Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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how to cancel 5GZ from orbiRBR 350

Peterc77
Aspirant

how to cancel 5GZ from orbiRBR 350

I need to turn of 5ghz band as it intereferes with my heating smart control. Can log in to my Orbi from the app but can see no place to turn bands on/off. Cannot log in using a computer either wired or wirelessly to do the advanced bit.

Help appreciated.

Pete

Message 1 of 4
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: how to cancel 5GZ from orbiRBR 350

There is no method to turn off either the 2.4G or the 5G WiFi bands.

 

Please explain how the Orbi interferes with the smart heating control.

  • Are you having issues trying to connect the control to WiFi?
  • What brand/model of heating control is this?
Message 2 of 4
Peterc77
Aspirant

Re: how to cancel 5GZ from orbiRBR 350

Thank you Crimpon with the prompt reply that I had not expected. I have never come across that before. The heating system is Drayton Wiser and it has its own wifi which connects to the smart phone control app which only works on 2.4 ghz and 5ghz interferes with it. I have a broadband router which the wifi is turned of so it acts as only a modem. It wasn't strong enough signal to work the system consistently so the orbi was supposed to correct this. The signal is definitely stronger with a longer reach but the wiser system will not work.

Pete

Message 3 of 4
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: how to cancel 5GZ from orbiRBR 350


@Peterc77 wrote:

The heating system is Drayton Wiser and it has its own wifi which connects to the smart phone control app which only works on 2.4 ghz and 5ghz interferes with it.


Oh, my. Drayton sells many products. Do you have a link to the installation manual for yours?

Was this working at all with the previous WiFi router?

 

As a technical matter, 5G WiFi does not interfere with 2.4G WiFi.  When a product has only a 2.4G radio chip, it can sense only 2.4G radio signals.

 

Most of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices create a temporary WiFi access point during the installation process. Since they have only a 2.4G radio, this temporary WiFi access point is 2.4G.   The smartphone app scans for WiFi and looks for a unique signature, which is usually some combination of the company name and the hardware MAC address.  What is supposed to happen is the smartphone communicates the WiFi SSID/password to the device and then the device shuts down its temporary access point and connects to the home WiFi using those credentials.  It then opens a connection to the company's "cloud" and the smartphone app gets notified, "I am now connected.  Hooray."

 

This works perfectly for 100's of IoT devices.  Unfortunately, some dork (pardon, brilliant programmer) decided to check what WiFi frequency the smartphone is using and made the setup program refuse to continue if the phone was not connected at 2.4G.

So, the fault is not interference, it is stupid programming.  The setup app already found the damn device.  Just tell it the SSID/password and get on with life!

 

On the oldest Orbi product, which debuted in 2016, there was a setting to disable broadcasting the SSID on either or both channels.  Frankly, that was not intended to facilitate setting up IoT devices.  It was a standard "security practice" in those days to hide the SSID.  People soon realized that this added almost zero "security" because it is trivial to learn the SSID even when it is not being broadcast, and manufacturers began removing that option about 2-3 years ago.

 

So, the work-around nowdays for those situations is to find some way to get the phone connected to the Orbi at 2.4G long enough to get the IoT device configured.  One trick is to reduce the Transmit Power level on 5G as much as possible but leave the 2.4G Transmit Power high.  Some people walk away from the Orbi in hopes their phone will switch to the 2.4G signal.  One person posted (just today) about putting pan over the router to muffle the signal.

 

Anyway, the first task is to determine if the Drayton app is one of the 'good apps' or one of the 'bad apps'.

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