Anon296804's profile

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65 Messages

Friday, August 6th, 2021 5:43 PM

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Touch screen interference: Zigbee versus Wi-Fi?

We've had Xfinity Home for about 10 years. While in general we've been pleased with it, for the past several years the touch screen has been annoying us by intermittently beeping, warning that it has detected some "signal interference." In order to get it to shut up we have to work our way through its menus and acknowledge the warning. These beeping episodes happen several times every day.

Xfinity tech support seems baffled. About a year ago a field tech came out and changed a channel on the touch screen. That solved the problem--for about 3 months--and then it started beeping again.

I've done some research and learned that the frequencies used by the touch screen (known as Zigbee) use the same frequency spectrum as Wi-Fi; this makes me wonder if there is overlap between the two causing interference? Could maybe configuring router Wi-Fi channels and the touch screen channels help the two to get along?

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced the Xfinity tech people understand the technology well enough to take this approach (it's maddening enough that every time a field tech comes to our home they have to take time calling the office to figure out why the original installers of our Xfinity Home added a dedicated modem to the system--in addition to the Xfinity modem/router). I've been told several times in phone conversations with Xfinity that the field techs have tools that can identify sources of signal interference, however no field tech we've talked to has ever acknowledged having such a tool.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Official Employee

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1.8K Messages

3 years ago

Hi there @Anon296804!  Thanks so much for taking the time to reach out to Xfinity here on our Community Forum.  We are so glad to hear from you and ready to assist in any way that we can.  Xfinity is committed to providing all of our customers with the best service at all times.  We want to ensure that you are being provided with nothing less than than best.  So that we can get a closer looka t what is going on, please shoot us a direct message with your full name, complete service address and account info.  That way we can get to work on this right away.  

 

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Contributor

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65 Messages

@XfinityArmand thank you for the response. After two hours on the phone with Xfinity support we persuaded them to send a field tech to our house and he replaced or ten-year-old touchscreen with a brand new model.

So far, so good, except that the weather display is not displaying weather data yet (the touchpad has been running uninterrupted for several days). Is there something else I need to do? Thanks.

(edited)

Contributor

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65 Messages

Okay, after spending an hour with a knowledgeable Xfinity support person on the online chat, we determined that when the Xfinity field tech installed the new touchscreen three days ago he neglected to connect it to broadband; it was connected via cellular only. This is why the weather app wasn't working. I also learned:

- The touchscreen no longer needs to be connected to a dedicated Netgear WNR1000 router; we were able to directly connect the router to our own home Netgear router;

- The touchscreen Settings menu has no Back or Home button; the only way to get out of it is by rebooting the router.

Now that the touchscreen is back in broadband world, fingers crossed that it doesn't start beeping about signal interference again. It's complex technology and while I may complain, I'm grateful for the service Xfinity provides. 

(edited)

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