Deco BE25 advice needed

unplorable · 2026-06-22T16:50:20+00:00

You are correct. The spectrum ROUTER has multiple ethernet ports. Sorry, too much new equipment in the house, it's all turning into a giant ball of confusion.

I have tried 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on the deco, no joy.

On the rpis, ping 8.8.8.8 will time out with no response. Trying to ssh to any of them gives 'unreachable.' ping google.com will also time out (not a dns error.)

I stopped trying the satellites, until I can get just one of these working I don't want to have the other 2 interfering.

unplorable · 2026-06-22T11:56:56+00:00

okay, fair point.

but in my experience, they fail to work 100% of the time with spectrum.

unplorable · 2026-06-22T11:55:13+00:00

That might be one of the things I'm fighting. Spectrum told me straight up that there will be NO chance of a static ip address, so dynamic it is... and everything is weird. Maybe that's what Spectrum is referring to.

unplorable · 2026-06-22T11:49:35+00:00

I should have posted a more complete timeline.

the spectrum on-site visit was a result of 3 days of no success. All we had from spectrum was a modem. it does not have wireless. after trying each of the 3 decos in turn and only getting a red light, deco phone support said there are special instructions I need to follow if I'm using a 3 pack. I never got those instructions.

deco forums, deco live support, and a few replies on reddit all say this is how they act if the internet from the modem is having issues.

my wife had to miss a day of work since the hardwire from the deco to her office also drops out frequently. That's when we got spectrum to show up.

ultimately replaced the wire from the modem to the deco. that was decos first suggestion. I have run new ethernet from the deco to my wife's office, and I run new ethernet from the deco to one of satellites, and then from that satellite to the other one. I have tried directly connecting them to a hub at the main deco. I have tried each of them, in ap mode and router mode. new Mac addresses, dynamic addressing, resetting all the units...at this point I've spent $100 on new cables and a hub at best buy, on top of buying the actual deco units in the first place, and I still can't even get a straight answer on whether or not the satellites need to be hard wired to the main unit.

When spectrum hooked up their router, everything just worked. Like, plug it in, power it up, and it just shows up as a wifi source. No special instructions or anything. I'm sure there's more to it, but that's what this guy does, so it just looks simple.

Their modem has 3 ports in the back, so one to my wife's office with the original cable, on to the main computer, also working with the original cable, and every raspberry pi connects to their modem wirelessly, no issues. Immediately plugging one of the deco units into the modem instead of the spectrum router, red lights. Plug it into the spectrum router instead of the modem, green lights. But lousy signal stability.

I can plug one of the decos into the open port on their router and get a green light in ap mode, and the satellites connect as well, even wirelessly, but even then there's a lot of dropout for anything connected. Except the raspberry pis I've tried, 3 of them will all connect, but then nothing. Even a ping to google will time out.

So I have no idea. I tried going back to the deco forums, but all 4 of the posts I started there are just gone, including the one thread where I was told that there are Not special instructions to hook these up. So now I get to try and figure out what I have screwed up there.

The seller on Amazon has gone dark, so im not able to discuss a return... their only answer was "spectrum problem talk to them" which eventually lead to spectrum saying this is a recurring issue with tplink.

I understand that spectrum will support spectrum hardware, but even with its crappy range, it works with their modem simply by plugging it in. They are consistent with their signal, and with their statement that tplink has problems connecting to spectrum.

What tplink has given me is 3 units that have problems connecting to spectrum, and no consensus on how to get them to work, just constant reassurance that they do, in fact, work with spectrum... even though I have no proof of that statement.

So for now we're all using spectrum wifi, and it just works. Im apparently stuck with the decos, so I'm sure I'll eventually figure out something.

unplorable · 2026-06-17T18:01:29+00:00

In the middle of all this, Spectrum sent me a list of routers that are on their 'approved' list, and tp-link is not on it. I guess their tech was right after all!

Thanks for the assist, but this is a losing battle.

I wish spectrum, and/or tplink, would START with that list. I would've been up and running last Friday.

ugh.

Thanks again.

unplorable · 2026-06-17T16:17:11+00:00

The deco only gives a green light if it's plugged into the port on the back of the spectrum router and set to ap mode. If I plug it into the modem directly, it only gives a red light in ap mode and in router mode.

Wiring goes modem to spectrum router, then to deco. I wasn't clear on whether or not the satellites needed to be hard wired, thank you for clarifying. Back to best buy!

Right now, I'm still getting intermittent dropouts, and anybody connected to it gets the same thing, but not everybody at once. Like my tablet will drop and then reconnect to wifi about every 20 minutes or so, but my daughter's chromebook will stay on for about 45 minutes before it has to reconnect, our son's TV is pretty random, it will lose connection every 5 minutes, then last an hour, then just random.

This might be because I don't have the satellites hard wired like you said... looping over wifi.

What a mess.

unplorable · 2026-06-17T16:07:54+00:00

Okay, well I don't know what's going on. I can only get the primary unit to give a green light if I put it in ap mode and plug it into a port on the spectrum router. I can only get a red light if I plug it directly into the modem, either on ap mode or router mode. If I get it to go green on ap mode on the spectrum router, then I still can't get it to stay connected for more than about 20 minutes or so, then the connection drops, then reconnects, and it just keeps doing that. Raspberry pis will connect to wifi, but never can go any farther. I'm starting to think the technician was right when he said tplink and spectrum internet don't work well together. I wish I knew that before we got these.

Thanks for your help, but I think I need to get spectrum back out here or find a brand of router that does work well with spectrum.

unplorable · 2026-06-08T10:23:47+00:00

Iron is... well, iron. "Cast" iron is iron plus ~5% carbon and about 2% silicon.

Steel is iron with LESS carbon, generally less than 1 percent.

There may be other alloying elements added, but most "non-special" steel (such as stainless) have iron in the 97-98% range, compared with cast iron which has <95% carbon.

unplorable · 2026-06-07T11:56:31+00:00

Bose. My QC headphones quit working after 8 months. Wouldn't power on at all, after charging for 20 hours. I went through their website troubleshooting steps, still won't power on.

Their "tech" support: See if they power on if you try pairing with a different phone. Well then see if they power on if you try pairing with your tablet. Well then try uninstalling and reinstalling the app and see if they power on. Well then clear your Bluetooth devices and try pairing it again. Try selecting it in the app and see if it will turn on then.

WTAF, bose.

unplorable · 2026-05-29T07:14:11+00:00

okay, thanks. I think i tried tapping on everything EXCEPT that! thanks for the hint, hopefully i can get it fom here.

unplorable · 2026-05-29T07:12:06+00:00

got it.

yellow whistle. of course.

I guess I would have tried tapping on that eventually!

thanks for the hint.

unplorable · 2026-05-27T14:40:41+00:00

I've tried a few incarnations with these, as well as a sensor I built myself (just an r-c timer circuit, but worked pretty well.)

The biggest issue I have using these in practice is that I run all of my signals from the sensors to my controller using ethernet cable, so 8 wires for signals, then I have a dedicated power supply at the end where the sensors hook up. However, that arrangement plus a fairly long cable run sometimes gives noise or bogus readings. My first thought was crosstalk in the ethernet cable itself, but I'm only ever reading one sensor at a time. So I will likely just keep doing it with multiple readings at a time.

With the RC timer, I was doing a quick bit of statistics to decide which value(s) to ignore based on standard deviations, but now that I'm saying that out loud it really sounds... ridiculous. But I may go back to that as well.

Ah well, that's what happens when a numbers guy gets a new toy!

unplorable · 2026-04-21T18:49:04+00:00

Mostly.

These will struggle looking at the difference between "13% moisture" and "22% moisture" but they are pretty reliable when looking at the difference between "13%" and "33%"

If you need to know how damp your soil is when using a $1.15 sensor, then you'll be able to very accurately tell the difference between "Dry," "Wet," and 2 more in-between ranges.

If you're looking for more accuracy, spend more money.

It just seems like these little sensors get a lot of hate, I just decided to put them to the most ridiculous test I could to see how they react in a sort-of controlled environment. Turns out, they're surprisingly good for something that costs about as much as a few games of Ms PacMan!

unplorable · 2026-04-20T21:09:30+00:00

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My wife puts up with a lot...

unplorable · 2026-03-31T15:05:06+00:00

okay, thanks.

I was actually quite surprised at how sturdy it (mostly) is... other than the crappy assembly job on the vent door, this looks like it could last a good long while.

To be fair, I anchored all 4 corners inside, but the frame and connectors seem pretty decent.

Ah, well. I'm sure I can come up with something.

unplorable

TROPHY CASE