Another Smoke Gateway Limitation: WiFi Extenders

[TheSmoke]

TL;DR: Smoke Gateway can be a pain in the a** if you have wifi extenders.

I recently bought a Thermoworks Smoke Gateway during their sale. and could not get through the setup process without a call to Thermoworks tech support. After trying various fixes they asked me if I had any wifi extenders because the smoke gateway has problems with wifi extenders during setup. I informed him that I do have 4 wifi extenders and had in fact just setup an additional one specifically for the Gateway. He had me turn off all the extenders and eventually the setup worked. I asked him if I was ever going to have to go through the setup process again and he said most likely not. Of course, when I got up the next morning to do a smoke, the Gateway was blinking purple (indicating no wifi connection) again. So I did the smoke without it and still haven't gotten it working again.

This is a non-starter for me because I don't want to crawl around my house (behind the stereo rack in my garage, under a grand piano, etc.) powering down wifi extenders every time this thing goes on the fritz and then crawl around again powering them up again.

I'm not sure why the Gateway has problems with extenders; I have dozens of inexpensive wifi-compliant devices from many companies running on my network and none of them have problems with extenders. It seems strange that a company like Thermoworks that produces premium products can't get this device right.

 

[Porcine Perfection]

Wi-Fi extenders are a joke anyway. Just get another router and connect it to that. Problem solved.

 

[TheSmoke]

That's essentially what I have done. I have an Airport Extreme Base Station and then a bunch of Airport Express units throughout the house.

 

[Lordkifar]

I have thrown out every wifi extender I bought. The failed me on most occasions and that was in multiple houses I have lived in throughout my life. As Porcine Perfection said, just get another router or invest in a super duper router but that gets really costly really fast!

 

[TheSmoke]

Mine work great and extend strong wifi to every corner of the house. Unfortunately Apple is discontinuing them so I will be in the market for a new solution eventually.

 

[IamMadMan]

Instead of a WiFi extender, consider using a dual band WiFi Access Point. Most can be powered POE.

Wireless repeaters are first generation WiFi signal extenders. As the name implies, wireless repeaters re-broadcast the WiFi signal received to a finite localized area. The quality of WiFi signal strength received by the wireless repeater will be the same WiFi signal strength distributed. Latency, or WiFi network response time, is typically increased.

Wireless range extenders are stand-alone equipment which sit between your wireless router and the location where you want better wireless coverage. Similar to a wireless repeater, a wireless range extender grabs existing WiFi signal from your wireless router and re-broadcasts it. Range extenders rebroadcast on a different wireless channel from the one used by your wireless router. The challenge with range-extenders is location.

WiFi Network Extenders (Access Points) deliver the best consistent, reliable high speed WiFi to every floor and corner of your home. Unlike repeaters or range extenders that rebroadcast existing WiFi signals, WiFi Network Extenders communicate directly with your gateway or WiFi router using a wire.

Google, Umbiquity, Netgear, and Samsung are great network extenders. At work, I use a set of Umbiquity transceivers to beam a signal almost 1/4 of a mile away, and then use another router with DHCP and NAC disabled as a remote access point. I get streaming video, full network access, and heavily taxed WiFi on the same network with no speed loss or latency issues.

 

[pjtexas1]

Do they disclose these incompatibility issues?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[NYC ‘Que]

Mine work great and extend strong wifi to every corner of the house. Unfortunately Apple is discontinuing them so I will be in the market for a new solution eventually.

I switched over to Google WiFi. It works great and you can add as many “extenders” as you like. My kit came with three.

 

[MattGoose]

Instead of a WiFi extender, consider using a dual band WiFi Access Point. Most can be powered POE.

Wireless repeaters are first generation WiFi signal extenders. As the name implies, wireless repeaters re-broadcast the WiFi signal received to a finite localized area. The quality of WiFi signal strength received by the wireless repeater will be the same WiFi signal strength distributed. Latency, or WiFi network response time, is typically increased.

Wireless range extenders are stand-alone equipment which sit between your wireless router and the location where you want better wireless coverage. Similar to a wireless repeater, a wireless range extender grabs existing WiFi signal from your wireless router and re-broadcasts it. Range extenders rebroadcast on a different wireless channel from the one used by your wireless router. The challenge with range-extenders is location.

WiFi Network Extenders (Access Points) deliver the best consistent, reliable high speed WiFi to every floor and corner of your home. Unlike repeaters or range extenders that rebroadcast existing WiFi signals, WiFi Network Extenders communicate directly with your gateway or WiFi router using a wire.

Google, Umbiquity, Netgear, and Samsung are great network extenders. At work, I use a set of Umbiquity transceivers to beam a signal almost 1/4 of a mile away, and then use another router with DHCP and NAC disabled as a remote access point. I get streaming video, full network access, and heavily taxed WiFi on the same network with no speed loss or latency issues.

Just a slight clarification - I think you're pulling a couple of concepts together.

Wifi/range extenders are standalone pieces that you power in the wall and they take an existing wifi signal, amplify and rebroadcast. Their primary limitation is speed - it halves your speed each time you use one. Secondary limitation is that each one has a new SSID - this is probably where OP's issue comes is. I would try renaming the SSID to the same as your primary networks and see if that fixes.

Google Wifi and a bunch of other companies sell mesh networking kits. Basically, these are second gen range extenders, except they natively avoid the SSID issue and are designed to talk to each other to allow for easier client side handoff. Some of these systems also suffer from speed limitations as they use the same channels for backhaul. Some of them have dedicated backhaul channels and can avoid this. The good news is that the speed limitations really only become apparent on really high speed networks.

The third option is something you typically see in the office or commercial space. Multiple access points with a wired backhaul (ie POE) to a central router. These are the best of both worlds - not speed limitation, no bandwidth congestion and one SSID. They can be more expensive and more difficult to setup and administer. Unifi is probably the most popular company among people using this type of setup at home.

The mesh networks for ease of use are probably the best solution for most people.

I switched over to Google WiFi. It works great and you can add as many “extenders” as you like. My kit came with three.

They are typically referred to as base and satellite units to avoid confusion with old school range extenders.

 

[MattGoose]

TL;DR: Smoke Gateway can be a pain in the a** if you have wifi extenders.

I recently bought a Thermoworks Smoke Gateway during their sale. and could not get through the setup process without a call to Thermoworks tech support. After trying various fixes they asked me if I had any wifi extenders because the smoke gateway has problems with wifi extenders during setup. I informed him that I do have 4 wifi extenders and had in fact just setup an additional one specifically for the Gateway. He had me turn off all the extenders and eventually the setup worked. I asked him if I was ever going to have to go through the setup process again and he said most likely not. Of course, when I got up the next morning to do a smoke, the Gateway was blinking purple (indicating no wifi connection) again. So I did the smoke without it and still haven't gotten it working again.

This is a non-starter for me because I don't want to crawl around my house (behind the stereo rack in my garage, under a grand piano, etc.) powering down wifi extenders every time this thing goes on the fritz and then crawl around again powering them up again.

I'm not sure why the Gateway has problems with extenders; I have dozens of inexpensive wifi-compliant devices from many companies running on my network and none of them have problems with extenders. It seems strange that a company like Thermoworks that produces premium products can't get this device right.

If I had to guess, I would guess that most of those other devices are stationary?

Very often, the range extenders use a different SSID and/or password than your primary network.

I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the Gateway wasn't designed to roam across multiple networks.

I'd try to change your extender SSID and pw to match your primary network and see what happens.

 

[airedale]

I think you guys are missing the point: The Gateway has a known but undisclosed problem. This is similar to my thread last week (http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=260013) where I found another known but undisclosed problem. More generally, these issues point to a product designer with only marginal competence.

My Gateway went back at my expense for shipping. My Heater Meter kit (suggested by @el luchador in the other thread) arrived yesterday. I'll put it together this weekend.

 

[Czarbecue]

I switched over to Google WiFi. It works great and you can add as many “extenders” as you like. My kit came with three.

Yes, Google WiFi is a beast, especially now that I have access to AT&T Fiber.