Very unstable WiFi

It’s about 12m, one wall and maybe wardrobe.
Thank you for the article!

I’m trying to use 5GHz when it’s possible, unfortunately older devices, especially my tablet doesn’t powerful enough and loosing connection a lot in distant rooms. That’s why I switched them to 2.4GHz.

I also had the issue with WiFi, but with radio1, now that I moved to radio0 seems to be fine. From my perspective now I think radio1 (2.4 GHZ one only) is busted. Still running tests on radio0 but so far so good. Even factory reset did not help to fix radio1 problem (it became flaky again and again).

It could help. Any links where to buy?

My understanding is that MIMO works better with omni-antennas. It depends on getting reflections to improve signal reception and filtering out noise.

You are having a bit the same “problem” as me. Although i am not 100% in the same situation as you. If i go to the kitchen i also loose a lot of signal strength. That is about 16 meters and a few walls between them. However for you it is your working room, while me is just being on youtube or internet while cooking (first world problem :joy:).

There are two solutions to this problem.

  • Solution 1: Keep the 5 dBI antennas and do NOT switch to higher gain as you can see in the article that i gave it to you. Instead position your Omnia somewhere in the middle of your house, so it will reach everywhere and have “equal” signal strength with the 5 GHz.

  • Solution 2: In your case, you especially wanted the Omnia because of the SFP. Then a “wifi-repeater” could do the job. Now is the question what to do with older devices, because those only support 2.4 GHz right? * Well you could keep in mind to use those devices only within the range of the Omnia, or also use a “wifi-repeater”.

EDIT2: I came with a “great” solution :slight_smile:. @white said that MIMO works better with omni-antennas. So what about a 2.4 GHz wifi-directional antenna fixed on a USB-dongle :grin:. Off course a USB-dongle that works out of the box with the Linux kernel. For example a Qualcom(atheros) chipset.

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/Atheros-AR9271-150Mbps-MINI-Wireless-USB-WiFi-Adapter-Dongle-Network-LAN-Card-802-11n-g-b/32651151236.html

Create a wifi-network ESPECIALLY for your working room. About the directional antenna, need to look only where to find one, that is for indoors and a bit small :laughing:.

Did you read that somewhere that MIMO works better with omni-antennas? It could be indeed that you are right, i am just looking for all kind of solutions.

Thank you for the advice, but are there any chance to get software fixed? Or should I file a bug at github?

Right now, i can say that we will be expecting A LOT of fixes with the next update. Just reading on the forum and the updates a few backers are left who have not received their Omnia’s yet. It was already mentioned that the fixes have been uploaded to Turris-OS stable on github. So we will be expecting them soon…as…within the coming month(s) i THINK.

So for now, lets find “free”-temporary solutions to our first world problems till we receive the updates.

Even going as far as …using a cable :laughing:

Hope you get not bitten by the bug with the switch ports going offline. :smiley:

1 Like

My first AP I build from my old debian linux router by adding wifi card. All other AP I tried after that are just unstable, hardly configurable, keep failing plastic boxes. I should stop being lazy and build proper solution by my own…

What NIC.CZ has done is i THINK the first of it’s kind. Being the first of its kind is bound to have some problems on the way to being stable. They have kept in mind in using hardware that is open, hardware that are supported out of the box by the Linux kernel.

When we talk about routers, i see no better solution as ultimate hardware based on price, hardware functionality, amount of power usage etc. in combination to the best software(Turris-OS/openWRT) solution available today. A couple of weeks ago i decided to read how come a part of the group of openWRT split and have created LEDE project. The philosophy of those guys was rather to have solid and stable OS, instead of one that is also updating to be rather up to date with current software.

I have seen and worked with routers that have stable-OS, but outdated software. To be frank, they are useless. If you have a bug…well say goodbye that they might even fix it one day. Mostly the router is not being supported anymore which is just great =_=!. My philosophy is, update the OS in stable-milestones. For example try to hop on one Linux LTS kernels after the other and software packages that have released a stable-version. You will then be able to use latest hardware (supported out of the box with the Linux kernel) also latest software-functionality that is available.

So have some patience, it needs time.

Now that you asked I tried to remember more about what I have read about MIMO and 802.11ac. Some research on Google helped me to remember and I was thinking about beamforming which is directional signal transmission and reception with an array of omnidirectional antennas and about how MIMO is a different concept from beamforming by utilizing reflections (non-directional signals).

Actually 802.11ac utilizes both beamforming (simplified version from 802.11n) and MIMO at the same time.

Based on the theory how MIMO works I would speculate that directional antennas are okay as long as they don’t dampen the reflections too much. In other words if you have a room and you have directional antennas that are shaping the coverage to match the room it should work fine. But if you have narrow directional antennas that are cutting off too much reflections for example from the side walls, floor or ceiling it might weaken the signal reception.

But that is just theory. I think it is a good idea to test some directional antennas.

Thanks for the reply. That also clears some of the confusion about that.

I just read this article about MU-MIMO.

In that article they said

To date there are only a few MU-MIMO products publically available, such as the Linksys EA8500 router and Acer’s Aspire E-series laptops. A number of routers based on Quentenna’s QSR1000 chipset—including the Asus RT-AC87U and the Netgear Nighthawk X4—also support MU-MIMO, but they lack the firmware needed to activate the feature. Qualcomm reports that it’s slipped MU-MIMO support into some of its chipsets, however, so there could be many more devices in the wild that are just a firmware update away from supporting MU-MIMO support.

So can we then expect that the Turris Omnia also supports MU-MIMO?

  • wlan0/radio0 - chipset QCA9880 Version 2

  • wlan1/radio1 - chipset AR9287

Although that article is from 2015, can we interpret the firmware as being ath9k and ath10k?

Because that would also mean better wifi-support.

No. http://www.compex.com.sg/wifi-module-overview/
The ath9k and the ath10k in the Omnia are single user MIMO.
I think atheros may have slipped it in some of its SoC and Firmware mean the SoC operating system.

Oke, so to be able to have MU-MIMO, is just to replace those wifi-cards, with wifi-cards that do support MU-MIMO. Good to know for the future as sort of “upgrade”.

EDIT2: If somebody knows what size the rp-sma-holes are, it would be kind of good information for the future. Now a days there are 4x4 wifi-cards so to add additional antennas to it. Or maybe have alternative solution instead of making another holes in the Omnia.

There are 2 more holes for additional antennas in the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCRCpw7a-P8

Those will be already used for the 5 GHz.

I am planning to separate the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. No more splitter/converter or what you call it.

OR maybe, that is a good alternative idea. To keep the current settings and if i later on change the 5 GHz wifi-card with a 4x4…i would be able. Or even a 5x5.

I have exactly the same bad user experience with radio1 here :frowning: My previous router (TP-Link TL-WR1043ND V2 with LuCi Chaos Calmer) worked perfectly till replacement for Omnia. Most of the time I get no data transfer at all.
No problems with radio0.

1 Like

Ah, man… I was writing the same :smile:. I moved from TL-WR1043ND to Omnia as well and the radio1 causes the very same issues.

1 Like