Raspberry Pi vs google mesh WiFi

[benyflyguy]

I am new to raspberry pi programming and setup. Currently working on my own meter map for our area.
I have a raspberry pi zero w
Using Mac OS to program
Home network google mesh WiFi
Trying to do headless setup with raspian lite and can’t get my WiFi to find the pi.
I’m reading that google WiFi just doesn’t play well with this.

was thinking of setting up my phone as a hotspot so I could get the pi online to access to start programming.

 

[MuseChaser]

I've built quite a few various Pi-based devices. Depending upon what software you're running, a lot of times you have to connect the Pi to your network via a wired connection to complete the setup to then run it via WiFi headlessly. I ran into that several times,and it had me pulling my hair out the first time.

 

[GeorgeC]

I've been out of the pi game for a few years, but I just used a serial console for headless stuff.

 

[bfmetcalf]

Been out of it for a while too, but I don't believe you will be able to setup a headless Pi without a wired connection, at least for the initial setup.

 

[benyflyguy]

I've built quite a few various Pi-based devices. Depending upon what software you're running, a lot of times you have to connect the Pi to your network via a wired connection to complete the setup to then run it via WiFi headlessly. I ran into that several times,and it had me pulling my hair out the first time.

Oye. Pulling hair out is the understatement. Very annoying. Going to figure out how to do wired and move forward. The simplicity of the Google mesh WiFi is what really screws it up.

Been out of it for a while too, but I don't believe you will be able to setup a headless Pi without a wired connection, at least for the initial setup.

Well it can be done. And when don’t correctly with eight components super easy. Not for me apparently though lol

 

[denverpilot]

Last I did a Pi that didn’t have Ethernet (Pi Zero W) all you had to do was stick your Pi SD card in a machine and create/edit a text file to turn on both WiFi and configure it, and enable SSH.

Then shove the SD back in the pi and boot it.

Works in Raspian. A few morons making obscure Pi Linux distros forget to implement it.

There’s more hackish ways for the dumber distros.

Google “Pi Zero W Headless”

Here’s one example. I dislike his use of Bonjour but you do need to either change his example to a static IP or control your DHCP server and understand how to hand out a static so you can find the little beastie once it connects to your WiFi and asks for an address.

https://desertbot.io/blog/headless-pi-zero-w-wifi-setup-windows

I picked this one because most folks are on windows. I disagree with his use of Notepad also and prefer Notepad++ which handles Win/Unix line ends correctly ... but anyway. Really I’d rather just edit it in a Linux box. (Can even extract and re-spin install ISOs of the dumb distros that don’t have the boot file feature before installation — really easily on a Linux box. Slightly more painful on Win, somewhere in the middle on Mac (Macs hate FAT formatted stuff...).

Peruse various blogs, they’re all generally “right” with various details omitted as to why they do it their way. Other than picking it up at boot time from the boot sector, the rest is just standard Debian Linux networking files and formats.

 

[benyflyguy]

Last I did a Pi that didn’t have Ethernet (Pi Zero W) all you had to do was stick your Pi SD card in a machine and create/edit a text file to turn on both WiFi and configure it, and enable SSH.

Then shove the SD back in the pi and boot it.

Works in Raspian. A few morons making obscure Pi Linux distros forget to implement it.

There’s more hackish ways for the dumber distros.

Google “Pi Zero W Headless”

Here’s one example. I dislike his use of Bonjour but you do need to either change his example to a static IP or control your DHCP server and understand how to hand out a static so you can find the little beastie once it connects to your WiFi and asks for an address.

https://desertbot.io/blog/headless-pi-zero-w-wifi-setup-windows

I picked this one because most folks are on windows. I disagree with his use of Notepad also and prefer Notepad++ which handles Win/Unix line ends correctly ... but anyway. Really I’d rather just edit it in a Linux box. (Can even extract and re-spin install ISOs of the dumb distros that don’t have the boot file feature before installation — really easily on a Linux box. Slightly more painful on Win, somewhere in the middle on Mac (Macs hate FAT formatted stuff...).

Peruse various blogs, they’re all generally “right” with various details omitted as to why they do it their way. Other than picking it up at boot time from the boot sector, the rest is just standard Debian Linux networking files and formats.

Thanks.
I just wiped the sd card and reflashed raspian to the card. I have tried various iterations for the wpa_supplicant file. The problem I think is my google WiFi. Going to try to discover it on a different wifi or perhaps my phone set up as a hotspot.
With storm coming tomorrow into Thursday hoping to have some time to get this configured and start programming for the metar map.
If I can’t get it set up headless will resort to hooking up to monitor and keyboard

 

[denverpilot]

Thanks.
I just wiped the sd card and reflashed raspian to the card. I have tried various iterations for the wpa_supplicant file. The problem I think is my google WiFi. Going to try to discover it on a different wifi or perhaps my phone set up as a hotspot.
With storm coming tomorrow into Thursday hoping to have some time to get this configured and start programming for the metar map.
If I can’t get it set up headless will resort to hooking up to monitor and keyboard

Hmmm interesting. If Google WiFi is using standard WPA Personal stuff it should connect right up.

Other trick I’ve seen is just to dig an old 2.4 AP out of a closet and use it just to set up stuff login to the device and reconfigure it to jump to the other newer network when wpa-supplicant is being a pain in the butt.