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ketchumr's avatar
ketchumr
Guide
Feb 20, 2018

how to turn of 5GHX radio on the Orbi router

I am looking to turn off the 5ghz on the Orbi RBR50 and RBS50, is there a way to do this? I have some in home automation devices that can only use 2.4ghz singal and I need to be able to turn off the 5ghz in order to reconnect them.

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9 Replies

  • antinode's avatar
    antinode
    Guru
    Feb 20, 2018

    > [...] I have some in home automation devices that can only use 2.4ghz
    > singal and I need to be able to turn off the 5ghz in order to
    > reconnect them.

       You do?  Is that an experimental result, or something you read
    somewhere?  If these (unspecified) devices are 2.4GHz only, then why
    should a 5GHz signal bother them?

       Around here, I a handful of Orvibo S20 power sockets which are
    2.4GHz-only, and they seem entirely unaffected by my 5GHz wireless
    stuff.

    • ketchumr's avatar
      ketchumr
      Guide
      Feb 21, 2018
      The manufacturer told me they will not work on 5ghz freqency and in order to set them up my phone automatically selects 5ghz and there is no other way to connect them so I need to be able to turn it off until I can connect then then I can turn it back on
      • antinode's avatar
        antinode
        Guru
        Feb 21, 2018

        > The manufacturer told me they will not work on 5ghz freqency [...]

           Ok, but that does not imply that a 5GHz signal from your router will
        cause trouble.

        > [...] and in order to set them up my phone automatically selects 5ghz
        > and there is no other way to connect them so I need to be able to turn
        > it off until I can connect then then I can turn it back on

           I now know nothing about even more things, including: what your "some
        in home automation devices" are, who made them ("The manufacturer"),
        what your "my phone" is, how you're supposed to persuade these gizmos to
        connect to your wireless network using your "my phone", and, most of
        all, how a 5GHz signal will cause trouble when you try to use a 2.4GHz
        gizmo.

           As I said, I have a bunch of 2.4GHz-only Internet-of-Junk devices,
        and the 5GHz signal from my router has never stopped me from configuring
        them or from using them, once configured.  But, with no actual
        information on any of your stuff, there's not much specific info I can
        provide on any of it.

           I took a quick look at the User Manual for an RBR50, and didn't see
        the control which appears on many other (non-ORBI) Netgear routers,
        namely: ADVANCED > Advanced Setup > Wireless Settings : [ ] Enable
        Wireless Router Radio (one for "(2.4GHz b/g/n)", one for "(5GHz
        a/n/ac)").  So, I don't know how to disable your 5GHz radio.  I also
        don't see why you would need to, any more that you'd need to shut down
        all the FM radio stations in your neighborhood when you wanted to tune
        in an AM/MW station.

           My advice would be to run the experiment, and follow the standard
        gizmo-configuration procedure (wherever that might be written down), and
        see what, if anything, actually goes wrong.  The only problem I can
        imagine with that would be if your phone needs to talk directly to the
        gizmo itself (which is done in one of the common gizmo-configuration
        schemes), _and_ if your "my phone" is actually unable to communicate
        with a 2.4GHz wireless access point.  (And, if that were true, then
        switching off the only 5GHz radio around would seem to be an even worse
        idea.)