Our facility has recently upgraded wi-fi to mostly 5 GHz bandwidths - we currently use a R Pi 3 which we know connects to 2.4 GHz only. One of our available wi-fi channels broadcasts in dual-band for both 5 and 2.4, but our RPi3 does not appear to be able to connect to this network.
Has anyone else using an RPi 3 run into this issue with dual-band networks? Hoping to exhaust all of the possibilities before buying any extra dongles (any recommendations there?) or upgrading the sensorgnome components (e.g. to a RPi4).
Hi Courtney, the RPI 3 is hardware limited to 2.4 GHz. If the router permits this, you could change the name of the 2.4 Ghz broadcast band to something unique that you could then configure the SG to connect to. But lots of the newer routers handle all this behind the scenes and don’t allow much opportunity to change such settings.
You could also use a network booster or extender as this might allow you to specify what band it broadcasts at independently of the router. They can be purchased for around $30 to $50 if memory serves so isn’t a prohibitive cost.
Edit: I was going to reference @myotistar but he beat me to it :)
As others have suggested I’d use ethernet to wifi adaptor often called a travel router. I have one of these GL-SFT1200 Opal Gigabit Wireless Travel Router — GL.iNet which is very good. You esentially connect the ethernet port on the SG to one of the ports on the router. The router then bridges a connection to the WiFi.
A side benefit of this arrangement is that when on site you just connect your laptop to another port in the router and get a direct connection to the SG.
The main downside is this does require a separate USB-c power supply so it doesn’t work well with solar powered systems, but I guess that’s not a problem in this situation.
If 2.4Ghz is available then the rpi should be able to connect. Maybe some other settings, like the authentication method, are incompatible?
For testing, using an Android phone, I can recommend the ubiquiti wifiman app. Ignore most of the functionality and select “scan” at the bottom, then select your network, and it will tell you all the access points and show which one your phone connects to.
I don’t think you can turn off 5Ghz on your phone but typically 2.4 reaches further so you can see whether your phone manages to connect to the 2.4 as you move away.