802.11 dongle

[Alexander de Bordes]

I had read somewhere, I thought in Brennan lit, that replacing the antenna dongle which comes with unit with a Mini USB 802.11n Wireless Internet Dongle would strengthen the signal, but just the opposite happened, and from appx -48dB to -73dB.

p.s. I have a post out about not being able to download cd's which is still not resolved (i.e. the unit goes from "loading cd" to "standby" without going through "disk lookup"

[Daniel Taylor]

The change you report in switching WiFi dongles is strange indeed.  I would suspect the new dongle to be defective.

You might want to wait for others to post before sending it back.  There may be more to it than I can think of.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

It is natural to focus the problem on the B2, as that is what you are trying to use and what appears not to be working. However,  a B2 is a PASSIVE device in regards to its network connections, the ACTIVE device is the House WiFi Router. If a device in your house is not getting a good WiFi signal, it is not that device's fault, it is a problem with the system you are using to support WiFi in your house.

Chasing B2 wifi dongles is not the  answer. To be sure of the best possible connection (if you are having connection issues) then make a wired Ethernet connection. Or perhaps replace your house Router with something more beefy?

Fred

[Daniel Taylor]

The vast majority of the time, I agree with Fred.  And I don't disagree with him this time either.  But with all things being equal, and changing only one variable - the dongle - and to get that bad a change, makes me wonder about the new dongle.  I'd expect it to work at least as well as the old one.

That being said, "all things being equal" is an assumption that may not be true.  WiFi reception can change dynamically.  Strange things as seemingly unlikely as a refrigerator running can change the character of the RF waves bouncing around the residence.

Agreeing with Fred again, I'd support switching to a wired ethernet connection.  And be sure to remove the WiFi dongle while using the wired connection.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Daniel,

:-) I agree the two dongle difference is a puzzle - I am no WiFi expert but could the router be beamforming ? and not learned the new dongle yet? - and as you say "some dongles may not be as equal as others" - If it was me it would be my luck to get the Friday afternoon one!

Fred

[Ray Dion]

If you already understand all this, sorry for the intrusion. I just get confused by your use of passive. No intent to offend in any way. It may be a British/American thing. I did live in England for 5 years, loved it. Except for the mad cow thing. :-) I still can't donate blood in the US.

I understand the point about the B2 being a passive to some extent but that is not true for any device on a network. It is passive from a functional point of view, it receives requests and provides answers. If no request is made, nothing happens. The B2 does not initiate application level requests. DHCP and NTP (Network Time Protocol) are exceptions. There might be other Linux things too. 

The point of this post is to show that both sides are active and equal partners from a network perspective in ANY communication. The B2 plays an active role in answering the requests.

OSI model

The WiFi is layers 1 to 3 and defines how data is passed machine to machine. Level 3 is where the B2 decides to use WiFi or ethernet. This is why you only want one of them connected at any point in time. It gets confusing when I have two pipes that go to exactly the same place, which one do I use? Most hosts/end user devices in your home have only one way to pass data. Though your phone could use cell signals or WiFi.

Layer 4 is how TCP/IP works and requires communications both ways (transmit and wait for receipt OR receive and send receipt). Blocks of data are numbered sequentially and if a block is missed, the receiver will ask for it to be retransmitted. Don't confuse the block size with the ethernet or WiFi packet size, they differ.

Layer 5 is the operating system keeping the connection alive for you. It does timeout if you don't do this. The operating system makes it so your application does not have to worry about it.

Layer 6 is mostly operating system where some error checking and encryption/decryption can take place. Remember that SSID password? This level will pass the data to your application.

Layer 7 - This is where the program (software written by Brennan, NAS, DHCP, HTTP, SSH,  etc) uses the data.

All data passes between the end user device (hosts) to the router, router to router (if required, always for internet data), then the last router talks to the other end host. Sometimes like a home network there is no router to router connection required for internal (SONOS to B2) data.

Why do I say this? In order for any device to work it must receive and transmit without errors. In order for a SONOS to talk to a B2, the link between SONOS and the router might be great but if the connection from the router to the B2 is not working, SONOS can't work. The opposite is also true.

From a network perspective both devices are active and must be. Even at layer 7, the B2 sets it up to receive messages by making specific "listen" commands to TCP/IP. That allows someone wants to talk to it. It will then reply using the network. 

I do understand that the B2 does not initiate communications but it does take an active role. 

I stole the picture from What is OSI Model | 7 Layers Explained | Imperva. The website also reminded me of a lot of detail that I have not used in a very long time :-)

[PMB]

Hi Alexander,

We suggest changing the 'mini' WiFi dongle (which we shipped as standard until recently) for one with an antenna to improve the WiFi signal at the B2. So your results are expected.

Try fitting the mini dongle onto a short USB extension cable and reposition it for a better signal.

Like every company currently, we are having difficulties sourcing certain electronic parts and have to offer alternative dongles from time to time.

I bought this one from Amazon - link - which appears to provide good signal gain - note the dongle must have the RT5370 chip-set built in to work with the B2. Make sure Amazon do not send an alternative.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Daniel Taylor]

I am more confused than ever now.  Contrary to Paul's expectation, I would not have expected the signal strength to get worse when switching to a (hopefully) "better" WiFi dongle.  I'd really like to get to the bottom of this situation.

Ray has provided some great network communication information.  But I don't see it pointing to a solution.  To me, the problem seems to be at the Physical Layer.  And I don't see how whether the data packets being active requests or passive responses makes any difference to the problem at hand.

In addition to being here to try and help out from time to time, I'm also here to learn.  And right now, I'm scratching my head.

Maybe we'll never know why the signal strength dropped so significantly when the new dongle was installed.  But I'm sure Alexander will be happy if he can just find a solution.  I think either of Fred's suggestions could fill the bill.

[Alexander de Bordes]

Thank you all for your input.  Will digest all over the coming week and report what I have found and, hopefully, accomplished

[Ray Dion]

Daniel,

I was a concerned while I wrote and rewrote that post of just such confusion. Sorry. The post was intended to say from a communications point of view, nothing is passive. The dongle must work both in the receive and transmit mode. The weakest side of that will be your limiting function, we have no way to determine which or both is 'broken'. It was not intended to answer the issue as Fred's answer is correct.

Other thoughts if you want to delve deeper. These require more effort and patience, jumping to the cable or power line solution is a good option.

Replacing the dongle again might provide a solution if on the rare and off chance both were poor or bad. It was not stated if both USB ports were tested but it seems unlikely to be an issue. 

Another test that can be considered is to use that dongle on a laptop and see if issues develop. If using Windows this can be observed by the number of bars you see or by entering this command in PowerShell

            netsh wlan show interfaces

Thank Google for that. There is a line called "Signal" that will give you a percentage. There may be multiple interfaces (dongle, internal WiFi, cable) but if the dongle is the only active connection you should be able to recognize it. It may require you disable the internal WiFi in Settings before you run the test. A bit complicated.

It does not show a number in dB but it may help understand if the dongle has poor reception. You can try both dongles and the internal WiFi that way and see a comparison. It will be your guess if it is good or bad. A significant difference in percentage would be an indicator.

More trouble but you could temporarily move the B2 to a different location and run a test, no signal change or a negative comparison to the laptop test could help narrow the issue with WiFi or the dongle.

A physical cable is still the best option in terms of speed and reliability. Using the powerlines is a good middle solution. 

[PMB]

Hi All,

On reading Alexander's original post again i.e. " I had read somewhere, I thought in Brennan lit, that replacing the antenna dongle which comes with unit with a Mini USB 802.11n Wireless Internet Dongle would strengthen the signal...." from which it appears he changed the antenna dongle, supplied with his unit, for a mini', dongle. I would expect the antenna dongle to receive a stronger WiFi signal strength at the B2, compared the the 'mini'.

We include the above with all new units now, to explain that there may be alternative dongles supplied and help customers identify the WiFi dongle from the Bluetooth one (both are WiFi in the photo).

I also find I am learning lots of things from the Forum - for instance there are contributors who know a lot more than I do about software, networks, etc. Keep it coming.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Daniel Taylor]

Thanks for the clarification, Paul.  I guess I'm the one who was confused.  The dongle that came with my B2 was the mini.  For the past few years we've been recommending that owners with WiFi problems replace their original mini with the antenna alternative.  I did not realize that the longer antenna version was now the standard.  I thought Alexander's signal got worse when switching to the longer antenna, but actually it was the other way around.  <headslap, mea culpa>

So now the problem is greatly simplified.  First of all, ditch the mini dongle, and go back to the signal strength of -48,  From there, we can fall back on the standard recommendations for how to improve the signal.  I will reproduce that here:

Check your WiFi signal strength using Settings > Maintenance > WiFi Strength.  (I got that from the Brennan website on the Menu page.)
Your signal strength should be better than -50 (-40 being better, -60 being worse) and not fluctuate wildly.
To improve your signal strength, try the following:
Move your B2 closer to your router.
Switch the WiFi dongle to USB C.
Move your WiFi dongle to the end of a USB extension cable.

If your B2 came with the mini WiFi dongle... You can buy a new one that has a longer antenna.  Look for one that has the RT5370 chipset.
If none of that helps, you could try plugging a network cable between the inside back of the B2 and your router (and remove the WiFi dongle).

The line in red should now be preceded with the qualifier in green, or removed altogether.

[Daniel Taylor]

I now realize that much of the problem started in this thread came from my original misunderstanding.  My apologies to all.  In order to clarify for future readers, I wish I could go back and edit my initial post.  Since that's not possible, I'm inclined to just delete my post.  But I'm afraid that would lead to more confusion because then you could not see where things went wrong in the first place.  Such a mess.  I promise to be more careful in the future.

[PMB]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the updated instructions - I will refer owners to these in future.

Paul

Brennan Support.