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Forum Discussion
RBR960 device limits on IoT?
Are there any concurrent device limits on the IoT network on the new RBR960? The spec sheet states the mesh system can handle 200 devices, but I am having challenges connecting all of my IoT devices ...
Page 155 of the User Manual says this:
My guess is that 127 is a hard limit and has nothing to do with which SSID the device connects to (primary, guest, IoT). Nor would adding another WiFi system in Access Point (AP) mode help with that limit.
The key may depend on the app used to control this brand of lights.
With an 850 product on hand, I would experiment with connecting the 850 (as a router):
- Reduce the power level of the 5G radio to 25% (the lowest possible) to reduce interference with the new 960 system.
- Set the 2.4G WiFi channel to avoid interference with the 960 system.
- Connect a smart phone to the 850.
- Connect one bulb to the 850 system.
Then, see if the smart phone app will control that bulb when the phone is on the 960 system.
I have a similar situation where I have KASA smart plugs. Most are connected to the primary WiFi network, and four are connected to a different router. No matter which network the phone is connected to, the app can control all of the switches. (Which makes sense because the app allows control of products installed in different physical locations when the phone is not at physically at any of them.)
94 is a substantial number. One wonders if the products based on Zigbee or other standards can handle this many?
Thank you for your response. How did you arrive at the 127 number? The reason I decided to upgrade to the RB960 system was less about the new 6ghz band and more about the 200 device limit. If the router cannot handle 200 devices or anywhere close to that, then that’s pretty disappointing.
rvirani wrote:
Thank you for your response. How did you arrive at the 127 number? The reason I decided to upgrade to the RB960 system was less about the new 6ghz band and more about the 200 device limit. If the router cannot handle 200 devices or anywhere close to that, then that’s pretty disappointing.I just opened the manual and found page 133. Don't know where the 200 number can be found. Sounds a lot like Marketing Speak to me (rather than engineering).
Since none of us are Netgear employees, we have zero knowledge of what's actually going on inside Netgear.
- Yes, I saw that number too, but that is the same number listed in the RB850 and RB750 manuals that I know for sure cannot handle 127 much less 100 and 75 devices that those marketing sheets state respectively.
The key factor might be "amount of WiFi network traffic generated by each node". On TV streaming 4K video can consume up to 25MB of bandwidth. Thus, 40 TVs all streaming at once would be more than a gigabit internet connection can support and certainly more than a WiFi channel can support.
Typical Internet of Things (IoT) devices consume almost zero bandwidth. (Although it would be interesting to see how much of a bandwidth spike there is when 94 lights turn on or off at the same time!)
This will be an interesting puzzle to solve. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps it would have been more practical to automate electrical circuits rather than individual bulbs.