Connecting my Shark robot vacuum to GFiber

Anyone have success with this?

I have three Ninja Shark robots who need 2.4ghz internet. I just got Google Fiber and cannot connect any of these things to it. I already created a 2.4ghz band, set it to WPA2 protection (or whatever)… and the dumb things still cannot connect.

45 minutes on the phone with Shark didn’t help.

Anyone here with suggestions?

I don’t have any such things, but my general suggestions:

Have you gotten them to work previously or are they brand new?

Assuming you have, did you reset the vacuums to factory settings? Reboot your router? Sign out of everything, delete devices from the app, then delete/re-install the app and set up your account again? Try the app from another device? Are there any spaces and/or underscores in your WiFi network’s name? They seem to not like that.

Does your 2.4 ghz band have a different SSID? if so did you make sure that’s the one the robots are trying to connect to? Also ensure Wi-Fi/AP isolation is turned off for that band.

  1. They worked just fine with Tmobile
  2. Router has been reset
  3. Shark CSR said not to reset the machine (robot)
  4. Yes. App reinstalled.
  5. No underscores, etc.

Well, if Shark CSR told you not to and they still don’t work, what could it hurt? Worst case scenario, they still don’t work. I can’t imagine a hard reset would void the warranty or anything like that. Could you try a hard reset on just one of them and see if it connects?

Will do and let you know how that worked, thanks! :slight_smile:

Wifi networks can be set to WPA2/WPA3 security, which is different than either WPA2 or WPA3. Most devices that only do WPA2 are fine with WPA2/WPA3, but some devices are not, and won’t work if WPA2/WPA3 is enabled. I’ve had to create a separate WiFi SSID that does only WPA2 to accomodate some of these devices. I’ve also made that network as simple as possible by forcing it to WiFi 4 mode.

Protected management frams (PMF) is another setting that can confuse some legacy devices.

My suggestion, if possible, is to create a new SSID that is 2.4 only, WPA2 only, and disable any features that might cause compatilibity problems.

Thanks. I did set this specific band to the WPA2 security only (as recommended by Shark Ninja) and it still doesn’t connect.

I’ll check into making sure that my new connection meets these requirements.

Worst comes to worst, I’ll just cancel the Google and stick with TMobile.

Thanks for your help!

I’d bet $5 that your issue is tied to not having a unique SSID on the 2.4 ghz band, or not connecting to it if you do (as I mentioned earlier).

If that still doesn’t work, rather than cancelling Google Fiber altogether, I’d suggest getting an old router and setting it up as an IoT access point. Lots of IoT appliances still want that 2.4 band. It would simplify things enormously if they had a dedicated access point.

Can anything else connect to the WiFi network for Google Fiber? Because I think the problem is with WiFi, not Google Fiber.

Do you only have one AP? If you’re using a mesh mode wireless network, some legacy devices are confused by multiple antennas offering the same SSID.

Our laptops and phones have no problem connecting to Google Fiber. Only the robots are having an issue with it.

Jesus H. Christ! Just an aside, but you know what I have? A vacuum cleaner!

My wifi networks:

XXX - the 2.4ghz
XXX 5 - The 5g
XXX 6 - The 6g

So I connect the robots to XXX, which is a different SSID than the 5 and 6 ghz network names.

Maybe I’ll give the 5 and 6g networks a different name than “XXX 5”, “XXX 6”…

That SHOULD be good enough, but wouldn’t hurt to try. If that still doesn’t work, Give me your cashapp and i’ll send you 5 bucks LOL.

Me too, but I think it would be cool to have a squad of robots instead.

Yeah, I had to set up a guest network in order to get my older Wyze cameras to work with my new router after I got it. Same situation- some older things never would work. I still have yet to get my garage door opener to connect to either one. All I can come up with is there’s something weird about mesh wifi that some older devices just do not like.

So I tried this and it seemed to work… got one of the robots connected last night! Whoo-hoo!

Woke up this morning, it’s disconnected again. Spent another hour trying to reconnect and decided that we’re just going to cancel the Google Fiber.

Thank you for your help, everyone!

I have a two-story house, two pets who seem to be engaged in a hair-loss competition, and a wife who doesn’t care for lots of pet hair.

Are you trying to connect the robots to wifi using an app on your phone? I’m asking this because that’s how I’ve connected other smart devices (like light bulbs) to wifi. The thing I have to remember is that I have to connect my phone to the 2.4 ghz network in order to communicate with the smart device. Once the device is connected and functioning, I can switch my phone back to 5 ghz.