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Forum Discussion
JCWRACING
Jan 01, 2021Follower
Turning off 5 g radio
I am the tribe band Orbi Router and need to be able to turn off the 5 gig radio for installing other smart home devices that only work with 2.4. I'm thinking of switching to another manufacture. It's...
CrimpOn
Jan 01, 2021Guru - Experienced User
JCWRACING wrote:I am the tri band Orbi Router and need to be able to turn off the 5 gig radio for installing other smart home devices that only work with 2.4. I'm thinking of switching to another manufacture. It's unacceptable that you cannot turn the radio separately on and off easily like many other manufacturers.
As vajim pointed out, there is a simple procedure for dealing with Internet of Things devices with poorly written smartphone apps: temporarily disabling the 5G SSID. This has the benefit of not disrupting the connection of all devices that are already connected to the 5G channel. If the signal stops, then all those devices immediately lose internet and would have to reconnect to the 2.4G channel if their software is smart enough to do so. Once connected at 2.4G, they may very well remain there even after the 5G channel reappears unless they are power cycled and start the connection process again. It certaiinly would save a few seconds to be able to kill the 5G radio, but I have found that (a) I don't spend a lot of time connecting IoT devices and (b) the vast majority of them have well-written apps and "just connect". When one doesn't, I just sigh, run through the process, and get back to other things.
That said, WiFi routers are like dentists. If one's behavior is unacceptable, there are plenty of others to choose from. Just change.