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Forum Discussion
HOW TO DISABLE 5G TEMPORARILY ON ORBI ROUTER
HELLO, I own an Orbi system and recently obtained a Personal Weather station that does direct uploads to various weather sites online. The weather station will only connect to Wi-Fi via a 2.4GHZ sys...
I've have spent officially over a week now trying to get the LaCrosse weather station connected to my now Orbi based WiFi network, to no avail. I've tried every suggestion posted here. I am now absolutely convinced that either one of two things HAS to happen. 1) The PHONE has to be connected to a 2.4Ghz band, and at this point that appears to be impossible. 2) I have to be able to separate the 2.4Ghz band from the 5.0Ghz band by renaming one or the other, in my case I would want to rename the the 5.0 band. It appears as though Netgear has made this impossible with their latest Orbi units and firmware.
I didn't have these issues with my old system, which consisted of an Apple Airport Extreme as my primary router and an Apple Airport Express as an extender.
I have 30 days from the date of purchase to return the Netgear products for a full refund/exchange, I'm stll a couple of weeks out from that, but at this point I think it may be my only option.
Thanks to all who replied.
Using the Orbi Advanced setup, rurn the power of the 5GHZ radio as low as it will go.
Then, move as far away as you can from your router, while still able to get a wi-fi signal on your phone.
On yoiur phone, "forget" your wi-fi connection, then re-connect to it (you will have to present your wi-fi password). You should not be connected to the 5GHz band now.
pfredd, I had already tried this, but I did again, only this time after I cut the 5Ghz band radio power down to 25% I actually went outside in my driveway, all the way to the end, and "forgot" my network. I then went so far as to shut down my phone and reboot it, and then I started trying to rconnect to my network. Each time I got an "unable to connect" to my network I would move a little closer to the house until finally I was close enought for it to connect. I then went back inside, checked and sure enough my phone was connected to the 2.4Ghz band. Within a matter of 10 seconds or less, it switched back to the 5Ghz band, I assume because my phone was again very close to the main router. Although through all of the hours and hours of frustration I have been through in the last 10 days or so this was actually the first and only time the phone actually did connect to 2.4. The only way I can see that this would be any kind of a permanent or even semi-permanent solution would be to make sure the phone was never near the router, and that's not an option. In any event, I appreciate your efforts.
To all that have been following this thread, I finaally got a call back from LaCrosse this morning. As email2rick stated in post #77 of this thread, they are sending me what they are calling an "extender" but in fact, as their tech agent explained it to me, it is actually a device that will create a separate 2.4Ghz band, and then in turn the LaCrosse weather station will connect to that band. They are well aware of the issue and are just as bewildered as the rest of us as to why Netgear chose to remove the option to enable/disable the individual bands. In any event, I should receive the device within the next week or so and will post the results once I do get it up and running. Thanks again to all that replied to this thread.
Glad you got some resolution on this.
FYI, NG didn't remove the ability to separate the SSID. Orbi never had the ability to separate the SSID from the beginning. It's always been single SSID name using Smart Connect. Some devices or setup software don't like smart connect.
Am curious why disbling of the 5G SSID Broadcast didn't work though. Oh well.
Cheers.
Obviously I would have no way of knowing how Orbi has or has not operated in the past, I think it's more than obvious that this has been my first experience with the device. So whether or not it it used to have the capability to separate the 2.4Ghz band from the 5.0Ghz band I have no idea, basically the only education that I have received regarding the device has been very recent, and from two sources, what I have been able to garner here and also from a week or so of what has turned out to be very frustrating hands on experience. Without going back and re-reading close to a hundred posts on this thread I can't say specifically who said what regarding separating the two bands, but that idea came from this thread. And frankly, at this point it's moot anyway, because whether it was at one time possible, it isn't now.
As far as disabling the 5Ghz band, what I posted here is completely and precisely what I did, in detail, as well as the results. You can draw your own conclusion as to why it didn't work.
Cheers.
Well, just letting you know. Separation of SSIDs on Orbi has never been a supported feature and still remains that way.
Possible there maybe some differences in FW between v1 and v2 versions, however I suspect that other than HW differences, there isn't much else. Seems that v1s have working abilities to disable the 5Ghz SSID broadcast and maybe v2s don't. Possible that v2's may not be working right. This would have to be reviewed by NG to see if it's really working.
If your so inclinded to try at somepoint, you may give Voxels 3rd party Orbi FW a try and see if separation of SSID works. He's done some tuning on this and you may find it might work for you.
Or keep stock FW.
I am not so inclined. Re-read my previous posts, I have been and still am interested in only one thing, and that is getting the LaCrosse device working properly with the Orbi. I'm not interested in any involvement regarding software/firmware changes or fixes, and I am also not interested in the 'whys' or 'why nots'. As I stated, I have only one goal in mind and that is to get a device that is suppose to be compatible with the Orbi to work properly with the Orbi. It's that simple. Again, if you will read my previous post, you will see that LaCrosse has offered what should be a solution fo this issue. I'll know when I receive the decice.
Cheers.
Good Luck.
.I hope this helps someone. We had the same problem linking security cameras to the Orbi. Ended up firing up an older router that allows 5g to be disabled. Switched the Orbi OFF. Gave the old wifi with only 2.4g the same password as the Orbi. Connected the cameras. Switched the old router off and reconnected the Orbi. All works fine.
You can do this as well on the RBR:
CSAUSTRALIA wrote:.I hope this helps someone. We had the same problem linking security cameras to the Orbi. Ended up firing up an older router that allows 5g to be disabled. Switched the Orbi OFF. Gave the old wifi with only 2.4g the same password as the Orbi. Connected the cameras. Switched the old router off and reconnected the Orbi. All works fine.
