Wifi Output from Thermal Camera Suddenly Poor

[Jma]

G'day All,

I have a Guide TD210 thermal monocular and I've been using a Laser MID-787 Android tablet to view the image realtime via wifi and Guide's TargetIR app.
Had both for about 18 months and while the TD210 has a few annoying bugs, it's wifi output and connection to the tablet has been mostly good.
I recently went away for a few weeks and left both at home.
Returned home and started trying to use them and it seems the wifi output from the TD210 has dropped to the point it's no longer usable unless the tablet is direct line-of-sight to the TD210.

Previously it's been remotely mounted on top of a vehicle with the tablet in the front on the dash to view the 210's image in realtime, which has worked well with only a half second or so lag from movement of the 210 to movement's display on the tablet.
Now it's hopeless, seems that unless the tablet is line-of-sight with the 210 the lag is anything up to about 15 or 20 seconds and more, and the display is nearly continuously badly pixelated.

Tried a factory reset of both 210 and Laser tablet, fresh install of the TargetIR app etc. etc. etc..
Didn't fix it.
Tried another tablet, an Xgody Model N01, 10 inch tablet.
It was slightly better but still not really usable while inside the vehicle, as with the Laser tablet once line-of-sight with the 210 all appears well.

Nothing has been changed in the vehicle setup at all, the only thing that's happened is everything wasn't used for about 3 weeks.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[wotnot]

Had a search/read...got nothing....but it reminds me of a similar problem with cheap netbook/notebook machines, which for 'no reason at all' would suddenly have really weak wifi.

In those cases, I tracked the fault down to a burnt inductor in series with the wifi antenna..



Some fail, some don't...best I can figure it, cause is just bad component quality.

[jglnb]

A little of an out of the box thought... have you considered what channels the WiFi is using and whether there is any recently introduced channel congestion or interference ?

Perhaps try : Site wifi analysis and look for crowded channels, drive to a definite no wifi signal area and retry, or even try the 5GHZ connection if possible (assuming you are using 2..4Ghz atm)

Hope this helps,

Cheers
jglnb

[Jma]

Had a search/read...got nothing....but it reminds me of a similar problem with cheap netbook/notebook machines, which for 'no reason at all' would suddenly have really weak wifi.

In those cases, I tracked the fault down to a burnt inductor in series with the wifi antenna..



Some fail, some don't...best I can figure it, cause is just bad component quality.

Thanks wotnot,
I'm also thinking it's a bad quality component, it's a cheapy device and it's been knocked around a bit.
Seems it didn't like having a rest for a few weeks and forgot how to wake up properly.

It's had a couple of annoying bugs from day 1, one of which is a crash/shutdown when it's wifi was turned on, probably happened about 30% of the time.
It never remembered or saved the wifi setting so it has to be started in the device each time.
Another is every minute or so it's display freezes for about a second, both it's internal display and whatever device it's wifi'd to display on show the freeze, some sort of buffering issue I'd guess.

Not much about them out there I could find either, a rather vague manual that also came with it, and a handful of YT vids.
It's now out of warranty so I never bothered contacting where I got it from, and I see they no longer have it listed.
Contacting the Guide/Sensmart company that makes them in China I found was impossible after I first got it when trying to let them know about it's bugs.
So it'll be my first and last Guide product.

I moved the tablet close as I could get it to the windscreen for now and will give that a try later and see if it helps.

[Jma]

A little of an out of the box thought... have you considered what channels the WiFi is using and whether there is any recently introduced channel congestion or interference ?

Perhaps try : Site wifi analysis and look for crowded channels, drive to a definite no wifi signal area and retry, or even try the 5GHZ connection if possible (assuming you are using 2..4Ghz atm)

Hope this helps,

Cheers
jglnb

Thanks jglnb,

It's a no wifi signal area where I use it (western QLD).
There's also 2 GPS's & my phone on in the vehicle at the time, 1 GPS has wifi capability but it's disabled, wifi on the phone also disabled.
The camera has only 2.4 GHz wifi output.

I guess I'll just persevere with it for now, trying it again later with the tablet close to the windscreen as I could get it.
Until it annoys me enough to throw it across the paddock anyway
Then I'll look around for a new one

[wotnot]

As you've got nothing to lose, it'd be worth opening it up to check the antenna U.FL hasn't come off the PCB (supposing it uses one, some antennas are hard soldered)

[Jma]

When I decide I've had enough of it I will probably do just that, though not until I have one to replace it.
It worked slightly better with the tablet as close as I could get it to the windscreen but still not good enough to be usable.
I found when experimenting it did work ok with the tablet in portrait mode instead of landscape, tablet's internal wifi antenna location being up I'd say, but the GuideIR software only works in landscape mode, even when the tablet is set to use only portrait mode, so unless I go through all the hassle of remounting the camera on it's side and redo the power supply which was made for it sitting upright, I'd be stuck with a sideways image.
Gave up trying to get it working correctly with the tablet inside the cab, used a RAM suction mount to stick it to the outside of the windscreen
Everything worked as expected for the hour or so I tested it.