Note: written march 2018 but only just published

Using a brand new Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless for the first time, I found the WiFi to be awful.

I used Raspbian Jessie Lite to setup the Pi Zero Wireless with a headless configuration, WiFi details and SSH enabled before the initial boot.

Round 1 – WTFreak!?

Pi unboxed and put into a nice little case for protection, power plugged up…here we go!

On booting the system the Pi connected to my WiFi and I was able to connect via SSH remotely using the hostname. The connection kept on dropping or hanging, which I thought was slightly strange.

I took a look at my UniFi AP Controller which gives statistics on devices connected, I was shocked to see the strength of the signal between the AP and the Pi flexed from 0% to 5%!?

Install the OS

Grab the lasted Raspbian Lite OS from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ and burn it to an SD card. Once burnt, unmount and remount the SD card with the PC, this allows you to access the removal drive, now named ‘Boot’.

Enable ssh

SSH is disabled by default. Place a blank text file with the name ssh onto the root of the SD card:

1. Load a Notepad/++
2. Save, usual a filetype of any
3. Name the file ssh and save
4. Close the file

Add WiFi before boot

To add network info you need to create a file called wpa_supplicant.conf and place that in the root SD card .

1. Load a Notepad/++
2. Copy/Past the below code into a new blank file, updating the relivant info.
3. Save, with a filename of wpa_supplicant.conf ensuring the file type is not .txt

  country=GB
  ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
  update_config=1

  network={
      ssid="NETWORK-NAME"
      psk="NETWORK-PASSWORD"
  }