Can the Electic Imp be updated to support all international Wi-Fi channels

Feature Requests & Bug Reports
1

It The US/Canada model of the Electric Imp currently does not support the Australian Channel 13.

[updated as a result of Hugo’d comment]

2

The EU/Australia/NZ ones do support channels 12 & 13. However, if you are buying them from a US supplier, these are US/Canada spec and only do channels 1-11.

I don’t believe any distributors are selling the EU/Australia/NZ models right now, as they’re all US-based.

They cannot be reconfigured as this would make them illegal to sell in the US/Canada.

3

Thanks for the update Hugo.

Two points:

  1. All the other US designed products I buy, they ask me where I live and configure to what is permitted in Australia. If I don’t tell the truth then it’s my problem, not the product manufacturer.

  2. Given how people purchase these days, keeping track of different inventory for different markets will be a problem. The unit I have doesn’t say “Made for US/Canada” on it’s packaging.

I don’t have a real problem, other than channel 13 is often a very good choice in locations with lots of Wi-Fi (and I’m now more overlapped with other networks than I would prefer).

I still suggest that the Smartphone commissioning apps have a country question, and configure appropriately. It will mean less user problems and questions, and a better service to your customers.

cheers,
Tony.

4

  1. They may be US designed, but any product that allows you to configure your country is not the model that is sold in the US. eg, buy an apple airport in the USA and it cannot be set to work with channels 12 or 13. This is an FCC regulation, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

  2. Inventory for US/non-US markets is how every wifi product works because of the FCC regulation. You’ll notice that your card does not have the C-tick marking on it as the EU/Aus/NZ ones do, which technically means it should not be sold in Australia… but it’s all a bit silly given that people travel all over the world with phones and laptops…

We cannot provide an app to configure imps to ch 12/13 because that would mean they’d be illegal to sell in the US/Canada, as I said.