Aria 802.11ac or 802.11n wifi

[jeffamclaughlin]

I'm sure this horse has been beaten dead, but I don't want to have to enable 802.11b or g on my wi-fi router.  That's old tech and causes interference issues with the other residences immediately around us.  802.11 or even better, 802.11ac wireless for the Aria please, then I'll consider it!

Moderator Edit: Updated label

[SuziFroggie]

Good to know! I'll give the set up another try. Thank you for your response!

[CGWayneJ]

It would be nice to be able to have the ability to use a underscore in the network name.  To make sure you had wifi sensing completely disabled in windows 10 you have to add an _ as part of the network name.  It would be nice to have the capability to use a network that has an underscore in the name.  It would be nice to be able to use g/n/ac as well.

[husky86]

I was SHOCKED when I got my new Aria a few weeks back and it wouldn't work with my Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n router because the Aria only works with 802.11b. Fitbit's support said this was "easy" to fix: just set your router to the 802.11b setting.

...Right... and then transfer myself and all my electronic devices back to 1999 as well. (802.11b was released in Sept. of 1999.) I realize that all this is a little overwrought, but not by much.

[Dugstor]

My Aria scales have served me very well over the past couple of years. However, the fact that the device only supports 802.11b means that I have jumped ship and joined the Withings family. Running a second router just for the Aira is not a solution and environmentally reckless. I'm please to say the Withings WS-50 is everything and more than my Aria. So if anyone is thinking about taking the plunge, do it. Syncs perfectly with my Fitbit dashboard, no complaints at all.

[Roddin]

I use special characters that are not numbers nor letters in my password to link to my home server. The Aria does not have this capability. I am not going to downgrade the security of all messages and data for my household in order to have my weight show up on my computer. Please upgrade the Aria to be able to accept passwords that use special characters.

[staze]

I have a special character (exclamation point) in my wifi password, works fine. =/ 

[Jstone14]

I love my Fitbit blaze and was excited to add the Aria to my Fitbit collection. I was extremely disappointed to find out that the Aria is only compatible with 802.11b protocol. My internet is compatible with 802.11 a/g/n protocol. I found out if I were to switch to 802.11b it would significantly slow my internet down. I ended up returning the scale. I love the idea of how the aria works, but not at the cost of my speedy internet. I would be happy to try it again, if you just update it to be compatible with a higher speed internet and an 802.11 protocol of a, g, or n instead of only b!

[PureEvil]

@Jstone14,

While I agree that Fitbit should release a new Aria with updated wi-fi, the idea that any 802.11b device on your network will slow it down is a myth, here's an article that gives you some details.

Effectively, any 802.11b device does not affect any devices that are running 802.11ac, which is what all new, fastest devices will run...  They run on entirely different frequency; they are unaffected.

Additionally, it will affect the channel for 802.11g/n while it is communicating.  This does affect you if you have an older laptop on your network constantly surfing the web, but in the case of the Aria, it only transmits for a few seconds after you've used it.

So to give you a traffic analogy, it's like getting behind a slow moving bus on the road... for five seconds each day (when you just stepped off the scale).  Not as catastrophic as so many folks make it out to be.

[Jstone14]

I appreciate your response. I wish it was that simple, but I couldn't even link the scale to my wifi without switching my wifi entirely over to the 802.11b protocol which, from my understanding, would slow down my entire internet if I switched over my whole protocol just to get the scale to sync up with my wifi.

[Fooalee]

i had this scale back in 2013 or something and looking at the available model on amazon, it looks exactly the same as the one i used to have back in 2013 and still for $120? Hardware & Software updates please 🙂

[Hatch82]

Yes please! The current Aria is an expensive paperweight. New routers don't have 802.11b. Why did FitBit settle with wireless tech that was current nearly 20 years ago? Someone should get fired for that! Or at least demoted to janitor. Next model should have wireless N or higher. Even wireless G is dated.

[LJ42]

I will add my frustration as well.  This is unacceptable for a tech company to release a new product that relies on such old technology.  Shouldn't there be a way to update the firmware through the setup app to allow for the Aria to communicate with the Wi-Fi, regardless of mode?  I'm appalled that just because I now have the latest modem technology that I have to downgrade it just to communicate with my Aria.  I'm not the only one who has mentioned this as an issue.  You are going to lose lots of customers and potential customers if you can't figure this out.

[staze]

No, there's no way to do this via firmware/software. The hardware that was used in the Aria is incapable of communicating at anything other than 802.11b. =/ 

[LJ42]

Any way of communicating with a router that doesn't allow for 802.11b??

Joel

[LJ42]

Any way of communicating with a router that doesn't allow for 802.11b??

Joel

[staze]

No. I don't know of many that don't do 802.11b, but you may have to enable "legacy" to get It to work.

[staze]

No. I don't know of many that don't do 802.11b, but you may have to enable "legacy" to get It to work.

[PureEvil]

@LJ42, if a router supports 802.11a, c, g or n, by definition, it supports 802.11b.  You can choose to disable it in the router, but if it's 802.11 compliant, it supports b.

[terryd45]

Please issue the Aria 2 Firmware for the now old Aria scales to allow wifi protocols g/n besides only 802.11b. I see the new Aria 2 accepts 802.11b/g/n but the now older Aria scale only accepts 802.11b. My Linksys WRT3200 router does not accept 802.11b. I've missed my scales not being connected to the my Fitbit account and logging my weight.

[PureEvil]

@terryd45,

First, it's not simply a firmware thing, it's an antenna/chipset thing...  It'd be like asking to retrofit Bluetooth LE to the iPhone 4.

Second, if your router truly supports 802.11g, then, by definition, it is compatible with 802.11b:

"802.11g hardware is fully backward compatible with 802.11b hardware"

Now, new routers turn off 802.11b by default, but you can enable it in settings.

[terryd45]

Not with a WRT3200 Linksys router. Linksys told me that 802.11b protocol was removed from this router by design, if it could be turned on in the setting don't you think Linksys would have told me that when I called them and complained? Also no one (Fitbit or Linksys) has mentioned that 802.11g is backward compatible with 802.11b. My Aria scales will not connect to my WRT3200 Linksys router. 

[PureEvil]

@terryd45

Honestly, I have no insight into what you have and have not tried.  Most folks don't realize that their router allows for features like guest ssid's and dynamic dns which allow for their home machine to be externally accessible.

I would be screaming at Linksys more loudly than Fitbit on this one.  By definition, their 802.11n hardware supports 802.11b, they just chose not to enable it; this can be enabled through a firmware upgrade.  Fitbit is not able to retrofit 802.11n/g onto their Aria.  Honestly, the moment I found out that the router didn't support 802.11b, I would've returned it and gone with something that does.

[terryd45]

PureEvil, appreciate your comments. I did voice my opinion to Linksys, but, it is what it is, when I purchased the WRT3200 it was a brand new "state of the art" router for Linksys and they decided to no longer allow 802.11b protocol, being it is the oldest technology 1999. I'm partially blaming Fitbit too, why Fitbit chose a 1999 technology for a relative new item (2012) is not to bright either. They should have installed the wifi protocol that they are now using for the Aria 2, b/g/n. But this creates sales, ask Apple, they are pros at installing new features that they should have originally installed. Again, thanks for your comments.

[PureEvil]

@terryd45

Well, you have done everything that I would've tried.  Apologies for the tone of my post, but this is really the first time I've heard of a router not allowing you to communicate with 802.11b devices.

I stand corrected.  While I too believe that 802.11b only was an odd choice for Fitbit, it didn't really affect my use of the device.  It did with yours.

[shauneliastam]

Fitbit have recently announced their Aria 2 which supports Wireless 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz. I would contact their support and ask them to replace with the new model and provide all the support info about your router not being compatible. Based on today's technology expectations it's reasonable to ask them to upgrade you