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Forum Discussion
Please expose the ability to use separate SSIDs for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on Orbi!
This is becoming rediclous since the functionality is already there. I've been an Orbi user for about 2.5 years now and I'm to the point where I'm going to have to find another solution. I'm covering a large house (~10K sq ft) with 1 router and 3 satelites. I was about to get rid of Orbi early on until I found the 'unsupported' solution of seperating the ssid for 2.4ghz and 5ghz. That worked great for about a year and a half... until the firmware late last year caused problems with saltelite communicaion if you have seperate bands. I have about 90 devices between PCs, phones and IOT devices and many of the IOT require 2.4 but almost no bandwidht. In my house 2.4Ghz from anywhere tops out at about 1MB/s which does not work for streaming in HD.
I was going to turn off the 2.4Ghz on Orbi and add a seperate AP for only 2.4 but I see that feature disapeared too somewhere along the way. The big issue is that most streaming devices, phones, tables and many PCs wifi cards can't be set to 5Ghz only. Orbi has the capability to support seperate bands and they should make that avaliabe or allow the options of completely disabling 2.4Ghz. I've tried setting 2.4Ghz to 25% but I'm still constantly faced with devices connecting at 2.4.
I believe they're seperate radios, maybe the option is to open them up and pull the 2.4Ghz???
10 Replies
th3w01f wrote:I was going to turn off the 2.4Ghz on Orbi and add a seperate AP for only 2.4 but I see that feature disapeared too somewhere along the way.
On the Advanced Tab, Advanced Setup, Wireless Settings, uncheck the box "Broadcast SSID" for the 2.4G band. No device will connect to Orbi at 2.4G because it is not broadcasting the SSID. They will connect to the 5G band.... or if the 5G signal is too weak, to nothing at all.
(Note: I am not recommending this as a "solution", only pointing out that it does exist. And, to be totally honest, I have never tried not broadcasting SSID. Maybe devices which "know" the SSID's MAC address already will still connect? The Orbi back channel connects and it doesn't broadcast an SSID. hmmmm)
On a side note, if the 2.4G bandwidth tops out at less than 1MB in much of the house, I am puzzled that 5G would have higher bandwidth in the same places.
The problem I have (haven't tested) is that stopping the broadcast of the SSID will not help if the new AP is broadcasting the same SSID... I don't know if the RFC specifies that a device should connect to a broadcast SSID vs a hidden. I have about 40 IOT devices on the 2.4 SSID that would be a PITA to move.
I agree about the throughput on 2.4, I’ve done a bit of frequency analysis and there isn’t much interference. We live in the country and the closest neighbor is about .5 miles away. Everywhere in the house, including in the same room as the router 2.4Ghz is terrible and even at the far ends, wired into the satellite or connected via 5Ghz is WAY better. I’ve swapped to the least used channels and no help at all. I put up another AP and only allowed 2.4Ghz and it was completely useable, even on the same channel as the Orbi (again, I didn’t test setting the other AP to the same SSID and having Orbi not broadcast).
th3w01f wrote:The problem I have (haven't tested) is that stopping the broadcast of the SSID will not help if the new AP is broadcasting the same SSID... I don't know if the RFC specifies that a device should connect to a broadcast SSID vs a hidden.
This, at least, should be easy to test. Configure the new AP with the same exact SSID and password, power cycle some device, and see what it connects to. I have done only a few Google searches. I see a lot of references to how to get Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. to connect to "hidden" networks, but nothing specific to typical IoT devices. If you already have the new AP, it won't take long to test.
These Orbi's are, of course, on the most recent firmware, and have been 'reset' (not 'factory reset'), correct? With 90 devices, I would postpone 'factory reset' until everything else has failed.
Just saying that if NG hasn't put in the ability to separate SSIDs then it's not forth coming at all. NG finally put in the ability to disable either radio SSID broadcast as a temporarty work around for some 2.4Ghz specific SW setup devices. However the system is MESH and would not be MESH if it were to have separate SSIDs. Different problems maybe introduced into the system which I presume NG doesn't want to support nor deal with. The Orbi works as designed. Remember that some of these 2.4Ghz devices, there mfr hasn't fully tested or designed the setup system well enough to handle connected to a MESH system. Most of there setup software doesn't included 5Ghz supporting setup devcies like phones which support both radios while there devices only supports 2.4Ghz. So I presume some Mfrs feel that why support 5Ghz when the actual HW on there device only supports 2.4Ghz. Lower development costs as well. However just cheapens there products and is a hassel for it's users and when it would be only a minor SW change to allow there setup software to work on a dual band setup devices that connects to 5Ghz while there device connects to 2.4Ghz since both radios are on the same side LAN. Maybe next generation IoT will take Smart Connect into account.
The bigger issue is that the devices already has the features me and many others are asking for they're just not expeosed. I'm not sure 2.4Ghz is required for Mesh WiFi? Ubiquity allowes the 2.4 radis to be turned off as did the Xirrus mesh syetem I was running alongside of Orbi to cover other parts ofthe properly.
The IOT devices are not the issue, it's the iphones, iPads as well as various other devices like TVs, Rokus and a few PIC NICs. They do not allow you to perfer one band over the other and many times end up on 2.4 Ghz, even with power set to 25%. 4 of the PC NICs do allow hard setting or at least prefering 5Ghz and 3 others don't. None of the other devices I mentioned seem to allow it and Samsung TVs only seem to connect to 2.4 if it's on the same SSID at 5Ghz.
Well it's mostly up to the chip set Mfr and NG on how they design and implement there products. Again, After all this time, I would presume NG isn't going to allow separation of SSIDs. Again, most of the 2.4Ghz issues are with the IoT mfrs, not with NG or mobile phones. It's the handling of there devices with Smart Connect and there setup software and how they handle it. Most devices that are only 2.4Ghz will only see 2.4Ghz and nothing else. Also the setup software from the Mfrs that only supports 2.4Ghz while the setup device like phones support both frequencies, this is were there setup software brings in the problem. Thus NG did finally support the disabling of the 5Ghz radio for these setup devices. So user can disable the 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz SSIDs while setting up various IoT devices should they encounter setup problems. I've had Orbi for awhile now as awell and have no issues in connect any of my devices, 2.4Ghz only or other wise.
