Possible Fix for iPhone Dropping WiFi

0tis I saw exactly this behavior on older FW - 9.12.4.x versions! I had a signal detector on it too, the 5GHz at least had a perfectly strong enough signal that it should not have gone to 2.4 or cell.

 

But I have not seen this behavior once on 9.12.4.16. Are you on that version?

 

Also - per my post in msg #93 and #94#, you really should test signal strengths if you are on 9.12.4.16. You may have just moved the problem. It could still be getting equally strong signals at the point of failures that's confusing it.You won't know what's going on unless you measure the signal strengths with an app - it's easy enough to do.

Yes I’m definitely on 9.12.4.16. Maybe I’ll have to go through testing signal strength. I can’t fathom I’m still over saturated since I removed a satellite. Each one has to be a good 40+ feet from the other two, separated by floors and walls. One satellite is wired backhaul. When I sit near either one I get rock solid 6G speeds over 1GB near the hardwired locations). . In the current location (my bedroom) it just seems to endlessly toggle between 2.5 and 5 and just dropping wifi altogether, although when it rests on 5G I’m getting a solid 300MB (it doesn’t seem to want to connect 6G where I am now).

0tis it depends on the definition of "over saturated". with dBm levels greater than -67 dBm being very good, I have seen the router and a satellite both with very good signals - maybe router at -64, satellite at -61 - at the same spot. It could confuse the FW.

 

Here is my latest theory thatI have seen ***some*** evidence of (I could be way off here...) You may not know, but they used to let users manually change the power level of the wifi signal throughout the network. They don't on the 970s. I am wondering if they removed that from the UI because they now dynamically adjust power levels over time as a way to fix contention - so the network "learns" over time the optimal power levels. I definitely see an absence of signal from the router in remote rooms that used to show a strong signal (which is fine as those places get strong signals from a 970). Or am I just seeing some sort of bug? Yet I don't have any dead zones that I have discovered....

 

All this is to say, since you are seeing disconnects etc., if you can measure the power signals, identify which Orbi they are coming from, and watch it over time to see if things drastically change  - a few days - without changing anything, rebooting anything, etc. I wonder if your symptoms will get better as it tunes? Or is my theory all hogwash lol?

Great question, who knows — although why wouldn’t NG tell us if there’s such a dramatic new feature??

And why on earth won’t they let us lower power levels as with other models? If that’s what is causing this, seems like it could help.

Although I will say this—regarding your point here: “ 0tis it depends on the definition of "over saturated". with dBm levels greater than -67 dBm being very good, I have seen the router and a satellite both with very good signals - maybe router at -64, satellite at -61 - at the same spot. It could confuse the FW.”

If the FW is getting confused, that’s a FW and engineering problem. It shouldn’t be a user problem….

(And why does this only seem to happen with iPhone?)

0tis oh sure it's a FW issue. We are looking for a reasonable workaround until it's improved. And it has improved a ton in the last 6 months from the FW upgrades I have seen, just not fixed 100% yet.

 

If you're referring to later model iPhones, I think it's band-switching issues on the WiFi 6E and 7 capable devices. I have seen issues in the past with my iPhone 16 (WiFi 7) and iPad Pro (WiFi 6E), never on any of the older devices in the house. If someone has only WiFi 5 and 2.4 capable devices in their house, imho they will never see this. That's why people tried for awhile (including me) turning off WiFi 6E and just going WiFi 5, which is very fast, to eliminate all this before v. 9.12.4.16 came out. The problem there is, these %^%^&% Apple devices keep flipping 6E back on, on their own - and then you discover surprise! - your device flipped to cellular or lost internet all of a sudden. So Apple at least, forces us to find a workaround for 6E until it's 100%.

0tis   Scratch my theory about signal power tuning!

 

Here's why:

Yesterday I noticed my Ring doorbell and chime devices were no longer online. I tried many times to get them to reconnect, including re-setup - no dice. Where they are, they can only connect to the router, so I thought to reboot the router (and only the router - I did this through the Orbi app which does not also reboot the satellites). Lo and behold, the Ring devices connected fine.

After the reboot, I had WiFi signals throughout the house again, albeit weak depending on where in the house I was. So while direct connect to the router was working fine, the router stopped transmitting a WiFi signal on any band - 2.4, 5, or 6!

The router had been up 10 days - continuing to reinforce my theory that depending on your configuration (IPv6, speed of service, number of satellites, etc.), once you get past 7 days something bad will happen.

My Netgear CM3000 modem has been onine for 70 days, and does not have a single uncorrectable error on any channel! Oh for that level of stability on the Orbis...

 

PS - my 5 GHz signal from the router, on my 3rd floor (router is in the basement), going through 3 floors of 15 foot ceilings and cement between the floors (1862 house), is -74 dBm - which is "Marginally ok" - that far away! It reinforces my belief that signals can easily be strong enough to cause problems in band switching (not that it should!)