Sky puck keeps dropping its wifi connection

[Thatbeano]

I have sky broadband and a sky TV puck. The sky puck regularly drops its wifi connection. I know the wifi and broadband are working fine becuase orher devices (phones, tablets) continue to have perfect connections in the same room as the sky puck. At the moment the o ly fix seems to be to switch everything off then reboot, but as the puck loses connectivity again within an hour or so this isnt a long-term fix. 

Any ideas gratefulky received 

[_Clive_]

Is your Puck out in the open and away from any metal surfaces? 

[Thatbeano]

Its on a wooden cupboard  in front of the TV. I wouldnt say its in the open but nor is it hidden away. Ill try pulling it further out to see if that helps. Thanks. 🙂

[GD1]

@Thatbeano  Also ideally in addition to @_Clive_  suggestion, is your hub also in a high enough place, for example it shouldn't be behind any cupbords or electrical equipment or on a windowsill.  

[Thatbeano]

The hub is in an office but in quite an open position. I also use a mesh system so the nearest mesh unit is about 2m away although in a different room. What is odd is I never have problems with other devices in the room where the sky luck is (eg smart plugs, iPhone, iPad etc). 

[Padam_Padam]

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@Thatbeano wrote:

The hub is in an office but in quite an open position. I also use a mesh system so the nearest mesh unit is about 2m away although in a different room. What is odd is I never have problems with other devices in the room where the sky luck is (eg smart plugs, iPhone, iPad etc). 

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Sky Stream pucks can be finnicky. Much more so than other streaming devices or devices which use WiFi. Any small interruption in the signal, switch from 2.4Ghz to 5Ghz frequency or speed change can cause issues with them. 

Have you performed the Netflix speed test on the puck? Open Netflix, navigate to the get help menu and run a network check. 

[Jon34]

  Hey!   
These are just some ideas and what I'd be thinking about, I've had issues like this before - drop outs.  

What kind of mesh system do you have? Is it a semi/Pro mesh? Or is it provided by sky/bt/ee etc, these mesh systems aren't proper mesh and are often just glorified repeaters.

For example I used to have the EE Smart wifi, hub with 3 wifi discs - the reality was that there was nothing smart about them, no offloading etc.

Access point placement
Should be placed where they'd get the most benefit.
Ideally cat6 min cable back to hub.
Don't daisy chain access points/switches.
There's no different between being 1m up to 4m in the same room.
Walls will be the main issue.
If you have a lot of devices (+kids) go for an access point in each room.
Go for corners, pointing towards the center in the house (check antenna directions)

Demanding equipment
Streaming boxes
Tv
Consoles
Computers
Cctv cameras
Phones
Access points* (what??, yes if they are using wifi)

Now, with all of this in mind, only one device can transmit data at a given time, alright this does happen very fast, but the more devices the more latency, additional access points on different channels can help mitigate this.

How many of these are potentially using the WiFi at the same time (worst case)?

The stream doesn't like high latency, it's worse when watching from the guide, you'll notice issues first by not being able to pause or it not offering watch from start.

If you have a more fanciful mesh system, you could try creating a separate wifi network for your pucks and change the settings that works best ~ roaming/offloading aggression etc.

If your router is capable you could also look at qos.

If its possible use a cat6+ ethernet lead and remember no chaining! (Puck-Switch-switch-hub etc)

Have a think of potential issues above.

I have 3 sky streams and only a 50mb Internet connection(waiting for fiber) they Works flawlessly.
The only thing using WiFi is our phones and laptops, if it has an ethernet port, it's on ethernet cause wifi is inherently bad.

Buy a long ethernet lead from amazon, plug it in and try for a few hours, if you still have problems, your problem is likley due to contention/latency and return once done.

Sorry a very long post, somethings for you to think about/try and hopefully get this sorted.

[Thatbeano]

Thanks. Just tried a Netflix test as suggested. All appeared OK with a connection speed of 48 Mbps, so should be OK. 

touch wood moving the puck forward six inches looks like it MAY have solved things. 

[Thatbeano]

Wow, thanks, lots to think about and try there. 

I'm optimistic that a slight change to the position of the puck MAY have helped - it certainly hasn't disconnected since I did that yesterday (famous last words!). I'll see how it goes before altering anything else. 

thanks again 🙂

[Exiled-in-HH]

Also check the connection using nerd stats on YouTube while watching a high bit rate UHD demo😉