Does Homey Pro support Wifi 2,4GHz on channels 12&13?

Hi, just got my new homey and had trouble with Wifi setup. Connecting to a Fritzbox 7530 v7.29 (in a mesh of two other 7590 and a 4040) with wpa2+wpa3 security, 2,4 GHz+5GHz networks enabled having 2,4GHz in autochannel mode with 12&13 channel option, it took my lots of attempts to connect at first.

First of all the homey app didn’t show the network SSID despite visible. Guess that’s because there are so many WIFIs around, but no way to scroll the list (that should be fixed in the app!). Downstairs in the cellar just had a few and connected (after having tried to enter the wifi name myself, of course).
Then I assumed having bad luck with my WIFI passwort (64chars, all caps, special chars, …). So finally tried a lot, disabled 5Ghz, disabled 12&13 2,4 GHz channels, disabled WPA3 to use just WPA2. Tried LTE hotspot tethering and a lot more… In the end I connected to Fritzbox’s guest network where I temporarily removed a special char from the password. Then updated the homey, resetted it and finally could connect to my normal WLAN without changes… Except for one thing… given the access point mesh and the autochannel selection some APs are on channel 6 and some on 13 and while placing the homey to it’s final location it again lost WIFI connection…
Currently I disabled channel 12&13 autoselection and it appears to work. Given the many attempts to connect, I was wondering:

  • can somebody confirm that 2,4 GHz on channels 12/13 works or does not work?
  • are there any other limitations with regards to SSID name, password characters/length, WPAx security that one should be aware off or have some potentially be fixed by the homey update that was done upon first successful connect?

I’ m especially interested in re-activating all 2,4 GHz channels again.

Cheers, Michael

Overhere it connects to both ch. 12 & 13 (while already connected).
In case of adding Homey to the wifi, I should use 2.4GHz ch. 1 - 11 b/g WPA2
When connected, you can set it to b/g/n or g/n (my robovacuum needs b…)

Your pw might be an issue too.

More:

jupp, read those. But that was more trial&error. Hoped for a more definitive answer. Afaik some wifi adapters just don’t cope at all with 12&13 channels.
All those special character issues appear a bit flaky on homey side, if they are true at all. I even tried copy&pasting the passwords to exclude any typos. Fun fact: the SSID I finally got working had a space " " inside, but i made it work after removing “!” in the password. Probably pure luck because the actual Wifi i use contain many more special chars in its pwd.
Probably i’ll try switching on 12&13 again and see what happens. Unfortunately given the size of my Fritz mesh the homey might just connect to another AP with an non-12/13 channel in range, as the autochanneling will usually pick 6 or 13 channel to avoid that neighbouring APs interfere.
2,4 GHz network is set to 802.11g+n (WiFi 4) and “WPA2+WPA3”. Homey picks WPA2 and 72MBit so just one antenna 1x1 20 MHz channel and says to support WLAN-b+g+n / Wi-Fi 4 with WPA2, 11v an WMM QoS according to my Fritzbox when connected. So not really a sophisticated Wifi adapter in place by AzureWave (Taiwan) according to the MAC.

It is very basic indeed.
I think switching between AP’s with different channels shouldn’t be an issue, but maybe you can adjust transmit power, to let it stick to one AP, to avoid flipping.

Keep this in mind if you’re gonna use zigbee.

just played around with WIFI settings. If I set my whole mesh of 6 APs forcibly to 12 or 13 I cannot connect to homey despite it’s located closely to a AVM Fritzbox 7590. Channel 11 works. So it’s apparently built for US market not Europe/Japan where 12+13 do usually work, too.
Okay… So another bad boy in the WIFI network… The Amazon Fire tablets also don’t cope with the high 100+ 5 GHzs channels, so I had to disable autochanneling for them to get a connect. Poor stuff given the modern dual channel repeaters that can repeat and expose the AP on two different 80-160MHz 5 GHz bands. At least in 2,4 GHz the Fritzbox can be set to omit 12+13 while still autoconfiguring 1-11, so that pretty feasible. Wondering why the documentation doesn’t make that explicit. Most likely all those special char SSID/pwd stuff is just plain guessing and it boils down to the channel setting.

That’s funny, b/c they can’t sell the Pro there b/c of the fixed (non-US) zwave frequency.

thought the whole point of homey is to support virtually every band to connect to anything around. So somewhat suprised it cannot work with 5 GHz Wifi…
Zigbee collisions are hence not really avoidable, but I hope it doesn’t need to be full perf anyway to just transmit a few bytes of data to toggle stuff. Most of my stuff runs on 5 GHz anyway. 2,4 GHz is old school (as well as WPA2).

maybe they just picked the wrong wifi adapter made in Taiwan or their firmware does not cope with those european channels. Not sure if that’s a hardware or a firmware issue if adapters don’t work with the upper channels.

Idk man, almost all iot stuff is 2.4GHz only.
Probably cost and/or battery use related?
My robotvacuum f.i. does only pair with 2.4 b …

for IoT 2,4 GHz is perfectly reasonable. Much larger range than 5 GHz and usually one doesn’t need the bandwidth; just the range. Nevertheless would have been nice if homey supported connecting to any and also current WPA and Wifi standards even if it’ll only trigger devices in the 2,4 band.

it is very stupid to use channels 12/13 or any else then 1, 6, 11
coz wifi is using 5 channels… so, if you set it to 6 then it uses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8
when you use 11, it uses 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
so, 12 and 13 are overlapping channels. if u set it to channel 13 then you have interference of AP that are set to 11 but you don’t have 14 and 15… so, your signal will be even more unstable and also the other AP’s.

always use 1, 6, and 11.
use a scanner to check other signals and create a matrix of channels to reduces interference.
like said before, lower output power to reduces even more interference.

if you need a bigger range, place extra AP’s or even better, a mesh network.

It is all protocol. In US they don’t use 13 (coz obvious reasons) and in Australia they don’t use 14.
so, it is even possible that you can own devices that don’t even work on channels 13.

Following that “logic” one shouldn’t use channel 1 as there’s no?! channel -1, 0 either for -1, 0, >1<, 2, 3 :wink:
Of course, 12 and 13 works fine as long as not imported non EU-devices don’t support that at all.
Most WLAN APs just stick to 1,6 and 11 as it’s the most likely way to work with all devices without overlapping channels. If 12&13 are available it might help in case of neighboring WLANs of e.g. ad hoc network printers that weren’t configured to care much about channel selection.
Usually autochannel selection is a good thing, too. Especially in a mesh I can ensure that for each floor the AP uses a different one of 1,6, 11 (or 12&13). And actually mine does and always flips between 6 and 11, 6 as a neighbor is on 1. But with 12&13 enabled the mesh used 6, 13, 6, which is fine, too. Despite those “missing 2” channels, but my neighbor might be also suffering from not having -1 and 0 though.

it’s not my “logic”.
Just read the protocol. that is the funny thing about protocols: you can read them. You are free to do what you want. But just make sure you don’t interfere your neighbors coz they have rights too.
sadly people nowadays are only thinking about themself and keep adding extra AP’s coz it is all unstable. then the neighbors doing the same and then you again etc.

i am just saying.

Sure. So I agree, that there’s nothing wrong using 1,6, 12/13 instead of 1,6,11 because 12/13 (given one’s devices do support that; which Homey apparently does not) do not overlapp with 6 or 1 either. Compare IEEE 802.11 - Wikipedia
In the end I don’t worry much about neighbouring WIFI APs too much. Mostly they employed autoconfig APs of well known vendors. Just one cheap AP on 4. The better ones all end up in none-overlapping channels. And if not the furthest APs re-use a channel so one can barely “receive” them. Finally even for overlapps, it’s not a on/off decision for wave-based devices especially not being distant.
Given thick walls, water-based underfloor heatings, reinforced concrete the damping is the death to WIFI range anyway. Which 2,4 GHz is all about as you can forget it’s bandwidth compared to 5GHz anyhow. So why should one care much about re-sending packets in a 2,4 GHz band in case of cooperating APs. It’s be enough for Internet surfing as long as it’s a stable uplink and it’ll not use the whole bandwidth for those purposes all time. For bandwidth intensive stuff one should use 5 GHz (if not LAN) and there you won’t have much neighbors around due to damping indoors. And if, one can wait for 6 GHz were one might even prefer a line-of-sight.
What I fear most are those 2,4 GHz devices that are not Wifi APs and don’t obey the protocols to co-exist or do not sent in bursts but continuously pollute the band. In the end your neighbours’ microwave ovens or some headset, 2,4 GHz camera is worse than being on the same or (partly) overlapping channel as your WIFI AP and protocols were designed to cope with the latter and co-exist, but for the rest one is probably out of luck. Compare Cisco’s whitepaper: https://www.wcvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/myths-of-wifi-interference.pdf
So adding an extra AP means doing it for range, not interference stability as it won’t turn off ones troublesome devices. And for bandwidth… 5GHz, 6GHz, LAN… Guess most meshes are actually created for 5 GHz bandwidth, not for 2,4 GHz anyway for the damping reasons mentioned. 5 GHz just doesn’t cover a house, just one flat or probably just a house’s floor depending on what kind of concrete/walls/water-based heatings you have. I’m pretty sure that closing my metal coated glass windows in summer has a larger impact on neighboring WIFI reception than channel selection :wink:

Fyi I’ve tested it the other day

I must be unlucky. As soon as I change the whole Fritzbox WIFI mesh to channel 13 i can see the disconnect event in the router logs for the MAC address and all except Homey establishing the links again. Consequently the Homey app is stuck in a connection retry loop. As soon as I fall back to lower channels everything including Homey reconnects as to be seen in the router event log.
Upon first time installation I didn’t notice this issue as the WIFI mesh was set to autochannel for 2.4 GHz including 12&13 channels and because my mesh of AVM Fritz APs automatically re-arranges to 6, 13, 6, 13 per floor (due to relatively strong neighboring channel 1 AP). My 2.4 GHz WIFI was still strong enough to have homey connect to a channel 6 AP in an upper/lower floor instead of close range channel 13. However if I fix all APs to channel 13 Homey is the sole device not to come up again. :frowning: First device ever to cause trouble with those high channels.

The only devices I knew of being that picky are the Amazon Fire tablets, but for 5 GHz, as those cannot connect on then 100+ channels, so I had to fix the 5 GHz channel in the mesh already as I’m using also a Fritz WIFI repeater for a part of the otherwise LAN-based mesh and hence I’d like to use 5 GHz bandwidth for all client devices whilst then using the 100+ upper channel juat for the dual WIFI mesh uplink.
Unfortunate that not all vendors list in their specs what channels they support in each band, which is then usually also combined with a 1x1 antenna array. Luckily Homey doesn’t need more bandwidth for its client devices than those max. 72MBit/s apparently having just a Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n 2.4 GHz. Why not say Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n 2.4 GHz (1x1 channels 1-11) in the specs or some hint in the app to avoid to stumble upon that during setup with the Homey App?

How you checked that all APs are on 12/13? Some routers do not immediately restart their WIFIs to avoid disconnects or probably some APs were still left on lower channels. I’m using the current Homey stable firmware (as it could be also just be a software issue to support those channels).

I’ve one standard provider router/modem.
Changing the channel to 13 causes a wifi restart, and I waited for the 2.4GHz SSID to become available on my cell.
Then I opened and closed the Homey app multiple times, I could still operate my Homey.
(Same story for ch.12)