Author Topic: Restoring Bloomsky WiFi  (Read 3873 times)

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Offline waysta

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Restoring Bloomsky WiFi
« on: August 29, 2017, 02:50:34 PM »
The one thing I really like about the gen 1 Bloomsky is the sky picture, mine is setup to maximize the sky view.  Not a bona-fide "sky camera", but possibly about as close as one can get in this price and convenience range.

https://map.bloomsky.com/weather-stations/gqBxp6apnJSnrJ6l

Past months it's been disconnecting a LOT and very erratic (battery okay).  Was reliable past year from above garage on a pole to a Netgear R7000 WiFi router about 50 or 60 feet away.  The R-7000 may be failing or having configuration issues (restore to factory settings did not help), and/or the Bloomsky WiFi module may be slowly failing.

So, with WiFi routers falling in price, I picked up a Walmart tp-link AC1350 (Archer C59) for around $59 (probably cheaper elsewhere) and set it up on the side of the home nearest the Bloomsky ball (< 25').  The Bloomsky was completely reset and connected to the new router.

This may be less common, but I already have a hardwire cat 6 cable (MONOPRICE 11374 FLEXboot Series Cat6 24AWG UTP Ethernet Network Patch Cable, 75ft $10.25) over to that side of the home for the entertainment center.  It has an 8 port gigabit switch (<$20 on sale at NewEgg from time to time) for plugging in ethernet from the various media components.  I plugged the new AC1350 to an open port there.

Surprisingly, Bloomsky is back with reliable 5 minute update pics for several days now.

Afternote, also moved the RainWise IP100 (closer to the MK-IIILR) to the same new tp-link AC1350 over on the other side of the home.  3 second updates are much more reliable now.  It seems to make sense to separate out the wx sensors on their own router/switch as practical.

almost unrelated, changed out the old NetGear R7000 3.5A wall wart with a new NetGear 5A supply ($19 Amazon), seems to be working  more reliably now.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2017, 10:38:30 AM by waysta »

 

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