Need a way to get alerted when a Wifi AP is on that should be off

Installing and Using OpenWrt
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I have the following problem: I'm running OpenWRT, which is great, but I also use routers my ISPs provide to connect to the Internet. These have Wifi which I disable, because I don't need it and my neighbors enjoy better Wifi ("Internet") coverage and quality in 2.4GHz when unnecessary Wifis don't eat up channels. There is one issue though: every once in a while, say a few months (one to two times a year at worst) one of these devices acts up and enables its Wifi itself. I've been searching for weeks for a solution why some of my Wifi enabled smart sockets loose their connection. I looked and the Android Wifi Analyzer, cursed these other crappy networks and thought there is nothing that could be done… recently I looked a one of the control panels of these "foreign" routers and found Wifi enabled. Problem solved all smart sockets are reliable back online. I cannot rely on the ISP sending me notifications when they plan a maintenace and some of them are not reliable at all at this.

So how can I easily scan for "bad" SSIDs and be alerted? I can't just execute iwinfo wlan0 scan on my OpenWRT router without disrupting the Wifi on that interface, can I? Using some kind of Android App that would check every once in a while (not permanently and drian battery) would also be sufficient and do the trick. Any ideas, recommendations or experience?

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My two cents:

  • No, you cannot scan and maintain the current connections.
  • If you have different AP names, your IoT devices will not move.
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And delete the old associations to the ISP router...

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I assumed that those "smart sockets" would not be capable of storing more than one association, but it's a good point.

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5

Since you’d only use it to scan, a cheap, supported USB dongle. In general they suck for AP use, but since all you’re doing is a periodic scan, if they have a functional driver for OpenWrt, should meet the needs of this use case.

Similarly, a used Archer C7v2 (or similar) for US$10-15 (whatever is comparable to the dongle) is an option, but will probably draw 5-10 W.

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6

Wild guess: Maybe your ISP is configuring his devices via TR069?

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