I have the new ASI Air Plus and was hoping for better range like everyone else has been getting, but my plus unit is disconnecting frequently and does not have improved range over my Pro for more than a few feet. There has to be something with my unit maybe that is not right. Any advice anyone? Antenna? I love my ZWO equipment and really wanting my WIFI to improve. This is why I bought the Plus. I also still have my Pro too.
Greg M
owenmolly0409 I have the new ASI Air Plus and was hoping for better range like everyone else has been getting,
I can relate. I have had a Pro for a while and just received a Plus. I used the Pro in “hotspot” mode with the ASIAIR app on a nearby iPad and it was awesome except for the range.
Upon receiving the Plus, I immediately tried it in station mode, but encountered problems with connectivity. I had my iPad on my home network along with the Plus. The opening screen of the ASIAIR app could “see” the Plus on my Wi-Fi network, but pressing “enter” caused the app to freeze with the spinning wheel in the center of the frame. This problem was very repeatable.
So far, I can’t figure it out, but it seems that it might have something to do with the Wi-Fi extenders I have in my home network (??). For example, when I disabled my Wi-Fi extenders, the Plus connected to the app, but then I didn’t get the range I ultimately need.
For what it’s worth, my iPad is an eighth generation unit with all the latest app updates including that for the ASIAIR app. For now, I’ve decided to go back to the Pro in “hotspot” mode and work on the Plus later. My only solution may be to upgrade my home Wi-Fi. I also wonder if using dedicated IP addresses might help instead of DHCP. Either way, it’s a big challenge for my limited IT experience.
Mine still struggles. If I want to be indoors I have to go in my daughters room close to where my telescope is set up outside and even then it wants to disconnect frequently. I guess just have to live with it.
Since my post in early December, I upgraded my home WIFI by installing a Netgear ORBI mesh WIFI 6 with two satellites. That instantly improved the connectivity problem with the ASI Air Plus. I can now control my telescope from the comfort of my house with very few drop outs. I see a drop out once or twice every two or three imaging sessions, but the dropouts are brief and not too annoying.
SteveZ looks like I will need to do so as well. So you are using it in station mode or how does that work? Sorry I haven’t learned much about it outside just trying to keep a connection direct to the Air with my phone. If I can put together a better system like you have I am all in.
owenmolly0409 Yes, I use the ASIAir Plus in Station Mode and have set it up to connect to my new Orbi WIFI network. I position the ASIAir Plus on my driveway about 30 feet from one of the Orbi satellites. In turn, the satellite is located about 40 feet from the Orbi router. (I have a second satellite about half way between the router and the aforementioned satellite.) Of course, the router and the satellites are inside my house. On the Orbi network, I also connect my iPad. In the iPad settings, I forget all other WIFI networks so the Orbi WIFI is the only connection option. I first turn on the ASIAir Plus and give it enough time to connect to the Orbi WIFI, then I open the ASIAir app on my iPad and voila! it connects to the ASIAir Plus. I can roam about my house with the iPad and it remains connected pretty much wherever I go. As I mentioned above, I do experience an occasional drop out, but the app typically reconnects quickly.
I have a similar same setup as @SteveZ – just 3 satellites instead of two – and highly recommended it. Of course any other brand should work as well. I have no relation to Netgear.
I noticed some rare situations where the signal dropped. But after some investigation on the Netgear forum that seems to be related to the current firmware of the Orbi devices. I can reproduce it with other devices as well, so it’s not a problem caused by ASIAir.
Olli
I have the Orbi 850 3 satellite series and noticed some drop issues in general, the firmware has had issues for quite a while. There is a new update this week for Orbi but it isnt coming through via app, you have to go download from netgear. Fingers crossed its more stable
if you have a satellite outdoors within 30-ft, why not run an ethernet cable and eliminate the wifi slowness? It will literally be 10x faster with no dropouts
Kring if you have a satellite outdoors within 30-ft, why not run an ethernet cable and eliminate the wifi slowness?
This +1.
I used to have an eero Mesh router right next to an ASIAIR at the base of my semi permanent tri-pier, both are inside a waterproof box that is left outdoors 24x7. A short Ethernet cable connects the ASIAIR to this router. But the data still has to go through the wireless backhaul from this router to the other eero routers that I have spread around the house. Also, because that router is turned off most of the time, until I need to use the telescope, eero would find non-optimal paths to get from it to the eero unit indoors that my iPad connects to -- at times, causing the entire network to be unstable.
More recently, I led an Ethernet cable from that ASIAIR to an eero Mesh router that is inside the house. This reduces one wirelss backhaul; speeds and stability appears much improved because everything is now static.
Chen
And depending on your router, the backhaul can be faster than wired. I think on the ORBI 850 it runs a low latency 1960mb, twice the speed of ethernet, so plenty of bandwidth.
Kring And depending on your router, the backhaul can be faster than wired.
I see speeds of around 400 Mbits/sec-ish between units if signals have good SNR. The "eero 6 pro" is a bit faster (4x4 radio for backhaul), but from my usage, does not appear to make that huge a difference.
Many people use wired backhaul to connect their eeros to get better speeds, and for greater stability. This will avoid the problem of eeros interfering with one another when they are close to one another -- you can't avoid that sometimes, when you have devices and computers that want to be directly wired.
For some reason, my ASIAIR based all-sky camera transfers data at no better than 50 Mbits/sec through its WiFi station mode. So, even wireless backhauls between mesh nodes will feel so much faster than connecting to ASIAIR through WiFi.
I have just started writing a macOS (Cocoa) framework for INDIGO, and at some point will have better data on how fast I can fetch camera data through INDIGO Sky (Raspberry Pi 4); hoping to get Bin1x multi-star autoguiding at 0.5 second exposure to reach 2 FPS -- the ASIAIR needs Binx2 to get a guiding frame rate of better than 1FPS with any of ZWO's cameras.
One thing I can say about INDIGO Sky is that it is absolutely solid, although I am just starting to write and test the code by going through a ZWO EAF (easiest device that can visibly test the API of my framework); no massive BLOB data transfer yet. The Raspberry Pi box has been on continuously for a couple of weeks now and don't even hiccup. I updated its firmware once a couple of weeks ago, where it went directly to the Internet to update itself, and then rebooted itself, and reappeared on the INDIGO bus as if nothing has happened :-). I am pretty certain that the next all-sky camera (using EOS lenses instead of CCTV lenses) that I am constructing will be using INDIGO Sky instead of ASIAIR.
Speaking of which, my GUI to test the framework uses a hold-mouse-button-down-to-keep-slewing the EAF, and it is so much easier to use than to keep pressing the one-move-per-tap interface that ZWO chose for ASIAIR's EAF control.
Chen
