I’ve got some smart home devices that need to be setup by another device on the same WiFi network, but it has to be 2.4ghz network. My modern android phone insists on connecting to the 5ghz network and so can’t complete the setup.
Currently, I use an old android tablet that only connects to 2.4ghz to get round this, but it’s clunky. Previously I’ve changed the WiFi network to produce seperate ssids for the two bands, but I’d rather not have to switch these settings around everytime I need to modify something.
What I want is a system setting in android or an app that forces my phone to turn off its wireless N capabilities and only use the 2.4ghz band. My searching and reading stackoverflow posts suggest this just isn’t possible, but surely that’s not true?! It seems like a simple enough option to have!
Tldr : how to force my phone to connect on 2.4hgz WiFi rather than 5ghz
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The Ghz shouldn’t make a difference, so long as it’s on the same network. The spectrum used is the physical medium, a device on the WiFi and wired networks of the same network can talk to each other. Different AP may (should) be on separate channels within the given spectrum to avoid signal overlap, but still work the same.
Why would you have to specify what frequency it’s on? The only thing the phone would need to replicate to the device is the network ID and key.
Different ssid is the only way I have found to do this.
I have a visible 5Ghz that everything connects to but a hidden 2.4 network with 2.4 in the network name.
Other way I know of: disable 5ghz on the router, connect device, enable 5ghz.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve done in the past. It seems unnecessarily clunky. Why can’t I control my own WiFi connection? Like, I get why the default is 5ghz when it’s available, but it’s not even a Advanced option.
I think you can’t change that on any other os. It should be implemented better in the app. You just type/share the ssid and password and the app should trust you that you know what you are doing, and it will be able to connect even if it’s not the network you are currently connected to.
E.g. the shelly app allows this, you can just type any ssid and pw.
I do that with my Asus mesh network (using Merlin-gnuton firmware.) I actually have been having problems because most phones now rotate the MAC address, I have to do it with rules
edit: And I prefer not to have them use different ssids, which I guess is the other way. Iirc, my router would let me make 2.4 a separate network.
I have a network and SSID just for IoT devices that is 2.4ghz only, and also isolated from my main network.
But creating a new SSID just for those devices on 2.4ghz is the best option IMO. I also set the minimum data rate to 1mbps on that SSID because some IoT devices work a lot better.
