Hi @physh,

The PMF feature was supported since Omada Controller v5.7, which requires to upgrade the EAP device firmware to take effect. The previous firmware you used is not adapted to controller 5.7, that is, the previous firmware doesn't support the PMF feature, thus the PMF configuration with "Mandatory" won't affect the connection of non-PMF-capable clients.

While the EAP653 new firmware is adapted to controller 5.9, which supports the PMF feature. It seems that your IoT client is non-PMF-capable, so changing PMF from "Mandatory" to "Capable" can fix the issue. If your IoT still has connection issue with the "Capable" option, you may disable PMF for the IoT network.

Hi @physh 

Thanks for posting in our business forum.

physh wrote

Unfortunately, this this just happened again. Despite being 2.4GHz only, and WPA2, these IoT devices all dropped out and won't reconnect.

 

LiftMaster garage door opener

2x Ecobee thermostats

Eufy doorbell

What's the distance between the IoT units and the EAP? I suspect this might be a problem with the distance or transmission.

Can you move one IoT just next to the EAP and monitor if that's gonna be disconnected or not?

Besides that, do you have EAP mesh? Fast Roaming?

Hi @physh 

Thanks for posting in our business forum.

physh wrote

I have 2 APs but only one broadcasts at 2.4GHz, the other one is 5GHz only. Distance-wise, it varies between about 5 ft to 50ft. When the disconnection happens, all devices drop regardless of distance.

 

No mesh, and I don't believe fast roaming matters since those are 2.4GHz only devices and only one AP broadcasts.

 

Also to note: the IoT devices that drop off are always the same, no other 2.4GHz device exhibits the same behavior. Could they all be using the same internal wifi chip and/or driver and have an issue with my Omada APs?

It would be hard to say if just certain IoT devices drop from 2.4GHz. I cannot rule out if there is a problem with these IoT.

e.g. you put your laptop and connect to 2.4GHz and do a ping test, to verify if it is a problem with the channel or EAP itself. If there is no drop or a single loss on the laptop while IoT disconnects, and the consistent models drop off, I think there is a problem with their antenna or firmware. I would still recommend you move it closer to the test.

Ideally, place it under the EAP and check if this ever happens, if no, that narrows down to your distance and bad antenna on the IoT.

There is nothing else we need to discuss if you narrow it down to this. I cannot say this is a firmware or an issue with the EAP yet and we cannot get the same IoT models as you have right now to reproduce this.

Unless you prove that to me, certain models, even if it is placed under the EAP, and disconnect at the same time. I think this is worth an investigation. Or you tell me that all 2.4GHz regardless of their type, even cellphone drop off at the same time and you have ruled out the power supply issue on the EAP, that's also worth an investigation.

physh wrote

I tried several other things:

Disabling IPv6 on the entire network + on my WAN, no improvement.

Creating a separate SSID, with WPA2-only authentication. This seems to be somewhat of an improvement as there were no drops over the past couple of weeks. To verify, I brought the devices back to the main WPA3 SSID and they dropped after about a week.

 

So I think there is some sort of issue with WPA3 resulting in what looks like a non-recoverable timeout. Unfortunately, the logs on the controller are so vague that I cannot verify this theory.

Hi @physh 

Thanks for update.

For the IoT devices, basically we may suggest you set the SSID in 2.4GHz with WPA2 since not all IoT devices support WPA3. When the drop issue was related to the connecting devices themselves, it is kind of hard to locate the detail reason. You may also try to test with different devices including IoT devices and other smart devices and identify whether the performance is the same. Looking forward to your further update.