Sudden Wifi issue - RT-BE88U/Sensi Thermostat

[The_Bishop]

I have a RT-BE88U that has been working flawlessly for several months. Some time recently, however, my Sensi Touch 2 Thermostat lost connection to the internet, and despite all my attempts to re-connect it, it will not. However, if I set up a hotspot on my cell phone and use my wife's phone to set up the thermostat via the app, it connects perfectly. This leads me to believe that it's something that changed in the router.

When I try to connect the log shows:
Dec 29 21:16:32 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.2: Deauth_ind 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: 0, reason: Unspecified reason (1), rssi:0
Dec 29 21:16:32 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(662): wl0.2: Disassoc 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0
Dec 29 21:16:37 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(685): wl0.2: Auth 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-44
Dec 29 21:16:37 kernel: SBF: dhd0: INIT [34:6f:92:27:ec:5b] ID 65535 BFW 65535 THRSH 2048
Dec 29 21:16:37 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(722): wl0.2: Assoc 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-44

I have to stress that this was working fine for a few months prior to this, I haven't changed anything in the router or the thermostat at all. It's about 15 feet away from the router and signal has never been a problem before.

Firmware version: 3.0.0.6.102_39112-g7a02961_1472-g67069_BB0B

Anyone have any ideas for what to check? I'm frustrated.

 

[bbunge]

Usually thermostats use the 2.4 GHz band and like WPA2. I have my HX3 thermostat on a guest WIFI with just WPA2 and a simple SSID and password of 8 alpha numeric characters. No special characters or spaces. Also set the 2.4 GHz to 20 Mhz bandwidth.

 

[The_Bishop]

It's set up exactly the way it was before. Nothing changed. I've reset everything from scratch, it connected briefly until I changed some settings that required a router restart and now it won't connect again. Now I get an endless list of:

Dec 30 00:36:25 dnsmasq-dhcp[10334]: DHCPDISCOVER(br0) 34:6f:92:27:ec:5b
Dec 30 00:36:25 dnsmasq-dhcp[10334]: DHCPOFFER(br0) 192.168.50.52 34:6f:92:27:ec:5b
Dec 30 00:36:28 dnsmasq-dhcp[10334]: DHCPDISCOVER(br0) 34:6f:92:27:ec:5b
Dec 30 00:36:28 dnsmasq-dhcp[10334]: DHCPOFFER(br0) 192.168.50.52 34:6f:92:27:ec:5b

Starting to get real tired of janky Asus routers. These things used to be awesome but now, even with new ones, stuff goes wrong in rather short order.

 

[bennor]

It's set up exactly the way it was before. Nothing changed. I've reset everything from scratch, it connected briefly until I changed some settings that required a router restart and now it won't connect again.

So what settings did you change? And what happens if you revert those settings back to default or unchanged setting?

 

[wouterv]

Why blame the router instead of the thermostat?
Maybe the thermostat got an overnight firmware update causing the issues.
Usually the cheap WiFi chips in those IoT things are not fully according the Wi-Fi standards, causing all kind of connectivity issues.
Some years ago our new home heating came with a smart thermostat, after a year of struggling with Wi-Fi connection issues , numerous firmware updates of the thermostat, random rebooting of the thermostat, sudden heating full on (e.g. at midnight), I could exchange the thermostat free of charge for a solid manual controlled "round" thermostat.
I would not trust cloud controlled IoT applications anyhow.

 

[bbunge]

I had tested the Sensi thermostat and found it to be lacking in features, function and design. Ecobee is a far superior product and i believe it now supports 5 GHz. FWIW I had been in the HVAC trade for many years specializing in controls.
See my prior post for recommendations

 

[The_Bishop]

So what settings did you change? And what happens if you revert those settings back to default or unchanged setting?

Settings unrelated to the wifi, and reverting them didn't change anything.

 

[The_Bishop]

Why blame the router instead of the thermostat?
Maybe the thermostat got an overnight firmware update causing the issues.
Usually the cheap WiFi chips in those IoT things are not fully according the Wi-Fi standards, causing all kind of connectivity issues.
Some years ago our new home heating came with a smart thermostat, after a year of struggling with Wi-Fi connection issues , numerous firmware updates of the thermostat, random rebooting of the thermostat, sudden heating full on (e.g. at midnight), I could exchange the thermostat free of charge for a solid manual controlled "round" thermostat.
I would not trust cloud controlled IoT applications anyhow.

Because there wasn't a firmware change in the thermostat, and prior to the asus update to 3.0.0.6.102_39112 it worked flawlessly. Also it will connect just fine if I do so through the wifi hotspot on my phone.

 

[The_Bishop]

I had tested the Sensi thermostat and found it to be lacking in features, function and design. Ecobee is a far superior product and i believe it now supports 5 GHz. FWIW I had been in the HVAC trade for many years specializing in controls.
See my prior post for recommendations

It's great that you like ecobee, but the root issue is the thermostat worked fine until the last asus firmware update, 3.0.0.6.102_39112. There are also privacy concerns about ecobee.

 

[Justinh]

Because there wasn't a firmware change in the thermostat, and prior to the asus update to 3.0.0.6.102_39112 it worked flawlessly. Also it will connect just fine if I do so through the wifi hotspot on my phone.

Wait a minute ... You are saying it broke after the router firmware was updated? Your first post did not mention that.

 

[The_Bishop]

Wait a minute ... You are saying it broke after the router firmware was updated? Your first post did not mention that.

I could have sworn I did, but after reading my first post I didn't in any clear way. Yes, that seems to be when the thermostat went offline.

Just as a check, I just got done reverting the firmware to the prior version and it looks as if the thermostat is back online. I've turned off the auto firmware updates for now.

 

[bennor]

Settings unrelated to the wifi, and reverting them didn't change anything.

Were the setting changes due to you updating the firmware as you indicated in a later post?

 

[The_Bishop]

Were the setting changes due to you updating the firmware as you indicated in a later post?

No, it had to do with setting up a shared drive and a 5G setting.

 

[bennor]

No, it had to do with setting up a shared drive and a 5G setting.

This has become confusing since you appear to have two discussions running. This one and one in the Asus-Merlin subforum where you seem to be discussing the same or similar issue. In this discussion you stated in your OP post that you are running Asus stock 3.0.0.6.102_39112-g7a02961_1472-g67069_BB0B. But then you downgraded; to which firmware wasn't mentioned.

Perhaps it may help others, in both discussions, if you clarify exactly what firmware you are running. Which firmware you updated to where the issue presented itself. Which firmware you subsequently downgraded to under which the issue went way.

 

[The_Bishop]

Ok, to clarify the situation:

I currently have the router reverted to Asus's firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_38186-gbb99350_1221-g274b8_BB0B. With that, the thermostat will complete setup and go online. However, any disruption to the wifi (Router reset, or wifi reset to change settings) will result in the thermostat going offline and not reconnecting until I go through the wifi connect procedure again. This is a new development, and I'm not sure what changed.

The problem seemed to start when the router auto-updated to Asus version 3.0.0.6.102_39112.

I had tried moving to Merlin 3006.102.6 to see if that would correct the issue. It didn't, so I flashed back to Asus 3.0.0.6.102_38186-gbb99350_1221-g274b8_BB0B and reconfigured yet again (from scratch) which will let the thermostat connect on initial setup but any disturbance to the wifi signal (router reset, etc.) result in the thermostat not reconnecting with a log full of entries like these:

-=-=-
Dec 30 10:25:34 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(696): wl0.2: Auth 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-48
Dec 30 10:25:34 kernel: SBF: dhd0: INIT [34:6f:92:27:ec:5b] ID 65535 BFW 65535 THRSH 2048
Dec 30 10:25:34 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(733): wl0.2: Assoc 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-48
Dec 30 10:26:22 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(656): wl0.2: Deauth_ind 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: 0, reason: Unspecified reason (1), rssi:0
Dec 30 10:26:22 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(673): wl0.2: Disassoc 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0
Dec 30 10:26:22 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(696): wl0.2: Auth 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-45
Dec 30 10:26:22 kernel: SBF: dhd0: INIT [34:6f:92:27:ec:5b] ID 65535 BFW 65535 THRSH 2048
Dec 30 10:26:22 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(733): wl0.2: Assoc 34:6F:92:27:EC:5B, status: Successful (0), rssi:-45
-=-=-

The router is within 15-20 feet of the thermostat, and the signal looks good. Not sure what's going wrong, as this setup worked fine for a couple of months previously.

Every single flash has been accompanied with a settings reset and re configuring manually, no uploaded settings files.

 

[bbunge]

Did you set up a guest WIFI for the thermostat yet? 20 MHz bandwidth and WPA2 on 2.4 GHz.

 

[The_Bishop]

So after beating my head against their tech support for 30 minutes, I finally found that they pushed a firmware update on December 1, which is roughly when all of this started.


What I ended up doing was flashing to the latest Merlin firmware, clearing out the router settings, and re-configuring from scratch. That also included not using the baked-in IOT, I created a custom one. 2.4 Ghz, WPA2/AES. I then did a factory reset of the thermostat *again*, re-configured that again, and the tech person at Sensi did something from their end once I got it back online. After that it seems to connect *and* reconnect. Need to monitor it for a bit to ensure it's really, finally fixed.

Sorry for the absolutely chaotic mess these threads became. I blame lack of sleep and frustration.

So, as a summary: Currently on Merlin 3006.102.6 with a fresh flash and configuration and a 'Custom' built IOT network in Guest Network Pro. Factory reset the thermostat, got it back online. Sensi tech did something from their end once it was online, and that seems to have fixed the network connection problem. Need to keep an eye on it for a few days to ensure it's really fixed. Sensi tech mentioned something about opening ports for the thermostat so it can connect to the cloud services but that never seemed to be the issue and right now it's working so I'm going to leave it be unless it has any issues again.