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Improving Gateway Reception
Improving Gateway Reception

Improving Gateway Reception

If your machine is showing intermittent segments of lost data, your Gateway may have poor reception. This article will help you identify a Gateway with poor reception and the ways to resolve this issue.

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Example of a machine with poor reception (Note: if your gateways are on machine power, you may see segments of Off (red) instead of the Lost segments.)

Diagnosing Gateway LED's

Amper Gateways will have LED's on the front face that will indicate the device's current status. Examine the signal strength LED (top for Wi-Fi, bottom for Cellular) for the following colors:

  • Green - Good Signal Strength
  • Yellow - Moderate Signal Strength
  • Red - Poor Signal Strength
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A Cellular Gateway with a strong signal strength, shown by the green bottom LED

A Red LED indicates you will need to adjust the position of the gateway in order to achieve better reception. Continue reading for the best practices to improve signal strength.

Adjusting Gateway Position

The simplest way to improve your gateway reception is to adjust the location of the device until the signal strength LED improves (Red → Yellow, or Yellow → Green).

  • Mount the Gateway as high as possible so that nearby machinery is less likely to break the line-of-site from the Gateway to the cell tower or Wi-Fi access point.
  • Move the Gateway to a different location around your machine (e.g. to the opposite side of the machine).
  • If there are other Gateways nearby with better signal strength, consider running the CAT5 cable over to that location.

Poor Cellular Reception

Some factories are located in an area that has generally poor cellular reception and measures beyond adjusting the Gateway's position will be necessary.

  • If the Gateways can connect in other parts of the building or immediately outside the building, run longer CAT5 cables to those locations. Cable runs up to approximately 100m are generally fine.
  • Install cell signal boosters onsite. The Gateways have the ability to use both T-Mobile and AT&T 3G cellular service. Installing a compatible cell signal booster may increase signal strength enough to work well.
  • Swap out Gateways for Wi-Fi Gateways. We're more than happy to do an exchange and replace your Cellular Gateways with Wi-Fi Gateways, at no cost to you. Review our article below for more information on the requirements needed to connect Amper Gateways to your local network. To make this swap, please contact your Customer Success Manager for more information.

    • If opting for Wi-Fi devices, there are a few steps your IT team will need to take to ensure our devices can properly connect to your network.

    IT Setup Configuration

    Amper Gateway Configuration

    In order to connect Amper Gateways, your network will need to be configured for the following:

    • Network must be 2.4 GHz (Our devices do not support 5GHz-only networks).
    • Supported network types are WPA2 (most common), WPA, WEP, and Unsecured/Open. Devices do not support WPA-2 Enterprise.
    • Hidden SSID networks are not supported for 2nd Generation Devices (with the button).
    • Amper Gateways do NOT support networks that require a captive portal log-in (such as a guest network that requires logging in).
    • Amper Gateways require DHCP and do not support static IP assignment.
    • All device connections are outbound but devices both send and receive data on each connection.
    • You may need to ensure that the below ports and domains are properly allowed through both DNS filtering and any NAT settings.
    • TCP Ports Open (Outbound Connections)
      • 1883
      • 8883
      • 5683
    • UDP Ports Open (Outbound Connections)
      • 5684
    • Domains Open (Outbound Connections) - note that DNS domain filtering must use DNS group filtering not single-host DNS filtering
      • device.spark.io
      • device.nodes.spark.io
      • device.udp.particle.io
      • device.tcp.particle.io
      • a1z2vcintpz3vi-ats.iot.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
    • Device MAC Addresses White Listed
      • If your network restricts access to unknown devices by MAC Address, contact support@amper.xyz to obtain your device Device MAC Addresses to provide to your Network Administrator.

    Web & Tablet App Access

    In order to fully access Amper’s web and tablet app, your network must be configured for the following:

    • TCP Ports Open (Outbound Traffic)
      • 443
      • 80
    • Domains Open (Outbound Traffic)
      • *amper.xyz
      • sentry.io
      • *looker.com
      • *.lookercdn.com

    If any of the above information seems confusing or daunting, do not worry! These are standard IT configurations that your factory's IT team will be familiar with. For requirements & recommendations related to the Gateway configuration process, please also see the article below.

Issue Continues to Persist

If you continue to have issues with your lost data, please reach out to support@amper.xyz with the subject line "Intermittent Lost Data" and include the following information:

  • The 3 letter code on the front of the Gateway(s)
  • The color of the signal strength LED at the final placement