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New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 4:04 pm
by PoodlesAgain
Power company had trouble with drive-by meter reading, so, they put in a new one.

All of a sudden, home wifi became a bit erratic.
I checked, indeed, these new beasts sit around the 2.4 GHz band, and problems are reported here and there.

I hope I can tweak the channel, but there is already a near-interference with a neigbhor's router it seems, limiting my choices. Maybe stick the 5 GHz, but not all devices are capable.

Arrgh.

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 4:09 pm
by mickey
Stick with 5gHz is your best bet.

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 9:00 pm
by PoodlesAgain
Addendum: It seems like some meters will sense interference, degrading the quality of their own transmissions, and self-adjust to correct. Could be U.K. only.

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/smart-meter ... ignal-5274

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 9:12 pm
by mozz
Never heard of a 2.4ghz meter, ours sends the data through the power lines when they query it. 5ghz sucks, you lose distance and i can bet the speed increase you get on 5ghz isn't really that much more than 2.4, if the website is slow there's nothing you can do to make it faster. They keep upping the cable speeds here and price, but i see no difference than before. If you have desktops, go wired.

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 10:16 pm
by Tonray's Ghost
Ok...WIFI is an issue....what about noise from guitar amp ? (let's discuss what's really at stake here !)

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Fri May 20, 2022 11:08 pm
by redman
I live in an apartment complex for seniors, no interference but I believe I'm the only apartment with wi-fi that's password protected. I could piggyback on another resident and never pay for wi-fi again.

Re: New electric meter interfers with home wifi..!

Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 7:40 am
by PoodlesAgain
redman wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 11:08 pm I live in an apartment complex for seniors, no interference but I believe I'm the only apartment with wi-fi that's password protected. I could piggyback on another resident and never pay for wi-fi again.
When we were transitioning from one home to the current one, we had no cable or net. I was d^cking around with homemade wifi "cantennas," and kitchen tinfoil on cardboard. Our place was on a slight hill, so great line of sight, I was able to get on an open access point 600 ft away! Like a kid, I would with that for hours (instead of doing house rehab work).

Now, in comcast-only country, there is only one "spare", as one comcast wifi customer keeps his or hers open. Weak but handy when my line craps out.

Back to the meter: on my wifi analyser phone app, there is a device named "?" that I never saw before. It could be a neighbor's printer or other, though.