ESPHome connection on OpenWrt Accesspoint

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello,

I have a network with 3 OpenWrt Access points and I also have a couple of smart switches running ESPHome on esp8285 cpu.
Now the issue is that a lot of times when I try to OTA update my ESPHome switches the connection times out. personally I think it's an issue with ESPHome.
But on the HA forum they say it's a common issue specifically with the combination ESPHome and OpenWrt so replace OpenWrt.
But I don't want to, I want to know why this fails and have it fixed.

So I thought, let's try here if someone experiences the same issue and it there is anything I can do to make this work more stable.

with kind regards,

Bart

2

Post your 2.4 (I assume) wifi config.

3

it's indeed 2.4
those devices do not support 5
my full wifi config is like this

config wifi-device 'radio0'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
        option band '5g'
        option htmode 'VHT80'
        option cell_density '0'
        option channel '36'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
        option device 'radio0'
        option network 'lan'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid '<ssid>'
        option encryption 'sae-mixed'
        option key '<pwd>'
        option ieee80211r '1'
        option ft_over_ds '0'
        option ft_psk_generate_local '1'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option path 'platform/ahb/18100000.wmac'
        option channel '10'
        option band '2g'
        option htmode 'HT20'
        option cell_density '0'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio1'
        option device 'radio1'
        option network 'lan'
        option mode 'ap'
        option ssid '<ssid>'
        option encryption 'sae-mixed'
        option key '<pwd>'
        option ieee80211r '1'
        option ft_over_ds '0'
        option ft_psk_generate_local '1'
        option ieee80211w '0'

on all 3 accesspoints
I tried some options like ldpc and disable disconnect on low ack.
but nothing seems to work.

4

one new remark,
I also have this issue with Tasmota,
didn't really notice this before as I migrated most of my tasmota devices prior to migrating to OpenWRT.

Also I tried disabling WMM and Short Preamble but neither seems to make any difference.
I think there is some setting in OpenWrt esp devices can't handle, but can't figure which one it is.

5

anyone any suggestion?
for now I tried replacing ath10k-firmware-qca9888-ct with ath10k-firmware-qca9888-ct-full-htt
and that seems to make is a little better, but still not as good as it should be.

6

Change the encryption to wpa2 psk. I suspect that the esp32 does not line sae-mixed.

1 Like
7

I had the same problems and tried about every possible advice I could find. It only happened with ath10k APs, never had a problem with mt76 APs.
Since OpenWrt 22.03, the situation has improved significantly and I do not experience these problems anymore (though the VAP has WMM disabled and is forced to g mode).

1 Like
8

Thank you both for your reply,
I already tried and now treid again both solutions.
WPA2 and disabling WMM but this doesn't make any difference.
Before 22.03 there was no OpenWrt Support for my AP so I can't compare.
but for future notice, probably over 5 years I won't by an ath10k AP.

9

Hmm, for me the connection is mostly OK now, I had one device acting up, but it decided to stay connected, but my issues is with mDns, not that it is not working, but for some reason devices in esphome dashboard show as offline (sometimes it shows online, but mostly offline, even thought they are online and from my pc i can reach device with .local address)

I have installed umdns package.

10

I configure all my ESPHome devices with the following option:
use_address: devicename.lan
This forces the Dashboard to resolve the name via DNS instead of mDNS.

11

when i click logs dashboard does resolve the hostname.local and i would like to keep config to the minimum and get mDns working with Dashboard.

I also tried avahi instead of umdns, still same issues with dashboard.