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Forum Discussion
Can I force a device to connect on the 2.4 GHz
I have some wifi enabled devices that can only connect on the 2.4 GHz connection. In order to set 5hem up, however, my phone has to be on the same 2.4 GHz band as the devices. Is there a way to force my phone to connect on the 2.4 GHz connection?
2 Replies
Strange that your phone needs to be on the same band... the devices talk via the router, and not directly to each other, so it seems odd to me that it would matter. At any rate, 5 GHz has relatively poor range compared to 2.4 GHz, especially if penetrating walls, so if you want to force 2.4, you can try moving to the edge of your coverage area and reconnect your phone, and it *should* jump to 2.4. Also, in the Orbi advanced settings, you could temporarily reduce the power of your 5 GHz radio, which should help force devices to 2.4 GHz.
What I'm trying to do is to set up some iot lights on my network. The way it works I believe is that while the lights are in setup mode, the phone is broadcasting the network name and password such that the lights can intercept it and set themselves up. However, the lights only work on the 2.4 GHz band, so they can't intercept the message from the phone on the 5 GHz band.
I realize that better iot systems solve this problem by providing an AP setup mode (where the phone connects directly to the device). I was able to setup my Roomba and wifi enabled scale in this way. But not these lights unfortunately.
Anyway, gave up on those lights and they are on their way back to Amazon. But if somebody has a solution to this problem it would be worth listing it for other users.