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Forum Discussion
Separate WiFi 2.4 and 5ghz bands
I am no longer able to separate my WiFi bands on the most recent Orbi firmware versions. It worked for over a year fine, but after updating firmware they are no longer separate. I have tried the Te...
I've been reading various posts/threads with interest. I have just bought an RBK50 and have read about separating SSIDs for 2.4/5GHz. I was hoping that the Orbi would be the answer to all my previous frustrations with various wifi set-ups over the Months/years.
I have a fairly simple requirement. My NG R6300 5GHz network didn't quite extend to upstairs back of the house and garden and 2.4GHz on that was also a little ropey in that area.
So I also purchased some Tenda Nova MW6 mesh wifi boxes as I didn't want to spend loads on improving wifi. I've ditched these due to some instabilities but primarily the fact that the 2.4GHz chan is fixed at 6 (and next to useless in my area) and devices often refuse to connect over 5Ghz so were left with very slow 2.4GHz connectivity.
So back to the Netgear Orbi. I bought these hoping that out of the box they would solve my problems.. That is to say, Orbi router on ground, and 1 satelite upstairs providing good 5GHz connectivity to supporting devices and 2.4GHz to those devices that need it.
Worst case I thought I'd separate the 5GHz and 2.4 networks and connect devices to each.
So after a couple of days of setup I'm currently at a situation where most of my devices inc iPhones that support 5GHz spend most of their time connected to the 2.4GHz network..
I have devices e.g. Laptop / two Sky Q boxes / Xbox One where I absolutely want to force them to use 5GHz...
So I'm now ready to really throw my toys out of the pram and send the RBK50 back, having found out that with the later firmware I can no longer use the telnet method to separate the Networks.
I don't want these devices to download at slower speeds over 2.4GHz, when they're capable of using 5GHz and all of my internet bandwidth.. I didn't grace Netgear with my hard earned cash to be in a worse situation (speed wise) than I was with my ageing R6300 (albeit I now have great coverage).
I get the concept of Mesh and 1 SSID and allowing the tech to do its thing.. that'd be fine if it actually worked properly. Unless I can get my devices connecting reliably to 5GHz, these are going back and I'm back to square 1.
In addition to my last post. I've now managed to get my laptop connecting reliably via the 5GHz band with the WiFi nic 'Prefer 5 GHz band' setting. 1 device down, around 15 to go.
I've also read that there is still a workaound to creating separate 2.4/5GHz SSIDs if needed.
With only my 5GHz devices in mind, given that a multi access point (mesh) system by design, provides full coverage to an area, I simply do not understand why I would ever want devices to connect to the 2.4GHz band. So not sure why it's seen that separating the SSIDs would some how 'break' mesh functionality or its design. Coverage/Range is not an issue given router and satelite(s).
Although it's not a massive issue if my phones connect to the 2.4GHz band, I'd still like the choice of forcing them to 5GHz. My broadband tops out at 78Mbps... devices via 2.4GHz get around 40-45Mbps.. when connected to 5GHz around 65-75Mbps. So only time it would be nice for phones is things like updates.
Sky Q box is currently powerlined. Sky Q mini box is seen as wired as it meshes to the main Sky Q box.
The remaning concerns are consoles and TVs for steaming. I want them on 5GHz.
Be aware that it's up to your devices to pick and choose where they want to connect to. Orbi only provides the platform and something to connect to. Device choose which signal to connect to based on signal strength, quality, noise and environment.
FURRYe38 wrote:Be aware that it's up to your devices to pick and choose where they want to connect to. Orbi only provides the platform and something to connect to. Device choose which signal to connect to based on signal strength, quality, noise and environment.
And that is why being able to use different SSIDs is very important to many users.
I get that. Thats something NG doesnt' seem to want to support for unknown reasons.
Though some users have used the telnet option. For some, it works, for others not so much.
- Yes absolutely, and I don’t disagree with that. And through band steering the router assists this. We also know this is an issue with many manfacturers equipment.
It would be amazing if clients/devices all had a band preference setting/controls.
However rather than dealing with that on multiple clients, it would be great to have some more control over that from an AP/router perspective. I agree as well. Since Smart Connect same out years ago, this has been problematic for everyone router mfr and device mfrs. Before it was easy, you set either frequency to a different SSID and you told the device which one to connect too. Now it's all automatic. I'm sure it's a hassle for the chipset mfrs on both sides of the fence let alone the router mfr who integrate and test all this.
So wild idea ... there are a few custom modified firmwares out there even based off of 2.5.1.8. You can Google for them. If your Orbi is out of warrant/support and you are brave, maybe these custom firmwares open up the features you are looking for? Of course Netgear is going to say "no no no". Additionally, you can brick your device along the way. Using custom firmwares is definitely an advanced advanced skill set. Do so at your own risk.
After all these years and so many complaints it is amazing Netgear hasn't added an option to seperate the ssid.
For those who want to try 3rd party FW for the Orbi 50 series only, can find it here:
This is only for the 50 series Orbi. Other Orbi models are not supported.
NG hasn't made any separation of SSIDs official. Even with Orbi AX, its' still not support. Users have been asking about this for a long time and NG doesn't seem to want to give in. User can temporarily disable SSIDs for either frequency however which does help get 2.4Ghz devices connected. No need to have separate SSIDs. This is a 2.4Ghz device Mfr setup software problem and not NG Orbi issue however.
Good Luck.
^^^ I've just been bitten by the "Can't get 5GHz network SSID to change permanently" problem - and having looked into the NG firmware, it's pretty obvious that they are going out of their way to stop this happening, and even if different SSIDs are detected on a running router then it'll revert back to the 2.4GHz one. It's not just that it doesn't survive a reboot (I could cope with that) but it doesn't survive for more than about 5 minutes.
So - I've just said "sod it" and gone with the Voxel firmware.... based on the latest NG firmware, and even looks'n'feels the same. I've updated my satellites and then my router - and it's all good. Working very well.
and YES - I can change the 5GHz SSID to something different, and it sticks.
Thanks Voxel.... boo hiss to NG.
Deihmos wrote:After all these years and so many complaints it is amazing Netgear hasn't added an option to seperate the ssid.
Of the other router manufacturers offering a true mesh system, how many provide an option to separate the SSIDs?
mrshades wrote:^^^ I've just been bitten by the "Can't get 5GHz network SSID to change permanently" problem - and having looked into the NG firmware, it's pretty obvious that they are going out of their way to stop this happening, and even if different SSIDs are detected on a running router then it'll revert back to the 2.4GHz one. It's not just that it doesn't survive a reboot (I could cope with that) but it doesn't survive for more than about 5 minutes.
So - I've just said "sod it" and gone with the Voxel firmware.... based on the latest NG firmware, and even looks'n'feels the same. I've updated my satellites and then my router - and it's all good. Working very well.
and YES - I can change the 5GHz SSID to something different, and it sticks.
Thanks Voxel.... boo hiss to NG.
Ug ... now you have tempted me :)
Thanks a lot :)
...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ethernet switch in the configuration?What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-routerWhat channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Set Short preamble instead of Long preamble modes. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).Above suggestions working:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Throttling-Devices-RBK53/m-p/1858561/highlight/true#M81925Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update?
mrshades wrote:...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
FURRYe38 wrote:What Firmware version is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ethernet switch in the configuration?What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-routerWhat channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Set Short preamble instead of Long preamble modes. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).Above suggestions working:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Throttling-Devices-RBK53/m-p/1858561/highlight/true#M81925Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update?
mrshades wrote:...whilst I don't wish to worry you - after running on it all day (for about the last 7 hours or so) I did just have a catastrophic network failure...
I have multiple devices connecting me to the Internet - Virgin Media hub (in modem mode), to an Asus AC68U (in router mode but with wifi off, providing various extra functions that the Orbi doesn't have or is rubbish at - parental control, OpenVPN server, etc.) and then the Orbi RBR50 (and two satellites) in AP mode. There's a gigabit switch or two in the mix as well...
Anyway - whilst I could see both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz networks, the Orbi IOS app couldn't connect, I couldn't ping anything, zip - rebooted the Orbi and it all started working again.
I did notice some strange things happening before I lost access completely - as I was trying to watch various YouTube videos, which were loading with a black screen and text across the top saying "We're having some difficulty playing this video right now - come back later" (or something like that) - but if I left it for about 30s then the video would start. I'm guessing the Orbi was throwing a huge amount of jabbering packets out or something equally noisy.
Might have been a one off... but a little nervous now!
These questions were asked back in message 4.
There has been some chatter on switches with an Orbi. I am not sure if that applies here. Apparently the Orbi needs a pretty "dumb" switch. If the switch is managed and green, it can give the Orbi grief. Perhaps others here can comment more. Perhaps you are already familar with the topic.
Managed switches will work if users disable all IGMP protocols and any green ethernet features. For some non managed switches, green ethernet can't be disabled if present so users would need to find a non managed switch with out is preferred.
theoak wrote:There has been some chatter on switches with an Orbi. I am not sure if that applies here. Apparently the Orbi needs a pretty "dumb" switch. If the switch is managed and green, it can give the Orbi grief. Perhaps others here can comment more. Perhaps you are already familar with the topic.
I can help you on your question.
There are a number of devices that simply do NOT work or support use of the 5.0 GHz Band. For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
My is the exact opposite of you. I need the 2.4 for that purpose and now I'm a bit screwed trying to figure out how to get it set-up. Not sure I'll keep the RBK 852 due to that or not. The performance of all other devices seems to be going well. But the garage door not connecting tonight was an unwelcome surprise.
- Have you checked which 2.4 GHz channels your garage opener accepts? You might need to change the channel on Orbi to one that is ok for the garage opener.
Great thought. Thanks for the suggestion. Honestly, it's about all I can do to get the RBK 852 connected and then 24 devices including 5 Ring devices, the garage door by Chamberlain (MyQ), etc. I'll give that try to see if it can latch on but it did not earlier when set to auto-mode. Seems like it'd be easier to offer the separate SSID but I understand the Mesh effect. Just not a lot of documentation out on the RBK 852.
ekhalil wrote:
Have you checked which 2.4 GHz channels your garage opener accepts? You might need to change the channel on Orbi to one that is ok for the garage opener.- I can see in the specs for Chamberlain (MyQ) that it only supports channels 1-11, so avoid using e.g. channel 13.
Set Orbi to channel 1, 6 or 11.
ABCHome wrote:There are a number of devices that simply do NOT work or support use of the 5.0 GHz Band.
Correct.
ABCHome wrote:For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
No fighting at all. The App does make use of standard network TCP/IP communication for talking from the mobile App to the IoT door opener. All the mesh systems wireless radios, all LAN ports, connect to the very same single network. Even add-on wireless access points, including 6 GHz, 60 GHz, or Bluetooth wireless access points - everything is on one network. 2.4GHz is not a network, it's just a radio frequency used.
If the App is coded like "if 2.4GHz then do_control else write not_connected_to_2.4GHz" exactly this nonsense code has to be removed. Talk to the maker of this door opener system - they simply don't understand networking. The only fight you as their customer has to go through... Include a link to this post along with the complaint, with my best regards!
Also often stated: The Mesh system does force the wireless client from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz. Well, it can't and it does not! Correct is that the Mesh system send out lists of BSSIDs (Radio MAC) of other wireless radio interfaces serving the same wireless network name (the [E]SSID), and it does also inform the client send out control packets with potentially better BSSIDs (other radio, other access point). Basic wireless clients like most embedded systems do not support 802.11k or 802.11v so these control packets are simply ignored.
ABCHome wrote:My is the exact opposite of you. I need the 2.4 for that purpose and now I'm a bit screwed trying to figure out how to get it set-up.
Your mobile phone app does think it does require a connection to the 2.4 GHz band. Neither Apple iOS, MacOS, ipadOS, nor Android or Windows systems do not have such a control. Possible work-arounds are going far away from the Mesh device where 5 GHz does not reach, or lower the power of the 5 GHz, or disabling the 5 GHz announcement what does require to "forget" the network and then connect - for a while the connection will stick to 2.4 GHz (until the standard mesh code does inform the client about the possibly better BSSIDs (the other radio MAC addresses serving the same network these are).
Saying this here again: This is neither a Mesh system implementation nor a mobile device shortcoming. Much moe, this is 100% poor design of the App. A snap to fix for the crApp maker(s).
ABCHome wrote:There are a number of devices that simply do NOT work or support use of the 5.0 GHz Band. For instance the My Q program that controls my garage door opener now is fighting the connection because it does not want the 5.0 but cannot seem to find the 2.4 GHz connection.
I don't recall having any problems connecting my Liftmaster (same as Chamberlain) wifi-compatible garage door opener. Are you connecting your garage opener by using the wall console and then connecting directly to your opener's wi-fi SSID like: https://support.chamberlaingroup.com/s/article/How-to-connect-MyQ-Wi-Fi-garage-door-opener-to-WiFi-home-network
I ask because when you do it this way, the MyQ app doesn't use your phone's detected wifi networks at all. Instead, it receives the list of recognized networks from your opener. These will only be the 2.4Ghz networks since they're the only ones recognized by your opener's radio. Then, the app tells the opener which of these to connect to along with your password entry. Hope this helps.
Since this is the main reason I switched from Orbi I thought I'd add a bit of info that I couldn't easily find before.
I used Orbi for several years and it worked well with the separate SSIDs, I used multiple SSIDs for many of the reasons in this thread. Once that became untenable I had to find another solution. I moved to the U company and what I hadn't realized before is that all of their current APs, not just the ones labeled as mesh support wireless uplink and downlink (multi-hop). The wifi uplink/downlink isn't nearly as fast as Orbi but I'm getting 200-300Mbps and with my Internet being 50Mbps load balanced across 2 WISPs it's totally fine for me. I don't need Gb speed outside or from the far ends of the house. I now have roughly 80 wifi devices and 0 issues with most of the IOT on my 2.4 SSID (including 3 MyQ openers) and everything else on my 5g SSID.
Mods feel free to delete if I've violated the forum rules.
Went through all the steps multiple times. Got through to where the phone found the Chamberlain suggested wifi connection during the set-up but it failed multiple times. I suspect as one more elegantly put it the 2.4 GHz radio frequency is not being seen. I have changed the channel in the NetGear App to channel 1 not allowing it to automatically set the channel.
At this point I do not see another option as it's the ORBI RBK 852 or the Chamberlain Garage Door opener. They appear to be unable to co-exist at this point.
As one pointed out, and I acknowledge there may be something impractical about my desire, but it sure feels like a product design flow that one cannot turn off 5.0 Ghz for a short period of time or somehow divide the radio frequency.
Mixed emotions as the product itself works well but if one is unable to link 2.4GHz devices (of which I only have 2) it's becoming questionable.
Thanks to those w/ suggestions so far and let me know if anyone has additional thoughts or suggestions.
The 2.4GHz WiFi signal travel further than the 5GHz WiFi signal. Have you tried to move far enough away from your router and satelites that the smartphone connects to the 2.4GHz WiFi signal? This may be 60-100 feet or more away. Once your smartphone is using the 2.4GHz signal, then try configuring the IoT device (garage door) with their app.
