My 6E iPhone started “flipping” numerous times this afternoon again after not doing it for almost a week, but I think Community member ajx below in this thread gave us some good insight into what’s possibly causing this “6E” issue.

He removed his RJ45 wired connection on 1 satellite and went with the RBE wireless backhaul. I don’t know if you have wired or wireless (I use wired, and I’m not switching to wireless with my two satellites!), but the other thing ajx did, he repositioned his satellite inside the room, which apparently reduced band interference between that satellite, and the 971 router.

I’m going to try moving the satellite I think that’s causing my “flipping” issue, but I’ll have to reroute a Cat 7 cable, so I didn’t get to it today.

But I do think ajx (I hope I’m not using the wrong name, but once you start typing a post, you can’t scroll through the thread to recheck the Community member’s “name”, and I already forgot it after I checked it before starting my Reply!).

Since he went to wireless backhaul, and the drop/flips cleared-up (or reduced?) it might be an internal Orbi mesh node-to-node hand off issue that causes our 6E instability to drop devices, and flips into 5G cellular. Maybe the Orbi hard/soft ware can more easily accomplish a wireless backhaul and mesh node transfer easier than a wired backhaul and mesh node transfer, so it drops the WiFi connection during a “wired backhaul” node transfer.

Then in my case, (is your 6E device going to a cellular connection?) cellular 5G jumps in, as it should if WiFi is not available!

I’ve been blaming this for a few months on mesh instability, but I think it might be more of an Orbi device location, and WiFi band strength issue.

It appears my mesh “instability” and flips to cellular 5G occur when I’m stationary in a specific area of the house (possibly an area that has a strong WiFi signal from more than 1 mesh node. After re-evaluating my Orbi deployment locations, I think two (or maybe even all three Orbi devices “thinks” one of the other mesh devices has a stronger WiFi connection to my 6E device, so it drops it’s WiFi connection to my 6E iPhone. If the 2nd mesh nodes “thinks” the same thing, so it decides it shouldn’t offer a WiFi connection to my 6E device, and I flip into 5G cellular.

I’m going to re-orient one of my satellites so I’m not caught in an area where 2 (or more!) mesh nodes think the other node has me, and I end up not connected to any node!

This would be easier to validate/correct if the Orbi 971/970 (and 860 Orbi version also) had the ability to adjust WiFi band power. This was originally a config option in the 860 GUI, and it was in a beta version of the 971 (as I understand from Community member Furrye38), but NG had some kind of issue(s) with band power option on the 860, so they removed the capability with an 860 firmware update, and then did not include it in the 971’s when released (even though the 860/971 Orbi Operator Manuals still have not been updated to remove band power config GUI options!

I’m going to see if I can re-locate the mesh nodes within my home so there won’t be spots where the mesh nodes don’t know who should connect to the device. On the 971 mesh series, the router and satellites each have 12 antennae, so this might not be possible without reducing 5Ghz WiFi band power, or adding a large addition on to my home!!

Since 6GHz band is still being used for non-WIFI purposes by other agency/users, the FCC will not allow any power adjustments on 6GHz at this time.

If any Community member’s are familiar with the NG MR6550 Mobile Router that uses a cellular SIM Card for internet connection, it includes all 3 WiFi bands. But, the FCC apparently prohibits the “mobile” (I.e. vehicular) use of 6Ghz band on that MR6550 for fear of interfering with the other users that have not yet moved off this frequency. NG accomplishes this restriction by only activating the 6Ghz band on the MR6550 when the internal battery is removed, and the unit is plugged into a power outlet (vehicular use could be accomplished with an inverter, or other work around).

This specific MR6550 configuration using 6Ghz band would work great at home where the unit would provide home internet with a cellular data plan, and could be plugged into power full-time the with internal battery permanently removed, which would then activate the 6Ghz WiFi band.

I said all that to say, currently NG can’t allow us to make power changes that might help our WiFi 6E device stability if my theory is correct (maybe not!) about location and WiFi mesh node hand-off confusion.

I’ll update Community after I try moving my nodes around and see if that corrects mesh node hand-off drops, and eliminates 5G cellular service flips.

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