Running OpenWRT on the Plusnet Hub One (& BT Home Hub 5a)

[#1]

Is the 2.4 ghz wifi actually stopping on the HH5a and/or no other wifi devices can connect to it until you stop and restart the wifi on the HH5a, or is the webcam just losing connection and refusing to reconnect?

Have you tried changing wifi channel number ? 

use ch.1, 6 or 11.

fwiw, with LEDE 17.01, I'm aware one of my neighbour's with a Post Office ISP Zyxel wifi router can easily render the 2.4 GHz wifi signal from my HH5a access point unusable if both happen to use the same channel number.  Also some of my laptops with intel 2x2 or 3x3 wifi cards don't seem to like the HH5a's 2.4 GHz wifi.  I'm informed the MAC80211 driver for 2.4 GHz wifi is heavily patched and not easy or won't be fixed when issues arise.  2.4 GHz wifi works fine with stock BT/Plusnet firmware.

[#2]

Hi Bill,

As near as I can tell, the 2.4 seems to shut down completely. It is a very crowded area for wifi signals locally and I have had problems of this sort in the past, but my laptop (ground floor) sees the HH5's signal at full strength initially. It then gradually declines away to nothing. The web cam, is just one floor down from the router and around 15 feet line of sight. Clicking the Restart button, brings it back up at full strength again every time. I am trying various settings on it, to try to get some stability.

I have a second 2.4 + 5 Ghz Netgear router access point on the ground floor, wired to the HH5A.  

One thing I have noticed, is the much higher frame rate from the camera since installing the HH5A. It used to show 3FPS, now it shows 9 or10 FPS. That is from cam to HH5, HH5 via wire down to second access point, then 2.4 to my laptop on the ground floor.

[#3]

Can you not just use Acrylic WiFi Home to analyse the channels and just set the best option?

It's basically 1, 6 or 11 as all the others actually overlap anyway. 

[#4]

I have got that and use it, but what the laptop sees on the ground floor, is very different to the flood of access points the router and the camera will see on the top floor. The other problem is that most of my neighbours will use the 'auto channel' selection, so their channel in use will frequently change.

[#5]

Well, aren't you using another router as a second AP in that locality or did I miss something?

[#6]

If the camera has an ethernet socket, could you use a pair of powerline adapters instead of wifi ?

(Connect camera to one adapter, connect the other adapter to hub or Netgear AP)

Another options is installing a 5GHz wireless bridge wired to the camera's ethernet socket but that may be 'overkill'.

[#7]

I have a pair of powerline adaptors for occasional needs, but I'm reluctant to use them all of the time because of all the RF interference they generate on the shortwave bands.

I am thinking along the lines of adding a reflector behind the router, so as to direct its signal and reception more towards the cam's location. Just a sheet of kitchen foil.

I managed to provide a point to point wifi link some years ago for well over half a mile, on 2.4 using a pair of Yagi antennas, despite all the 2.4 access points over the route. It was fast enough for basic browsing and for email. So 15 feet shouldn't be able to beat me 🙂 

[#8]

Sorry, me again with more questions....

The LAN DHCP settings - It needs a 'start' address (A) and an upper 'limit' address (B). It says below B '? Maximum number of leased addresses'.

So does that mean 'limit' should be set as A + B, or A to B? 'limit' seems at odds with '? Maximum number of leased addresses'

I am used to entering xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx for the IP's, rather than just the xxx

[#9]

In System/ Software, it seems to be offerring to install this..

ath10k-firmware-qca988x 2018-04-19-71e50312-1 0 with an 'Install' button on the right.

Would it be safe to click the install button and allow it to install please?

I am using OpenWrt 18.06.0 r7188-b0b5c64c22 / LuCI openwrt-18.06 branch (git-18.210.69179-6df9a57) 

[#10]

Do you mind me asking... why? I don’t know the context, but I’m getting the impression you just saw a random package and are wanting to install it. This one is a firmware file, think of it as the driver. Your HH5A build will already have all the needed “drivers” installed, so you don’t normally need to install any additional ones. If there’s ever an update comes out, you can check if there are any updates available using “opkg show upgradable” (not sure about the flag, someone correct me on this) in the command line.

[#11]

Well, I am still having problems with the 2.4 wifi connecting to my IP camera, or rather dropping the connection.

The camera constantly streams, seems to start with a good connection, but as time progresses the 2.4 access point seems to gradually reduce its signal strength down to zero to the point where the connection is lost.

I have so far tried an alloy screen around the router, so as to screen it from neighbouring access points - that helped a little. I have tried making the 2.4 SSID different to the 5 SSID, that seems to possibly have helped a little more.

I have tried auto transmit power, manually setting max and other values, fine initially.

On my laptop two floors below, I can see the HH5's access point and connect to it fine, but I normally use a ground floor access point. Watching the signal strength from the HH5 on the laptop, I can see it gradually reduces to zero. When the cam is connected, I get good frame rates to my laptop.

It ran fine for six hours today, then the only way I could get it back and working, was to click the 2.4 Restart button.

So really, I am just clutching at straws hoping an update might fix it.

[#12]

The ath10k driver won't resolve your 2.4 GHz wifi issues, because the driver is for 5 GHz wireless.

From what you have already posted, I don't personally think you will find a solution to your camera connectivity with using the HH5a's 2.4 GHz wifi. Wifi congestion/interference from neighbours sharing same channel number is probably the cause of your problems.

As you have said powerline is not an option, you should consider hard wiring the camera, or wire camera with a shorter length of cable to a 5 GHz wireless bridge.  ie. avoid using 2.4 GHz, and convert the camera's ethernet to 5 GHz wifi to connect to HH5a's 5GHz wifi.  I personally use a couple of different 5 GHz wireless bridges upstairs to connect to the wireless access point on ground floor, so as to avoid running cables between rooms and floors and so avoiding the congested 2.4 GHz band altogether.

ps. try not to restart the hub too often as DLM may kick in and cause you unnecessary other issues if the DSLAM incorrectly thinks it is seeing abrupt line faults on your VDSL line.

[#13]

Thanks Bill.

Oddly, it seems most reliable now, when I have the laptop on viewing the camera. Hibernate the laptop an fire it back up, I can guarantee the cam will loose contact with the HH5. Just to remind - cam uses wifi to HH5 in loft, HH5 is wired to a second router on ground floor, laptop uses wifi to ground floor router. 

I could sort of understand the cameras output being lost for a short while, were it due to other wifi signals, but this is being lost and I have to restart the HH5's wifi before it will work again. It is being lost to the camera and my laptop downstairs as if the 2.4 access point is just simply shutting itself down.

I am not rebooting the HH5 to get the camera working, I am simply Restarting the 2.4 wifi. I have Luci's open in my browser so I can do that. Oddly - it allows me to click the Restart, but doesn't make it obvious that having clicked the button it has done nothing, because it has logged me out of the router's web interface. 

Restart (just the 2.4 wifi) brings the HH5's 2.4 back up instantly on both the camera and also accessible from the laptop.

[#14]

I found another weird issue with OpenWRT....

If you log out of LuCi and try to immediately log back in, in the same browser page - often it flags up my log in password as wrong. I have to close the page down, then open the Luci url again. I initially thought it might have been me, typing the password in wrong, but no, it was correct... 

[#15]

I have just discovered another weirdity in OpenWRT / Luci...

BBCi on both my Firestick and my laptop was stuttering and even refused to load at all today, whereas all the other TV streaming services worked fine. I decided to try changing the DNS server from Plusnet's DNS IP's, to the OpenDNS ones (Network> DHCP and DNS), doing that would seem to have entirely fixed the BBCi problems, but I notice the LuCi (Status> Overview in the Network (WAN) panel), still reports it is using the Plusnet's DNS server IP's.