RBR20 how do I change the wifi channel for a device?

[KulaKat]

Hi,

Suddenly started having  an issue with my Arlo camera's not having wifi (red dot only at bottom of wifi indicator for the cameras) after they have worked just fine for a year.  I've been working with Arlo support and after trying numerous things they are now suggesting 

this:

"In this matter, I humbly suggest to change your WiFi channel to 1, 6, or 11. This enables you to review details such as the channel your device is currently using, which channels currently in use by other networks in the area and suggest the best channel for your network. If you did not know how to change the WiFi channel. I would suggest to contact your Internet Service Provider.
Once you have changed the WiFi channel, kindly observed if the cameras would still have WiFi signal issue"

Firmware is V.2.3.5.26  

The satellite is in the house about 20 feet away from the first camera and about 42 feet away from the second camera (both cameras are outside)  none of my other cameras are having issues.

Can anyone guide me through this?

I've been going back and forth with them for weeks 😞  I'd really appreciate any help you might have 🙂

[CrimpOn]

The WiFi channel for the 2.4G frequency band (which Arlo cameras use) can be set using the Orbi web interface.

Log in using the admin credentials ("admin" and the admin password, which is usually NOT the same as the WiFi password).

Navigate to the Wireless Settings and change the Drop Down menu from "Auto" to whichever channel you want.

I should point out that EVERY WiFi access point in your neighborhood scans the WiFi channel space from time to time and changes to whichever channel appears to be the least used.  So, just because Channel 1 appears to be the "best fit" right now, does not mean that it will be an hour from now.

Also, there is a bit of "folklore" in regard to WiFi channels.  Whoever designed WiFi YEARS ago created channels which "overlap".  There are only three channels (in the US and much of the world) that have NO overlap, 1, 6, and 11.  So, when a business deploys a number of access points, they take care to have adjacent access points not overlap.  (It's unfortunate there are not four non-overlapping channels, because it's a well-known math problem to determine how many colors are needed to have every country on a map be a color that does not touch another country with the same color.  The answer is four.  Sorry for the digression.)

This leads people to recommend, "set WiFi to 1, 6, or 11".  But, this does not take into account that your neighbor's access points may have settled on 2, 5, 7, or 11.

So, I doubt that changing WiFi channels will solve your problem, but if it does that's great.

[KulaKat]

I really appreciate your answering me!  And I actually enjoyed your math lesson!

I did figure out how to change the channel and was able to change it to 1 which did not work.  For some reason it would not let me change to 6 or 11, it would just go back to 1 so I think I'll have to let Arlo know that there was no change and go from there 😞

Very frustrating....