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Forum Discussion
Possible Fix for iPhone Dropping WiFi
I have an RBE973S system. think I have identified the reason my iPhone keeps dropping WiFi, and I wanted to share so others can see if it solves their issues. On your iPhone, go to Settings>Cellula...
Roc1 , I just saw that a few days ago a Reddit user reported that the 5G/Wifi drops on his late model Apple devices went away when he turned off W-Fi 6E Mode, from Automatic to Off. It's in Settings/Wi-Fi/Tap the 'i' on your connected network and you'll see it.
You are getting so many drops, have you tried that? It's expensive (losing some nice speed) if that's the workaround, but it might be good to know and pass on to your support person!
donawalt, with my weak 5G cell signal both inside and outside the house, I’ve figured out I have to be a couple rooms away from the router (closer to the outside weak cell signal) to get the avalanche of drops/flips I documented last week. I’ve been spending more time in my home office (where the 971 is located) these last 3-days so I haven’t noticed it happening once. This observation, coupled with your info that your 5G cell “flips” happen when your moving between mesh nodes. I think the mesh stops our WiFi signals going from Node to Node allowing 5G cell signal to try and connect to cell phone (I think this theory is proven in that we’ve noticed our iPhones still show WiFi connection to Orbi even with the 5G Cell icon showing on our screens!). Or it might be that the Orbi’s cell strength threshold settings in the Orbi Routers need re-adjusting so the router doesn’t drop the WiFi connection (thinking 5G cell signal is strong so we must be moving toward cellular and away from WiFi, causing both mesh nodes to drop our WiFi connection instead of passing it off to the other node). I’ll work on this WiFi Stabilization issue if we ever close my 2-month old “slow upload speed” Case (which I think really should now be called “incorrect Orbi Internal speed test results”!!)
I did send NG more debug files they requested last Friday, so hopefully sometime this week I will get an update and estimate on fix from NG.
I’m very familiar with that Apple 6E setting (I’m not bragging!), dealing with the 3-bands the 971 has access too, and the issues I’ve had onboarding IoT’s. I always turn off 6E which eliminates 6Ghz WiFi band connections to the router, but that still leaves the 5Ghz band that causes issues sometimes because of the way my IoT’s always onboard to the satellites 2.4 IoT SSID (they won’t connect to the router which is the closest WiFi point for most of my IoT’s.).
So I let them connect with a weak IoT WiFi signal to satellite, then I go into the IoT device settings and change the WiFi to the main router SSID, and it will then connect with a strong WiFi signal to the 971. Unfortunately, if I have to go back into that IoT device again that’s connected to the main SSID, even with 6E turned off, my iPhone connects at 5Ghz band. Some of my older Arlo devices use the Arlo App on my iPhone to communicate with the IoT device to make those config changes. Once I attach the IoT device to the main SSID, since my iPhone connects to 5Mhz band, the App and IoT device won’t communicate!!
I have to reset IoT device, re-onboard to satellite IoT SSID, make the Iot device config change I wanted to make while it was connected to main SSID, then change WIFI on the IoT device back to main router SSID so I have strong WiFi strength with the IoT device. It’s a pain.
Apparently your router used to have a web gui option so you could at least reduce 5GHz band power and move iPhone further away from the router hoping it would drop back to 2.4GHz Connection. Apparently some of the smarter NG Community members posted the 860 and 971 routers have very similar user guides, and apparently since there were some issues with the power option config on your router model, they removed all WIFI power configs from the 860, and apparently didn’t add same capability at 971 launch (or removed it early on with a firmware update), but both my user manual, and your’s has not been updated to remove the steps to make WiFi power config changes.
I know NG thinks their 2.4 IoT SSID solves all IoT on-boarding issues, but it hasn’t for me! They need to add an option in our Orbi’s to turn off both 5 and 6Mhz band’s (what happens if Apple removes “6E off” capability???) Even the Amazon eero routers have an option to temporarily disable 5Mhz/6Mhz (if that band is available in that model eero) for 5 (maybe 10?) mins so your cell phone can only connect to the eero’s 2.4Ghz band, On-boarding issues solved!!
I’ll post again when I hear from NG. Thanks for passing along the 6E “off” option on our iPhone 15 Pro Max models. I think I accidentally just stumbled across it when I had all my initial IoT on-boarding issues.
I did send NG more debug files they requested last Friday, so hopefully sometime this week I will get an update and estimate on fix from NG.
I’m very familiar with that Apple 6E setting (I’m not bragging!), dealing with the 3-bands the 971 has access too, and the issues I’ve had onboarding IoT’s. I always turn off 6E which eliminates 6Ghz WiFi band connections to the router, but that still leaves the 5Ghz band that causes issues sometimes because of the way my IoT’s always onboard to the satellites 2.4 IoT SSID (they won’t connect to the router which is the closest WiFi point for most of my IoT’s.).
So I let them connect with a weak IoT WiFi signal to satellite, then I go into the IoT device settings and change the WiFi to the main router SSID, and it will then connect with a strong WiFi signal to the 971. Unfortunately, if I have to go back into that IoT device again that’s connected to the main SSID, even with 6E turned off, my iPhone connects at 5Ghz band. Some of my older Arlo devices use the Arlo App on my iPhone to communicate with the IoT device to make those config changes. Once I attach the IoT device to the main SSID, since my iPhone connects to 5Mhz band, the App and IoT device won’t communicate!!
I have to reset IoT device, re-onboard to satellite IoT SSID, make the Iot device config change I wanted to make while it was connected to main SSID, then change WIFI on the IoT device back to main router SSID so I have strong WiFi strength with the IoT device. It’s a pain.
Apparently your router used to have a web gui option so you could at least reduce 5GHz band power and move iPhone further away from the router hoping it would drop back to 2.4GHz Connection. Apparently some of the smarter NG Community members posted the 860 and 971 routers have very similar user guides, and apparently since there were some issues with the power option config on your router model, they removed all WIFI power configs from the 860, and apparently didn’t add same capability at 971 launch (or removed it early on with a firmware update), but both my user manual, and your’s has not been updated to remove the steps to make WiFi power config changes.
I know NG thinks their 2.4 IoT SSID solves all IoT on-boarding issues, but it hasn’t for me! They need to add an option in our Orbi’s to turn off both 5 and 6Mhz band’s (what happens if Apple removes “6E off” capability???) Even the Amazon eero routers have an option to temporarily disable 5Mhz/6Mhz (if that band is available in that model eero) for 5 (maybe 10?) mins so your cell phone can only connect to the eero’s 2.4Ghz band, On-boarding issues solved!!
I’ll post again when I hear from NG. Thanks for passing along the 6E “off” option on our iPhone 15 Pro Max models. I think I accidentally just stumbled across it when I had all my initial IoT on-boarding issues.