New phone no wifi connect

Just treated myself to a new phone a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite. It seems a good bit of kit except that I cannot get it to connect to my Netgear router a DGND3700v1/3800.

It will connect with no security but not when the routers WPA2-PSK(AES) is enabled. It is the same on 2.4 or 5g. I have two of these routers in use and everything else connects normally except the new phone. Incidentally it does connect to a Huawei 4g router I have so it is not faulty.

I am presuming there is some incompatibility but remain puzzled because WPA2-PSK is not exactly obsolete yet. Any thoughts or advice anyone before I send it back ?

Just googled the phone, as never heard of that make before......... crikey.

In reply to a post by jaba:

Just treated myself to a new phone a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite. It seems a good bit of kit except that I cannot get it to connect to my Netgear router a DGND3700v1/3800.

It will connect with no security but not when the routers WPA2-PSK(AES) is enabled. It is the same on 2.4 or 5g. I have two of these routers in use and everything else connects normally except the new phone. Incidentally it does connect to a Huawei 4g router I have so it is not faulty.

I am presuming there is some incompatibility but remain puzzled because WPA2-PSK is not exactly obsolete yet. Any thoughts or advice anyone before I send it back ?

Sounds like your not the only one.

Like Zarjaz I have never heard of them either.

In reply to a post by jaba:

I am presuming there is some incompatibility but remain puzzled because WPA2-PSK is not exactly obsolete yet. Any thoughts or advice anyone before I send it back ?

Did you import it yourself? It may not fully support the European channels, or encryption key lengths compared to China, if it was intended for the Chinese or Hong Kong markets?

If it connects with no encryption it does support the channels (as I'd expect it to - China and Japan have enough channels in common with Europe).

(You used to have to avoid channels 12 and 13 with much older USA devices if their driver could not operate in a world-wide mode. These days chipsets in infrastructure station (client) mode are meant to defer to accepting channels from the country reg. code set on the AP. They might still be restricted only when operating in AP or ad-hoc mode)

That said, stick to 1-13 on 2.4GHz and 36-48 on 5GHz to be on the safe side. It looks like China does not normally use channels 100-144.

If you have had it connected to the same SSID without encryption you'll need to do "forget network" on the phone after changing back to encrypted on the router(s).

For your encrypted settings you should indeed be only using a WPA2-AES(-CCMP) PSK as that has accelerated performance on the Wi-Fi chipsets.
Avoid any options to fallback to WPA1 or TKIP.

Any new devices wanting to use the Wi-Fi symbol (trademark) since March 2006 have had to pass WPA2 certification so that isn't an issue here in 2020.

I would test setting a very simple passphrase consisting of only numbers to prove there isn't something weird like character encoding affecting the passphrase entry on phone.

Oh and on both routers will need to match passphrase where you use the same SSID
(which you can use on both channels - client devices can then pick whichever band is better which will vary with range and obstacles. If you use different SSIDs in the same location, Android phones will prefer the last SSID you connected to even if the other is stronger. Likewise laptops will have an order of preferred networks that could leave you connected to a weaker network if you move around).

If your second router is just acting as an AP for the same network this will be ok. If the second router presents its own subnet behind the first router, the SSID will need to be different as a hint to the client that it would be connecting to a different network in the same location.

They only have 10% of the global smartphone market...

UK marketshare is 1.33% according to one site I checked so not surprising that UK users may not have noticed them in the market - most of their market is going to be China and India.

IIRC Carphone Warehouse used to sell them but I couldn't see any when I checked the Carphone Warehouse web-site yesterday (not to say I checked every page of the site).

Had pencilled in the K30 5G as a possible new phone when it comes out, might have to keep an eye out to see if it also has problems. It seems they are one of the many phone manufacturers who don't give much support once they've sold you the phone.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by jaba:

I am presuming there is some incompatibility but remain puzzled because WPA2-PSK is not exactly obsolete yet. Any thoughts or advice anyone before I send it back ?

Did you import it yourself? It may not fully support the European channels, or encryption key lengths compared to China, if it was intended for the Chinese or Hong Kong markets?

That shouldn't be an issue.
I have imported Chinese phones before and have no issues.
My current phone is Ulefone Power 3.

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

That shouldn't be an issue.
I have imported Chinese phones before and have no issues.
My current phone is Ulefone Power 3.

Having no issues doesn't mean other models with have no issues.

Unless the manufacturer is plannning on their use in the EU / UK region then things MIGHT not work, and probably have not been tested.

I hadn�t wanted to sound �snobby� to the OP, but a smart phone for £160 .... it doesn�t really fill one with confidence do it ?

The wifi of my Xiaomi Mi A2 (not Lite) bought almost exactly a year ago from eglobal works fine with various routers. The phone shows the router security as "WPA-PSK PSK". The firmware is up to date.

Edited by Michael_Chare (Fri 31-Jan-20 17:34:41)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I hadn�t wanted to sound �snobby� to the OP

Don't worry your secret is safe with us

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I hadn�t wanted to sound �snobby� to the OP, but a smart phone for £160 .... it doesn�t really fill one with confidence do it ?

When my wife & I went from dumb to smart phones over 2.5 years ago we went for two Moto G5s, costing c.£150. It's amazing what it can do. The two area which I would change in a replacement is to ensure the phone has an NFC chip and has more memory more apps than the 16Gb on board.

Other than those two points they have been really excellent phones.

Samsung didn't reply to my question and they are one of the biggest!

OP speaking...Thanks for all the info, comments and help too. The phone is actually very good despite its price. It just wont work with my router for some reason. I have two of these Netgears and it is the same with both, so its no use to me consequently.
I imagine Xiaomi are selling at cost or a loss to try to break into the Euro/UK market as the phone is by no means a low spec device.
I have had two Moto Gs and I could see why they were so called budget phones. The Xiaomi for what I use a phone for it would have been excellent without paying loads more for a "snobbish" one (sorry Zarjaz).
So I will stick with my Samsung Galaxy for now and have sent this one back for a refund.

Edited by jaba (Fri 31-Jan-20 19:22:21)

If it's an A2 Lite and not Redmi6 pro then there shouldn't be an issue with UK compatability.
You can check out it's communication spec at this site
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_a2_lite_(redmi_6_...

I have bought many Chinese brand smartphones and found no issues using them in UK, Europe or Far East countries. The only issue tends to be in US where their mobile systems used to be different although think 4G is less of a problem as I think that's now an international standard spev.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I hadn�t wanted to sound �snobby� to the OP, but a smart phone for £160 .... it doesn�t really fill one with confidence do it ?

that price is probably what any smartphone should cost,apple,samsung etc know that some users like the the fact they had to pay a fortune for the latest version so sell them for what users are prepared to pay,and does a new version of the iphone really make such a difference to the one it replaces to the users life?thay have just become status symbols

Edited by steve195527 (Sat 01-Feb-20 08:55:42)

I heard a snippet on the radio this morning where it was claimed that the German car manufacturers called the UK "Treasure Island" because the margins they could achieve here were much greater than in the other markets where they were selling. If the market will bear the price you would be silly not to charge it so perhaps we have a different idea about value for money here than in other places.

I find people typically very competitive with what mobile phone they have got, that means the sellers can hike the prices for the latest/greatest ones.

Money cautious/sensible people tend to choose the lesser known brands or not the top of the range models (e.g. Samsung J series or A series rather than S series)

Thats not to say everyone is competitive before I have a flurry of complaints