Fastconnect

[tablatronix]

#1114

On save using esp support

• store bssid from scan

• store channel from scan

• On autoconenct if fastconnect and wifi connect fails, recheck fastscan options in case bssid or channel changed

Add getter to determine if fastconenct is saved/set in flash

[tablatronix]

https://github.com/tzapu/WiFiManager/commits/feature_fastconnect

up to date with master, please test I see no improvement in my env

[roberttidey]

Did you already have a connection set up? If so then you first need to erase those connection details otherwise the connection will continue to be made with just ssid and password and will still take longer.

Fast connect relies on starting from a fresh connection so that the mac address and channel get persisted on the first Wifi.begin call with mac address and channel included. From then on if any details like mac address or channel change then the fast connect automatically re-persists the new values.

[tablatronix]

you don't need a fresh connection, it just sets BSSID and CHANNEL in the config struct
also it does not auto re-persist afaik, you have to set them via begin() if they change

void WiFi_print_sta(){
    if(wifiIsConnected()){
      Serial.println("[WIFI] CONNECTED");
      Serial.print("[WIFI] IP: ");
      Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
      Serial.print("[WIFI] HOST: ");
      Serial.println(getHostname());
      Serial.print("[WIFI] BSSID: ");
      Serial.println(WiFi.BSSIDstr());
      Serial.print("[WIFI] RSSI: ");
      Serial.println(WiFi.RSSI());
      Serial.print("[WIFI] CHANNEL: ");
      Serial.println(WiFi.channel());         
    } else {
      Serial.println("[WIFI] NOT CONNECTED");
    }
}

[roberttidey]

Maybe I am missing something here, but I thought that if autoconnect is on and the ssid and password have already been persisted from previous software then it will connect using those and therefore never get as far as calling fastconnect scan to get the BSSID and channel.

I see a significant decrease in connect time from 3+ seconds to less than 1 second when I use fastconnect. Obviously if BSSID or channel change then the first connect after that is 3+ seconds but then reverts to quick for future connections.

I'll run some further tests and also update my copy to be the same as your current fastconnect in case any changes are affecting my results.

[tablatronix]

It only gets saved when saving via the web interface, I tried adding an autoupdate, but doing a scan always fails for me after trying to connect, there seems to be some kind of delayed event coming in from the sdk

[roberttidey]

Tested with Arduino sketch checking time to first program execution after setup with wifi connected. This sketch could optionally do a config wipe with ESp.eraseConfig(); and WiFi.disconnect(true);

FastConnect false 3400mSec
FastConnect false Wipe, set up network connection from scratch using portal
FastConnect false 3400mSec

FastConnect true 3400mSec (still using basic from ssid and password from before)
FastConnect true Wipe, set up network connection from scratch using portal
FastConnect true 980mSec

Connections stay fast from then on.

The fastconnect works because a Wifi.begin is done with all parameters BSSID , channel and this is persisted in the native ESP wifi flash configuration. Subsequent calls even with just Wifi,begin and no parameters will still use the BSSID and channel values from the ESP Wifi config.

I think that enabling the erase during upload in the Arduino board set up would do the same as my programmatic wipe which would be easier to do.

Note I did all this using Arduino 2 but I have had same results using 1.8 in the past.

[tablatronix]

Yeah I know how it works, I did the testing for it.

Do you have logs? Are you using autoconnect?

I have no improvement, I wonder if there is something wrong with the channel here..

They are different

*wm:[1] Connecting to NEW AP: MyHotspot
*wm:[1] Using FASTCONNECT NEW 
*wm:[2] WiFi Scan SYNC started 
*wm:[2] WiFi Scan completed in 4712 ms
*wm:[2] Fast Config RSSI:  -36
*wm:[2] Fast Config CHAN:  6
*wm:[2] Fast Config BSSID:  40:16:7E:C3:1E:28
*wm:[1] connectTimeout not set, ESP waitForConnectResult... 
*wm:[2] Connection result: WL_CONNECTED
*wm:[1] Connect to new AP [SUCCESS] 

*wm:[1] Connected in 2207 ms
*wm:[1] STA IP Address: 192.168.1.39
Mode: STA
Channel: 6
SSID (9): MyHotspot
Passphrase (12): password!
BSSID set: 0

AFTER

*wm:[1] Connected in 2208 ms
*wm:[1] STA IP Address: 192.168.1.39
Mode: STA
Channel: 10
SSID (9): MyHotspot
Passphrase (12): password!
BSSID set: 1
connected...yeey :)

[tablatronix]

Let me try 2.0, pretty sure my esp version is hardcoded to fullscan, also this channel thing is strange..
ohhhh its int32_t!

[roberttidey]

I include here logs.

There are two sets here. The first is using the Aug 22 2021 fastconnect code which is what I have been using. This has a set up from erased condition plus a normal restart This shows the connect time of 1 second.

The second is from the current github version. This does show a problem with the fastconnect set up. and the connection remains slow. I thought I had tested with this before but I think the IDE didn't recompile and used the older version from the object cache. This time I cleared all caches which does show a problem.
fastlog.txt

[roberttidey]

I have got the current GitHub fastconnect branch to work.

In the getFastConConfig the scan and number of networks found is being done by WiFi_scanNetworks(true); and this leads on to a failure to find the network to extract channel and BSSID from.

If I replace this by the original direct call WiFi.scanNetworks(); as in Aug 2021 version then it works as intended.

I am not sure currently why the WiFi_scanNetworks(true); is not working as there are several different versions of this. Either this needs to be figured out or the direct call used anyway. The getFastConConfig is only used for an initial connection or if channel / BSSID changes so it is not a significant overhead.

Edit:
I did try with WiFi_scanNetworks(true, false); as I thought that might be the issue. This returned 1 network found so the subsequent check for channel and BSSID won't find the right ssid unless it was first in the list and so it too failed.

Edit2:
So I think the basic problem is that WiFi_scanNetworks(true, false); returns true or false rather than the number of networks so the subsequent logic in the getFastConConfig fails. I suspect that if it returned the number or 0 false f none found then it would work but it is currently set up as a bool function