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Rossmofo
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May 7, 2023
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Smart Meter and powerline Wi-Fi extenders- No signal issues

  • May 7, 2023
  • 16 replies
  • 1103 views

Hi, after having  Smart Meter fitted my powerline extenders (TP-LINK) have become sporadic and have lost speed. These only work on 2.4ghz so no option to change settings to 5ghz, has anyone else experienced this problem? If so does anyone have a solution.? 

Best answer by Blastoise186

Updated on 14/03/25 by Ben_OVO

It’s not the smart meter that’s the problem. It’s the powerline extenders being fussy. I’ve seen this problem before and it’s made worse because powerline wi-fi extenders are often:

  1. Notorious messing up either themselves or literally everything else for completely random reasons
  2. Running on a dead standard (HomePlug Alliance died a few years ago)
  3. Made from cheap parts that don’t perform well

Unfortunately, the only solution is to get rid of them and get something else like Ubiquiti UniFi (or AmpliFi), Netgear Orbi, TP-Link Deco or something else along those lines.

If your powerline extenders only do 2.4GHz, it’s probably worth replacing them anyway. I suspect the 2.4GHz band in your environment is just so crowded by too much stuff that you’d be better off using the 5GHz band for Wi-Fi purposes. The Ubiquiti WiFiman app can help you scan the environment to see how badly jammed up it is.

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Blastoise186
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Blastoise186Super User
Super User
May 8, 2023

That’s because it’s a Bank Holiday today.

It’ll take up to 24 hours for the ZigBee HAN to re-scan the environment and adjust itself, so please allow it some time to catch up. It’s designed so that it doesn’t keep flipping all over the place for no reason. Even my own Ubiquiti UniFi kit only does automatic re-optimisation once a day for the same reason.

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Blastoise186
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Blastoise186Super User
Super User
May 8, 2023

20MHz Channel Width also has a theoretical maximum speed of around 54mb/s on the 2.4GHz Band. In reality, you can expect speeds more in the range of 20mb/s.

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RossmofoAuthor
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May 8, 2023

Ah that would explain, we don't get it here, well my company hasn't given it anyway so I forgot about it. 

Does the meter need to be connected to my home WiFi, I thought they had their own independent signal? 

Blastoise186
Super User
Blastoise186Super User
Super User
May 8, 2023

Nope. In actual fact you can’t connect it to Wi-Fi either. But the IHD might be able to do that depending on which one you have. The ZigBee HAN is how the meters communicate with each other, the Comms Hub and the IHD and there’s a dedicated WAN that connects them to DCC separately from everything else.

One other thing. If you do go for UniFi, don’t get tempted by the cheaper UniFi Dream Router. It’s a watered down version of the UniFi Dream Machine and isn’t worth the cheaper price - the UDM is massively superior to the UDR and is worth the extra £100.

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RossmofoAuthor
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May 8, 2023

Would manually selecting a channel for 2.4 to use work if it was not a channel that the SM used? My meter is a Landis EDM1 so is there any way of knowing which channel or channels it is using?

 

Blastoise186
Super User
Blastoise186Super User
Super User
May 8, 2023

Probably not much effect, but you can do it if you wish. I recommend Channels 1, 6 and 11 if you’re going to set it manually. You’ll need to set each AP to a different channel to avoid clashes and make sure they all share the same Channel Width.

That’ll give plenty of free space for ZigBee to work with and the HAN should then slot itself into the space made available.

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