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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...
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).
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.