Some handsets dropping out of wifi connection on 16-table evening

[Gravitino]

We had a bit of a crisis last night when 64 players turned up. We have just 17 handsets, so had just one spare.

We are finding that some of our Acer 7-inch tablets are losing connection during the evening, and the quickest resolution is to swap them with a spare one that has been switched off and resting.

I am not over-familiar with Android. What I do is swipe down from the top which reveals that the failing handset just says ‘WiFi’, rather than the name of the club’s router. The community centre we use also has a strong signal from its own free wifi router, but I don’t believe the rogue handsets are trying to connect with this. I don’t know what to do, besides try to select our router, when I see that annoying ‘WiFi’ onthe tablet.

The room we use is a large rectangular one, and we position our router towards the middle of one of the walls. The tablets start the evening well (apart from the usual connection delays for some at the start), but things start to go awry in middle of the evening. I still haven’t entirely ruled out user error.

But I would like to focus on the possibility that thereis something I could do with the handsets and/or the router to keep the connection up all evening, and to reassure my scoring team that things will be fine when I am not there.

[johng]

The number of handsets isn't limited by the software. We recently had a session with 22 tables split across two rooms, without any problems or delays, and a couple of years ago we had a session with 27 tables.

Could it be a limitation of the router you are using - some routers sold for domestic use may not be designed to handle a large number of simultaneous connections ? It may be worth trying a different router to see if that makes a difference.

Some tablets have a setting to enable you to choose to "Keep WiFi on During Sleep", or to let it disconnect. I don't know if you allow the screens to time out during rounds, but if the wifi connection goes off it may take a few seconds to return after you switch the screen on - though that wouldn't explain why it doesn't reconnect eventually. If the tablets do not have this setting the wifi is almost certainly still on even if the screen is off.

In our club we position the router high up, so that it's above the heads of the seated players, thus in line of sight to all tables. This helps to prevent the wifi signal being attenuated by the seated players !

Is the community centre router using the same or an overlapping wireless channel by any chance ? If it does this could possibly cause interference. You should be able to see what channels are in use at the club site by using one of the free WiFi Analyser apps available on the Play Store. Most routers will allow you to manually select the wireless channel to use.

I do have an old unpublished android app that I wrote a few years ago that sits in the background and automatically reconnects to wifi if the connection is lost. I wrote this because at that time some of our phones had connection problems. If you are interested I could email you a copy of this to try, which you would have to sideload onto tablets. It tries to connect to the configured wifi network that has the strongest signal, so you would have to make sure that the tablets do not have the password for the community centre router.

[TonyF]

Hi,

              If the connection to the router has dropped out then maybe reconnecting manually would work rather than take the tablet out of use ?

You also may like to check if any of the other access points (other wireless routers) are set to 'Connect automatically'. If so use the 'forget' feature.

Only your own router should be set to 'Connect automatically'. Also, John's little app works fine here. As John says, checking if any other routers are using the same channel is a good idea - and change the password - just in case ?

[Reg Hull]

Feels like some of the tablets have previously been used on the hall router and are finding it during the evening.
You do not say if you reconnected to your router via the drop-down menu. If you did and everything works then it proves my theory.
I have had similar in the past when I turned on a hotspot for something else and phones which had previously been used on the hotspot decided they wold prefer to use it. I simply reconnected the relevant phones to the club router and all was well.
It might be worth turning on all the tablets and not the club router. Then check which tablets are connecting to the hall router. You will then know which ones are likely to flip out and can manage it manually or remove the connection to the hall router if not required.

Also as a backstop you can get some members to use their own Android phones so that you have more spares. Screen size should not be a problem as they will be used to it from their own use. Our club uses 4.5 inch screens and everyone is happy...



 

[Gravitino]

We have tracked the problem over the past weeks and come to a clearer picture:

• Each session, some 4 or 5 handsets lose their connection to our router.  When you use the drop-down to see which router they are attached to, they typically say "WiFi", and all attempts to reconnect to our router fail. At this point, we switch off the offending handset, and put it on charge in a pile with the other failures, so that its serial number can be noted after the session.
• It tends to be, by and large, much the same handsets that disconnect each session.
• This did not happen this time last year, when the handsets had been in use for a couple of months.
• The disconnects tend to happen from the middle of the evening onwards.

My conclusion, to put it in the simplest terms that I can understand, is that some of the handsets get tired.

We are getting round this problem by investing in more handsets. So during the session, we have one of our six-way chargers in the background, with up to six handsets waiting to be used where needed. They are kept switched on and with the app activated.

Our offending handsets are all Acer Iconia 7-inchers.  We are now buying Lenovo 7-inchers when they are £50 or less, and we will probably buy some more Amazon Fires when they come down to £30-35. The only disadvantages of the Lenovos is that they reflect the fluorescent lighting from the ceiling and the charging light doesn't change colour when full. The disadvantage of the Amazon Fires is that I haven't yet worked out how to hide all the other apps on the device; they are a bit heavier, but they feel more rugged.

I should add that we have found it to be good to activate the app on every handset before the wireless connection within the BridgeScore session is itself started.  This means that when we do get the session going, we know each table already has a working BridgePal app, so we never have to replace a faulty handset right at the start of the session.

[johng]

This seems very odd to me, especially the fact that you can't reconnect manually to the network once the tablets have lost connection. If I were you I would definitely try a different router to see if that makes a difference. Of course, any tablet should work with any router but maybe there is some subtle bug in the firmware of the router or the tablets. Do you use static or dynamic ip address allocation ? i don't know whether that would make a difference.

[Red_Kite]

Problems with tablets dropping out at Lyonshall were caused by the router which was a brand new Belkin model. Everything else and everybody had been blamed for the problem until we changed the router and everything now works well. We use WordPad7 educational tablets which are now obtainable for £30 including a mains charger and PU leather case discounted down from their original £100 price tag.

[TonyF]

Hi

        If you require information to set up Kindles, please let me know. Like you I thought Kindles would be a great source for using with Bridgepal.

 I have successfully removed all other apps. Bridgepal is the only app on the screen now.

Tony