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Forum Discussion
Forcing certain devices to connect to 2.4ghz
Set up this network last night and things seem to have really improved. Some of our devices (light bulbs) require a 2.4ghz connection and it wont let connect to it because (I assume) it's preferring the 5ghz connection over it. How do I get them connected while still keeping one network name being broadcast?
11 Replies
When setting up new 2.4Ghz only devices, please use this method to get them connected:
ddublu wrote:Some of our devices (light bulbs) require a 2.4ghz connection and it wont let connect to it because (I assume) it's preferring the 5ghz connection over it.
One thing you can be certain of is the light bulbs are NOT "preferring the 5G connection". The bulbs have no 5G radio. They cannot sense or connect to anything but 2.4G WiFi. As FURRYe38 mentioned, while thousands of Internet of Things (IoT) devices connect easily, there are specific instances where the setup software was programmed ineptly and the solution is to temporarily make the 5G WiFi network "disappear", reconnect the smartphone to the Orbi at 2.4G, setup the IoT devices, then reenable the 5G WiFi and restart the smartphone a second time.
Does that really work? I thought the Orbi periodically reconfirmed the connection. (i.e. in case you moved a device). Regardless anytime you upgrade firmware/reboot you have to go through the process above again.
Yes, it works. Once the device has connected to Orbi at 2.4G, it knows the SSID and password and will connect every time. After power failures. After software updates. Always. The only issue is the dumb software which does not provide the setup information the first time.
