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Forum Discussion
Will the option to name SSID individually ever arrive?
With the latest firmware, the ability to change radio strength and disable a specific radio were removed; which in my opinion is a step backwards. I think it's important for the Netgear team to rea...
yup imho thats why they did it
I completely support individual SSID's and the return of being able to disable either radio. These are not "advanced" features as they have been available in routers for years. My whole household has become irritated with the seemingly arbitrary switching between 2.4GHz - 5GHz and back to 2.4GHz again. Prior to this update I had the 2.4GHz band completely disabled and had absolutely no issues whatsoever, so even if the 2.4GHz is used for some backhaul purposes, it did not affect me.
I realize that the Orbi does not appear to be marketed towards "advanced" users and is more of a plug in and play system; however, that does not have to be the case. The Orbi could easily be a device that is valued by both the target users and advanced users alike. The solution is already halfway there by leaving the Orbi's factory default settings as they are. All that needs to be done is to expand the advanced user options. If they're worried about people accidentally disabling certain default features such as bandsteering (By disabling a radio or using 2 SSID's), they could simply have a pop up warning box that says something along the lines of "WARNING: Disabling this feature may cause the Orbi to not operate normally. Are you sure you want to continue?" I'm sure this would scare off anyone who didn't realize what they were doing.
While I like the idea of automated band-steering I also agree that more control would be desirable. If this does not happen then the band-steering has to be improved to make it more intelligent and biased towards using the 5GHz band.
I have wireless speakers that are in the same room as the Orbi master and although the 5GHz signal is perfect, they seem to nearly always sit on the 2.4GHz channel when I would prefer them on 5GHz.
In my home office - my work laptop normally sits on 5GHz whereas my home PC, which is located right next to it seems to randomly flit between 2.4 and 5GHz depending on what ways the wind is blowing. 5Ghz is weaker than 2.4 in this location but still perfectly usable.
There should be a way to prioritise the 5GHz over the 2.4GHz. I.e. to define that if both 5GHz and 2.4GHz are both above an acceptable threshold then 5GHz should always be chosen over 2.4.
this is already done on the automated system and is client based , so roaming between bands is done on rssi level
Yes it is already done. However, i think that there is clear room for improvement.
My home office has the following :
2.4GHz rssi = -48
5GHz rssi = -60
So clearly 2.4 has better rssi, however, the 5GHz is perfectly usable and still preferable in this location.
Interestingly, the 2.4Ghz band is picked for my desktop, 5 GHz for laptop. (admittedly using different wifi adapters)
Desktop connection is reported at 100mbps, laptop is around 390mbps.
I can force the desktop into 5GHz by forcing the config in the driver to only work in AC mode and I get a steady 433mbps connection and it is rock solid.
My point is that if the Orbi is not always getting it right. Sure for the average user it's going to be good enough 95% of the time, however, it would be useful to be able to have a stonger bias towards 5GHz or be able to lock individual clients to a specific band.
I this case I can do so in my PC driver settings. I can't do the same on other devices.
