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Hi all and thanks for taking my question/s into consideration. I'm looking or some assistance as to why my new R700 Router is AWESOME, but not perfect.
Backstory - Since the beginning of the pandemic, I had been using an AC1900 router with a CM2050V Modem to get what I thought were pretty hot speeds around my house (90-140mbs). My setup required I put the router in the basement in order to be in close proximity to a Gigabit Switch that fed the rest of the house wiredly. Because of the basement setup, WiFi coverage wasn't the best, so I had a EX7000 Extender connected via Powerline to the router which did a really consistent job of coverage and throughput. Well...Xfi(Ye Cable Co Whom Shall Not be Named) OR my router really started giving me fits recently in the sense that it would totally drop service both wired and wirelessly, and I was going out of town in a day or two while the fam needed to continue working/home-working from home in my absence. I researched what was in the area and settled on the RS700 as total overkill, but futureproofing at the same time. I was familiar with the web-interface adn setup went smoother than I thought. However, one aspect, for simplicity sake might be bugging me...help me out here: The SmartConnect feature is awesome and limiting at the same time. It provides seemless connection, but I THINK the security features are too advanced for all devices. Now I have SUPER HOT connectivity both wired and wireless (bouncing at 610, and often 500's settling at 470mbs all over the house) [I know, I know...it's not the hottest, but for us, it's amazing!...we'll go with it for now until tweaks can make it better]. Now...I set up the router with a SSID (hidden) and PW the same as the router before expecting every wifi device just to remake the connection to a new central box (that I moved upstairs for better wifi coverage). Many devices had no issues hooking up, but I have 2 or 3 (An Amazon Kindle, Chamberlain Garage Door Opener, and a couple others I can't think of RN) that won't connect REGARDLESS of how many times I reboot the router and manually set and reset the wifi address on the devices.
My troubleshooting has led me back to the SmartConnect feature...when it's ON, it blasts all frequencies 2.4, 5 & 6 in all directions, but it limits me to WPA2 + WPA3 security for 2.4 and 5ghz signals and WPA3 for the 6. I can turn OFF the SmartConnect feature and it allows me to select only WPA2, but I now have to individually set up each signal. The list of questions:
- Do the older devices not recognize the WPA2 + WPA3 functionality and are therefore being denied access by lack of compatibility?
- This would derail Backwards Compatibility to Wifi5 in my mind and lessen the Star rating for this Router if that is the case.
- If I undo SmartConnect, can I set each frequency (2.4, 5 & 6) individually, to the SAME SSID (while not broadcasting it) and achieve the same results as SmartConnect advertised?
- This seems to undermine the upside of the SmartConnect/multi-band functionality, but if it gets me 100% accessible, it may be my only choice.
Here's the killer...the Chamberlain Garage opener worked initially, right after I set up the RS700. After a day of xFi(Ye, whom shall not be named) disconnectivity (they were down in our area for about 6 hours), and a reboot (not a reset, mind you) of the RS700, the Chamberlain wouldn't connect anymore.
Rambling over, questions made...what say you??
I really don't want to have to reconnect the EX7000 Extender just to get a few devices working when I have a new monster router that advertises full backward-compatibility yet doesn't seem to deliver. Thoughts? And thanks for my explanatory diatribe!
Some older devices are not compatible with WPA3 and even if WPA2 and WPA3 are in mixed mode, if WPA3 is present on the signal, these older devices will not connect. I have a R7800 and R9000 routers and like to use the in wireless bridge modes. They work great with WPA2 only signals. If WPA3 is present, they do not work.
Thanks FURRYe38! That confirms my worst thoughts. I'll try going back to the individual broadcasts with WPA2 on 2.4 and 5g signals and leave WPA3 to only the 6g signal if it will let me.
Since the 6GHz connection requires WPA3, Smart Connect combining bands including a 6GHz band (2.4GHz + 5GHz + 6GHz in the case of RS700) must include WPA3. So we use WPA2+WPA3 as a compromise to give more compatibility. This is the same situation for mesh systems that uses one SSID for all the bands which include 6GHz.
We did see compatibility issue with some devices with old WiFi technology, e.g. 11n. The solution is like what you have done to disable Smart Connect and use WPA2 only for the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz, and leave the 6GHz for WPA3 only. If you use the same SSID and password for all the 3 bands, the change basically is from "the router tells each client which band to connect" to "each client makes its own decision for which band to connect". The advantage for the router to make the decision is the router can balance the loading among all the bands. For a mesh system, it also knows the backhaul connection topology, which clients cannot know and take into considerations for roaming. When you disable SSID boradcast, the situation is more complicated, I'm not sure if a client will switch band automatically in this case, different client device could have different behavior.
Another option is to use the Guest Network to connect those devices that have compatibility issues with WPA2+WPA3. You still keep Smart Connect for the main network and enable 2.4GHz Guest Network with WPA2 only for the garage door opener... One thing to note is that if you run into problems for a device to be discovered by its corresponding App, you need to connect the phone, where the App is running, to the Guest Network as well, or you have to enable the option "Allow guests to see each other and access my local network" from the Guest Network Settings.
We do have a plan to add other WiFi networks like IoT network to RS700, but I don't have a schedule to share.
There’s a lot of great info here, thank you @BH-C & @FURRYe38 !
In a perfect world, the split Between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6/7 getting along well with differing security protocols would be awesome, but you’re the engineers and I’m the (wanna-be-above) average user that just spent a lot of money on a router that’s 3 steps above what we needed under the guise of High-Speed, Simple and Future-Proofing.
I do really like the Guest broadcast working as the sub-standard wifi protocol for the older devices. I never have used the Guest Network anyway, and if I can get it to work properly, that might be a great work-around. Even tho it’s a work-around.
I’ll keep looking for the IoT additions to WiFi 7 you speak of and see if that is an additional fix here, too, but in the meantime, thanks to the Community and Engineers that helped me out here and responded so quickly and the great information provided!
Compared to other brands like MI and Tp-Link routers, we get more durability on Net gears. I am totally impressed with their coverage and connectivity.
Could we possibly get a set of radio buttons on the smart connect declaring which bands we'd like it to jump between? I would use smartconnect if bouncing from 5 to 6 but definitely won't use it with 2.4 in the mix. But jumping from 5 to 6 depending on trafffic and signal strength might be useful. I figured the radio button idea would late you use it down the road as more options like ultrawide start showing up do you could offer the same menu option just with more channels depending on a router's capabilities.
