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Forum Discussion
Navyav8r
Dec 05, 2019Follower
SEPERATE PASSWORDS FOR 2.4 and 5
Running a new SimpliSafe doorbell and it keeps dropping offline. Technician says it needs to be on 2.4 specifically and seperate passwords would help. Is this possible on this system? Thanks in adva...
dan801
Dec 06, 2019Apprentice
Don't listen to Furrie. Everytime this is asked he keeps claiming its not possible even though its well known and documented that you can do it.
Go here and follow the steps. A lot of IOT devices require seperate SSID to work and don't support band steering.
schumaku
Dec 06, 2019Guru - Experienced User
dan801 wrote:Everytime this is asked he keeps claiming its not possible even though its well known and documented that you can do it.
It's neither supported nor endorsed by Netgear. And the results and effects vary with the Orbi models and firmware releases - and might change again following a reboot. That's why some senior community members don't believe in such a "solution". Yes, FURRYe38 - count me in here, too.
dan801 wrote:A lot of IOT devices require seperate SSID to work ...
Nope. Some crappy IoT require the discovery App to be run on 2.4 GHz for discovery of the 2.4 GHz IoC. At run-time, once configured, there is no such requirement.
A 2.4. GHz IoT will never connect to a 5 GHz AP because it can't see it at all - so it does not care about it.
The IoT devices should be configured to the "primary" and long-term single SSID - and not to a temporary "split" SSID config name.
dan801 wrote:A lot of IOT devices ... and don't support band steering.
An AP with band steering will delay the association of a 2.4GHz client connection attempt awaiting another connection attempt on 5 GHz. If this does not happen, the 2.4GHz association will be allowed. What should the IoT not support now here? It does not recognize that the AP does any band steering - just the initial connection takes slightly longer.
And to round it up: Basic wireless clients as in place on many IoT don't care about neighbouring AP information coming over air from advanced APs (this is what the consumer wireless industry does understand under "Mesh" support). What can happen after a power failure? The primary AP (the Orbi router) can come up before the satellites do, so a "dumb" IoT will connect to the router - and stick - to that connection, even if a much better signal will come from on-air from the satellite after some delay. Lack of "Mesh" support, it will not learn about the neighbouring APs - and stick with the poor signal forever.
Now we come back to the subject SimplySafe devices: Start reading here: https://simplisafe.com/forum/customer-support-forum/installing-and-using-simplisafe/simplicam-losing-connection - thier community is full with connection loss, separating 2.4 and 5 GHz does not cure, some have issues with some specific AT&T routers, others report that changing to Orbi fixed the Simplysafe device disconnection problems. Funny, isn't it?
And then once more, please explain the interested reader why a configured wireless IoT (say one of these Simplysafe cameras and doorbells) which have "lost" the connection does not automatically re-connect to the wireless, and then to the cloud? That's very unlikely because of the 2.4 GHz wireless (again the only band the IoT does see and know about) has the same name like the 5 GHz ....
So Navyav8r please share this information with the Simplysafe support engineer. I'm happy to read about thier explanation attempt.