Hi Gellie,
Furrye38's advice is correct. You should never allow the ORBI to auto-pick the 2.4GHz channel. I have seen my ORBI use channel 4, 8,9..etc, all which are over-lapping channels (before I tuned my Wi-Fi environment). One of the key things about Wi-Fi is understanding that LESS is more. It really is. The more Wi-Fi routers/AP there are around you (including your neighbors), the worst the performance will likely become due to something called Wi-Fi Adjacent-Channel inteference. I have the FIOS Quantum router and the ORBI RBK33. I disable the FIOS router's Wi-Fi, since the ORBI Wi-Fi performance and coverage is vastly superior. For real-world performance, what that translates to is this: I connect my iPhone to my FIOS router wifi and run a speedtest, I average about 300Mbps both ways. I connect to the ORBI and run the same test - Speedtest jumps to around 600Mbps both ways. That's why I use the ORBI. 🙂 The FIOS quantum router is rated for 325sq feet coverage. The ORBI router is rated for 2000sq feet.
I use a free tool called InSIDDer and they have a good article (on their website) about understanding why you should only select channel 1, 6 or 11 and why you need to tweak your Wi-Fi at home for optimal performance. The article will also help you understand Adjacent and Co-Channel, the latter being something that the Orbi router and its satellite uses.
You can using any Wi-Fi analyser tool to figure out what channels are in used by everyone and tweak your Wi-Fi settings for the best performance. There's no one-size fits all. If you can't find a free channel, co-channeling will be the next best option. Personally, I like inSIDDer for one reason - it gives your a 'link' score that factors in signal strength, interference and recommends another channel for you (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band). Before I tweaked my network, my 2.4GHz insidder link score was 11 and after I changed it, it jumped to 71 (100 being the perfect score). It's not just arbitary numbers. My speedtest numbers increased significantly. When I start my WEMO app, all the devices pop-up instantly where as before, they would take 4-5 secs scanning for all the devices first. There's no lag when watching my Ring DoorBell's live view or security cameras (all which uses the 2.4GHz band). That's the potential benefit of tweaking your Wi-Fi channel/environment. It's also not a 'set and forget' process. You should still check your channels periodically to make sure that your neighbors did not change theirs and having that change affect yours. Unless you are lucky enough to live with neighbors who don't have Wi-Fi. 🙂
