nodes though right? Exactly how it does that I’m not sure.

 

[Tech9]

It does allow Guest Networks to be extended to Nodes though right?

No, YazFi is local router only feature. Nothing it creates extends to nodes.

 

[bennor]

It does allow Guest Networks to be extended to Nodes though right?

No. Per the YazFi developer.

YazFi doesn't work on Aimesh nodes. The guest network on the node will be unrestricted

 

[jksmurf]

No. Per the YazFi developer.

Oh, ok thanks. So only to access points?

 

[Tech9]

So only to access points?

No, only the router it is running on.