We have a pair of the new VH-109 radios. One is on the robot and one is configured as an access point. One of our laptops is Wi-Fi 7 capable (which includes Wi-Fi 6E obviously). The VH-109 radio on the robot connects to the VH-109 configured as an access point and if the laptop is connected to the AP via an ethernet cable everything works great. However, we want the laptop to connect to the AP via Wi-Fi. No matter what we did, the laptop could not see the VH-109 AP.
Turns out to be a problem Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 Wi-Fi devices in the laptop, or most likely its driver. I am not a Wi-Fi expert, so to the best of my ability to explain, there are multiple ways that the 6G network can advertise its existance and allow the laptop to connect. One of these ways is that the 2.4 Gh or 5 Ghz tells the laptop that there is a 6G connection as well. However, for this configuration (VH-109 in AP mode) there is no 2.4 Ghz or 5 Ghz networks to inform the laptop. This is the most common use case for Wi-Fi 6E. However, there are other discovery methods. Here I am at the end of my knowledge, but there is a method called FILS when the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands do not exist. The problem I have (and many Wi-Fi 6E/Wi-Fi 7) devices have is they do not support FILS and therefore the 6Ghz network is never discovered.
Vivid Hosting is aware of this and is working on a solution given the inadequate support for FILS discovery in many Wi-Fi devices that are used by computers.
For now we are just using the ethernet cable.
Wi-Fi 6E defines that if a 6 Ghz AP that does have 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz detects another 6 Ghz network it can tell client about that other network. So, we brought a traditional Wi-Fi 6E AP into the room and it was then picked up by the laptop and the laptop saw both the traditional AP and the VH-109 AP at that point. The traditional AP told the laptop about VH-109 network.
Just hoping to save anyone else time trying to figure this out as we spent a good deal of time trying to understand why we could not see the VH-109 AP.
Did you try setting the VH-109 channel to one of the 6GHz preferred scanning channels? (5, 21, 37, 53, 69, 85, 101, 117, 133, 149, 165, 181, 197, 213, and 229)
My Wi-Fi 6e adapters (Intel AX211 and MediaTek MY7921AUN) are able to detect and connect to the VH-109 when the channel is set to a PSC.
Yes in fact I tried multiple of the preferred scanning channels. I also set my intel driver properties to prefer 6 Ghz hoping that would cause the Intel Wi-Fi driver to look for 6 Ghz beacons on the preferred scanning channels but that did not work.
Do you know if this is just the BE200? I had success connecting over 6ghz with an AX1690i from Linux FWIW. Not sure if Linux changes anything in the equation there, though.
Also, I’m kinda curious whether manually adding a network (like what’d you do for hidden wifi networks) would work to still connect to it when you’re in that situation, or if it genuinely does need the advertisement to connect at all.
This page from cisco talks more about discovery on the 6 Ghz frequency. Note, one of our mentors is a Wi-Fi guru and works for Verizon. He brought in his WiFi management packet sniffer and we noted that this VH-109 in AP mode is broadcasting FILS packets and therefore is relying on this for discovery. There is no 2.4 or 5 Ghz networks so RNR is not an option and FILS and UPR are mutually exclusive, so it looks like my Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 adapter just does not support FILS. It is likely something that might come along later with just a driver update.
In the mean time, the guys at Vivid Hosting are aware and are looking at a workaround for adapters that cannot understand FILS.
Can confirm that this is an issue on certain client devices. I haven’t been able to get my hands on another Intel based chipset that exhibits the non-compliant FILS issue.
We’ve been working with Tim-BD (1425 mentor, FTA and 802.11 wizard) on testing of the VH-109 for the past year. We’ll get a release out that enables the 2.4 GHz SSID while simultaneously broadcasting a 6 GHz SSID.
The hard part is getting the neighbor report IE (information element) packed in on the 2.4 GHz side.
This isn’t a needed feature for teams to operate their robots and is definitely one that’s in the convenience category. Hopefully we get it figured out and released in a near future build.