Anyone know the wifi strength needed by Rachio? Install will be a pretty good distance away from my router with several walls in between, one cinder block. Wiring it closer would be a huge pain. Several tests show I am -78dbm at best and -81dbm at worst or between 17%-21% of singal strength at the point of install. According to those who know way more than me -80 is the minimum strength for basic connectivity. How sensitive is Rachio to this situation? Can I assume it is a plain jane piece of wifi equipment and follows the same standard rules for connectivitiy/signal strength? Any comments appreciated.
I was worried about the same issue so I just installed a WIFI extender and the signal is excellent. The extender also gave me better WIFI reception in my garage.
Thanks. I just upgraded my old wifi router from Comcast. I was hoping that the super duper new one would give me a stronger signal. I also moved it from behind a glass door in an entertainment center to up in top. Signal is still the same. I was thinking about a repeated so I took the old wifi router and plugged it in nearer the Rachio install location. No internet but it put out the old wifi signal so I could judge the strength. STILL no better and that was installed within…20 feet or so of the install spot. Literraly the same signal as was coming from the new upgraded one on the other side of the house. Install is outside the bedroom/bathroom exterior cinder block wall. Someone told me that the plumbing pipes in a bathroom can kill wifi. Don’t know about cinder block. Anyway, bottom line is I don’t know if a simple repeater/extender will do any better than what the old router is putting out. Now I am thinking about an exterior repeated/extender but knowledge is very limited on those. How much signal is needed in order to repeat the signal? Seems like if the extender would have enough to repeat/extend then the Rachio would have enough to operate…don’t know. Install guy is coming in the morning so I guess I will see how much he knows. Maybe he will test the actual unit out to see if it connects?
A lot of the new extenders have the ability to tell you how good the signal is from your current router and where the best location is for the extender. Also, the more you can elevate your router and WIFI extender the better. Also, make sure your router is not behind another electronic device that can interfere with the signal.
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I can’t stress enough how amazing ubiquiti is for the money. When I had a wifi problem in my garage, I just bought another $60 antenna and put it up and bam.
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In case someone searches for this in the future… Got my Rachio installed with no issues. Signal strength at the install was -83 dbm which on the wifi scale is almost off of it in a bad way. The scale is 0 (greatest strength) to -90 (worst). However, it connected to wifi and works great.
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