WWL missed broadcasts

[packman2008]

I posted this elsewhere but it's probably better here.

I was plagued with intermittent, but often long-running, errors about missing WLL broadcasts. Sometimes I seemed to get an error about no broadcasts in the last 30 seconds every 30 second repeated many times over.

Both my WLL and CMX server were WiFi connected and due to a re-organisation of my house LAN I had the opportunity to put them both onto wired Ethernet ports. Since then I don't see that error any longer and my stats have been 100%, so the issue wasn't CMX or Windows/Linux...it was using WiFi, almost certainly a 2.4GHz connection which tends to get wiped out at certain times of the day.

The real culprit is the WLL box. WLL is yet another piece of hardware that only supports 2.4GHz, which is already a very crowded and busy band, not just shared by WiFi...there's other stuff like Zigbee in the band too. Also, the broadcast method (UDP) has no guarantee of delivery so if a packet gets lost it's never repeated. That's a downside of using UDP broadcasts, although there are benefits to that too. The moral of the story is that if you want to be (more) certain that you won't lose UDP broadcasts you need to use a wired connection.

[mcrossley]

Thanks Chris. I have a hard job persuading some people to look at the WiFi. That said, I run my WLL on WiFi (rPi is wired) and rarely get missed broadcasts. (Though I get some just after midnight every night - a MySQL post insert trigger is using too much resource)

[PaulMy]

Hi,
Before I try by plugin my WLL to ethernet what changes will occur: different IP address? change some settings in WLL? anything else?

Enjoy,
Paul

[packman2008]

You'll need to change the WLL config to use Ethernet rather than WiFi. This is done in the hardware settings in your weatherlink.com site. Not easy to find at first!

You'll almost certainly see it as a different IP address. When it comes back up after the change you can update the static IP for the device on your router to link the Ethernet MAC address to the original WiFi IP address and once done CMX will happily talk to it by Ethernet instead of WiFi.

[packman2008]

That said, I run my WLL on WiFi

It's really going to depend on local conditions. My house is full of smart WiFi devices, most of which are limited, like WLL, to 2.4GHz. I also have over 20 Zigbee devices in the house, all of which add yet more noise to the 2.4GHz band. Luckily our immediate neighbours are really into tech so they don't add too much extra noise!

[PaulMy]

You'll need to change the WLL config to use Ethernet rather than WiFi. This is done in the hardware settings in your weatherlink.com site. Not easy to find at first!

Thanks Chris, and the "not easy to find at first!" looks like you mean unable to find... I've looked everywhere I think, 4 times at every link I could find... Maybe I need to contact Davis to do that?

Enjoy,
Paul

[packman2008]

Sorry. I sent you the wrong way. It's in the WeatherLink app.

1) Open the app
2) Click on the 'person' icon (top right) to get into your account
3) Click on the device you wan to change (you probably only have one)
4) Click on 'Edit' next to the device
5) Click on Network Settings
6) Click on Edit Internet Connection
7) Follow the instructions

[flort]

I also used to have both the WLL and rPi running on WiFi and would have between 20% and 25% of bad packets. A few months back I tried the rPi wired with the WLL still on WiFi and now only have a maximum of 0.05% of bad packets. Certainly made a huge difference.

Regards,
Trevor