Constant connection issue

[KevinKSS]

I have two RLC-823S1W camera's, both are Wifi. These are on construction site there router is not super close. One camera is attached to the local router and connects up fine all the time. I have a wifi repeater in the same outlet as camera 1. Camera 2 is in room next door and uses the repeater wifi. When I get on camera two it shows two bars on the signal strength from repeater. When I'm on the extended wifi network on my phone and onsite everything works just fine. When onsite and then I turn off wifi (on my phone) and then my phone would use cell service to get to the internet and be routed through local router and then repeater it will work right after I set it up with lots of reconnects and when I get home and attempt the same thing, never connects.. maybe once in a blue moon will it connect up again.

Ideas on what can cause this ? nothing else is on this network, so its not bandwidth... any settings on the repeater that might decide to block it ? I just cant make the router to repeater work consistently but the camera that is direct to their wifi works fine. Before you ask the second camera cant even see the orig router, so definitely needs the repeater.

the repeater is

TP-Link AX3000(RE715X)

ideas ?

[Chopstix]

@kevinkss just for clarity, repeaters are only as good as their connection to the previous hop. Looks like the 715 does not support wired backhaul so I am assuming its connection to your router is wireless as well. What make/model is your router? Is it a TP-LINK also? Are you setting up as a wireless mesh? Make sure you have the 2.4/5/6 GHz bands names differently then on the camera, see if your firmware has the option to specify 2.4GHz as it will have better wall penetration than the higher bands. I understand that it is the next room, but wall materials and other environmental factors will affect performance. If your camera does not, you may need to factory reset and see if you can specify the 2.4GHz network during setup.

[joseph_1979]

@kevinkss I think the issue is the upload speed of your router. Can you install ookla from playstore on your smartphone and check it out? Switch to WIFi and check upload speed. Now switch to mobile data and check download speed. From the camera side, it is the upload speed which is important. The upload (from router to your ISP) should be at least 20 Mbps.

Are you able to pass a cat5/6 cable from the router to the repeater? If yes then configure the Re715 as access point rather than repeater. In this case the data between router and RE715 is over ethernet.

[KevinKSS]

Thanks for the replies.. let me see if I can clarify some info
Chopstix
-everything is wireless - their router is the Verizon ASK-NCM1100E its a cellular router
-When 20' up in the air with the camera 1 is, I get 2 bars on 2.4 and doesn't even see the 5g, this also where I placed the repeater
Joe
-I would have to venture back out there to test it out.. its an hour away and I think these camera's are coming down soon anyway. I will test it out when there next to figure out and do some lessons learned.
-early on I could have run cat5 but not now.

thanks for the info.. just trying to make this work better on next setup. Real issue is the main router is in metal trailer and like 100' away. I really need a way to extend the range from that instead of trying to boost garbage from far away in the building. Any advise on that is appreciated also.

[Chopstix]

@kevinkss from while I have no experience with your specific cellular router, I can tell you that in general they do not have tremendous range as they are meant as close proximity hotspots. Pair that with being enclosed in a metal trailer, you're really clipping the range. 2 bars at 100-ft I'd say is actually pretty good given the environment.

My suggestion for your next job, turn your router's Wi-Fi antenna (if possible) OFF and put a wireless access point on top of the trailer with a direct ethernet connection to the router inside the trailer. And then if needed, drop Wi-Fi repeaters/mesh points no more than 75-ft away (less if indoors) from one another if using wireless backhaul. If you have the ability to homerun ethernet drops back to the cellular router, you can put them out as far as 328-ft as long as the clients that need Wi-Fi access can still get 80-100% signal from them.

[KevinKSS]

@chopstix Thanks. Sounds like a plan, I'll see how the next one is laid out.

[Rizzkhan]

First, check for channel overlap between the router and repeater, as this can cause interference. Ensure MAC address filtering isn’t blocking the camera, and verify the router and repeater aren't assigning overlapping IP addresses. You might also want to try adjusting the repeater's mode (Access Point vs. Repeater) to see if that helps. Even with two bars, the signal might not be stable enough, so moving the repeater closer to Camera 2 could improve things. Also, reboot both the camera and repeater after changes and check for firmware updates.

[piciuok_863844506812569]

I have same camera without repeater but connected to remote LTE router too - in my case is huewai b535-333. Camera drop any connection to self but still working - how I checked it? I have second camera, trackmix wifi, that run smoothly at same time and if it is night, I can see infrared from hanged camera (so it's working). Latest firmware too. It should be something with newest firmware because before update camera works fine.