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SamDs
Jul 17, 2020Follower
Status:
New Idea
Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 system needs separate 2.4 and 5.0 SSID
Would like to buy Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 system but I'm afraid it will not fit my needs. My new DVR TiVo Bold+ can connect via either 2.4 or 5.0. Of course, download speed is far better at 5 Ghz. U...
michaelkenward
Nov 15, 2020Guru - Experienced User
SamDs wrote:
My idea is to give user of Nighthawk MR60 Mesh WiFi 6 system option (just a secondary option, not immediately visible at first glance) to select different SSID for 2.4 and 5.0 GHz bands.
This is an old old story, and an ancient "idea", covered many many times in the main community. In 99 percent of cases, there is no need for separate SSIDs.
This is not the place to go into why this is a misguided suggestion. (I leave it to anyone really interested to find the long and detailed discussions in the main community.) Essentially, it boils down to poorly designed installation procedures for many IoT devices.
One reason why people ask about separate SSIDs is because they think they need it to set up IoT devices. In reality, this is rarely necessary. Most IoT things work on 2.4 GHz. They will not see, and cannot connect to, 5 GHz.
Unfortunately, many makers of Iot devices require people to use an app on a mobile device to set up the thing. This often connects to the 5 GHz wifi. Poorly designed apps then fall over because they cannot handle a device connected to the 2. 4 GHz wifi.
A widely used strategy that works for many people is to forget about separate SSIDs and to follow this strategy:
- Go into Orbi's wifi set up
- Disable broadcast of the 5 GHz SSID
- Tell the mobile device to forget the connection to that SSID
- Reboot the mobile device
- Connect to the SSID
- Set up the IoT device
- Go back and reverse step 2
You may actually be able to miss out steps 3 and 4, depending on your phone and the app.
This approach has worked for many people. The advantage is that it does not break one of the whole points of the Orbi's Mesh system, a single SSID that devices can connect to seamlessly.