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Forcing a 2.4ghz connection between Nest Pro and my Android phone

ScottJenson
Community Member

There is a well known problem in the smart home community that 2.4ghz devices are difficult to setup. I just got one (a Tapo Wifi smart plug) and I can't set it up in Google Home. I've scoured the forums and found so many people with this issue! There are apparently a lot of these 2.4ghz devices and getting them setup is very difficult.

The problem appears to be between the router and the phone. The smart plug can only run 2.4ghz, the phone can only connect to the Nest Pro via 5ghz so the phone app can't see the device. Apparently you can't force the Nest pro to 2.4ghz (if only for the setup) and the same appears to be true for my Android Pixel 7.

The only solutions are around trying to force a 2.4ghz connect by using your phone outside (as distance forces a 2.4ghz connection) or putting the smart plug in a cast iron pot (!! to do the same thing)

This seems a bit silly. Is there ANY way to, at least for a short period of time, force my Pixel to have a 2.4ghz connection to the Nest Pro?

1 REPLY 1

David_K
Platinum Product Expert
Platinum Product Expert

The short answer is no because it's your phone that decides which band to connect to, you cannot force this at the router level. You may be able to do this in the Wi-Fi settings on your phone instead, however.

Unfortunately, some devices like the one you have don't seem to handle Wi-Fi networks which use the same network name for all the Wi-Fi bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz) very well. If the above suggestion isn't an option or doesn't work for you, then the most common workaround after that is to add a 2.4 GHz only access point to your setup, perhaps repurposing an old router just for this purpose. Alternatively, if this is critical to you or you have lots of these types of devices, you would need to consider a different Wi-Fi solution than Nest Wifi as unfortunately Google haven't made any announcements or feature changes to make working with these poorly designed 2.4 GHz only devices easier.