SharkRF OpenSpot 3 - I really wanted to love it

I first heard about the OpenSpot3 from a fellow ham on a local 2m repeater. Doing my research I quickly got excited about the potential... this was going to be a big upgrade from my current Raspberry Pi / Red DVAP setup running Maryland D-Star image... something I had been using (without issue) for many years. The idea of having a small dedicated appliance with a super slick webapp

The OpenSpot itself is a really slick self contained appliance that has a integrated lithium battery, usb-c charging circuit and inbuilt (hidden) antennas.

Cut a very long story short.. the OpenSpot was not able to communicate on my Wi-Fi network without huge amounts of packet loss... the sound was barely legible.

The OpenSpot uses a strange WiFi antenna and looking through the forums it would seem I was not the only one struggling with this issue.

In the end I gave up trying to make the thing work and purchased another HotSpot the ZumSpot 3.5 (which I have written another post on) which worked right out of the box and I am super happy with.

If you want to read the full story of my troubleshooting with the OpenSpot then head over to their forums.  There seem to be a lot of people having issues from Unifi networks like my own to Mesh networks which are becoming more common place in residential homes.

I think if the OpenSpot works for someone then it must be difficult to beat... for me it never worked.. I could not RMA it back to Europe and I cant sell something that does not work to others... so this thing is now in my draw gathering dust.