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Mesh Wifi - How to Separate 2.4/5G Networks on Mesh Wifi?

Giraffe66
Community Member

I just installed a mesh wifi system on the weekend.  I got it because my ISP's router does not allow for band steering (the separation of 2.4/5G networks) when using my ISP's proprietary range extender.  I bought a 3 pack of wifi devices and installed one to my ISP's router, and located 2 others in my home.  The wifi coverage is great. 

I have a new smart light bulb from Globe that only runs on 2.4G.  I already have several Globe bulbs in my house, and when I installed the new Google mesh wifi, they automatically migrated.  Great.  But now I cannot pair my new Globe bulb because my Pixel 6 is only displaying the 5G network, and I need to be able to have the phone on the 2.4G network in order to connect the Globe bulb.

How can I enable both 2.4G and 5G networks to broadcast on Google wifi?

25 REPLIES 25

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, Giraffe66.

Sorry for the issues you're having with your Globe light bulb. I'm sure it's confusing when it won't connect to your network. Let's get that sorted out for you.

So the WiFi mesh network is a true dual band network and the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands run concurrently. Here's an article showing how it works: https://bit.ly/3ahyJE1

If you're having issues getting one device to connect to the network, you can try setting up a guest network in the Home app. That guest network will be limited to only 2.4GHz and you can try connecting the bulb through that. Let me know if you have any other issues going forward and I'll be happy to keep helping.

Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Hi Jeff:

Thank you so much for your reply.  I had already enabled a guest network, and just logged into it for the first time.  It is also defaulting to 5G as you can see from this screenshot.  Do you have any other ideas that I can try?  (Please note that I will be travelling and unable to test any potential fixes as of about 2 hours from now, and will be back home on Saturday, Nov. 27th, just in case you are wondering why it is taking me so long to respond.)

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Thanks for the update, Giraffe66. No worries about the delay in responding. It's that time of year for many of us with travel and other obligations. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and see what I can find on this for you.

Thanks

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, Giraffe66.

It's been a little over a week. I just wanted to check in to see if you had any luck here or if you're still hung up at the same spot. If you're still needing help, let's pick this back up.

Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

I really appreciate you checking back.  Still stuck at the same spot. 😞 Any assistance would be great!  I was actually thinking about disconnecting the prime mesh unit from the ISP router and seeing if both networks were displaying, and if they were, connecting the lightbulb to 2.4G and then re-initializing the Google mesh.  Unless you have any other suggestions that don't involve me doing this kind of re-boot?

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, Giraffe66.

One thing you can try is to set up your guest network through the Home app. This network will be 2.4GHz and devices that are being picky about connecting to your current setup might connect more easily to the guest network. You can actually name the guest network the same as your current network and use the same password. Once the devices disconnect, you can disable the guest network and they will connect to the main network. This doesn't always work, but it is a common workaround for many others who have had similar issues with devices like yours.

Give that a try and let me know if it works out.

Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Hi Jeff:

Thanks again for responding, I appreciate it.  You did suggest this to me initially, and I tried it and posted a screen shot of my phone showing that it still defaults to 5G.  I posted a question back to you yesterday asking about a possible fix - would you know if disconnecting the google wifi would work as I described?

 

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, Giraffe66.

Sorry for the late response here. I've been trying to find a solution for you and I'm still not getting anything from my internal teams with a fix here. I did want to check in to see if you were still seeing the issue, however and to find out if anything else has changed at all. Let me know and we can continue to look at this.

Thanks.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, Giraffe66.
I just wanted to check in real fast to see if you saw my reply and to find out if you still needed any help on this. If you're still needing assistance, please just let me know and I'll be happy to continue helping.
Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Hi, thanks so much for checking in.  I've been trying to find a time to disconnect the google mesh wifi and see if I can connect the bulb with just the router from my ISP running. I just have not been able to find a good time to do it.  Every time I think about it, I'm doing something that requires the internet.  😞 

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, Giraffe66.

No worries. I'll keep this open until you find a convenient time to try things out. Let me know when you have anything to update and I'll be happy to keep helping at that point.

Thanks.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, Giraffe66.

No rush, but I'm just checking in to see if you had any opportunity to give this a try yet. If so, let me know if things worked out.

Thanks.

chefbbq
Community Member

I am having similar problems. Devices connect at 5G to the Guest network but cannot see other devices (regardless of their connection, just same guest SSID). If the same device connects at 2.4G then it can connect to all other devices on the Guest network. The pucks were recently restarted and reconfigured using google home.  

Update from OP: I finally found the time to disconnect the Google wifi.  Actually, the whole Google wifi system went mysteriously offline, so I had to re-start my ISP router and re-initialize the Google system, so I took that opportunity to test out my theory.

When the Google system was offline, I was able to separate 2.4/5G band steering from my ISP's router broadcast.  Although, my ISP does not like this set up and strongly discourages you from doing this; it wants to have both 2.4 & 5G named the same, which is the origin of the problem, but it will let me do it. At that point, I can re-install the 2.4G light bulb on the system.  But, once I re-start my Google system, the lightbulb no longer connects as the network name changes. So for example, on the ISP router (no Google wifi enabled) I have the following networks:

ISP-2.4G_1

ISP-5G_2

Once I install the Google mesh wifi over top of this, I now have networks named:

Google_MyNetwork

Google_Guest

(These aren't the real names, I've just used simplified names for the sake of making this example easy to understand.)

So what happens is that the light bulb that was connected to ISP-2.4G_1 can no longer "see" that network once the wifi is running, as there is no longer a broadcast of that network name.

Short of naming everything the same, I don't know how to overcome this.  I'm not sophisticated enough in this technology to go any further, but just on general principles it seems like naming everything the same is a bad idea.  If I did that, I would have:

ISP-2.4G_1 would become Google_MyNetwork (also the Google wifi primary name)

ISP-5G_2 would become Google_Guest (also the Google wifi guest name)

Then the actual Google networks would be named the same, as I indicated above.  (This would also require me to factory re-set all my devices to get them all to recognize the new network name, which I already know from last summer, when I was troubleshooting this with my ISP and had to do several times, takes me over 2 hours of elapsed time, time I don't really have.) But it would actually be worse than this, because the ISP strongly warns against separating the networks - it prefers that both 2.4 and 5G broadcast with the same name.   

So I am at a complete loss.  I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I cannot get any 2.4G devices to connect.  What would be awesome is if the Google point that connects to my ISPs router had an ethernet port and the software to allow it to function as the ISP router, thus eliminating the ISP router altogether.

I am in Canada, and my ISP is Rogers.  Friends who have Bell don't have this problem, but I do not wish to switch ISP's for reasons too extensive to get into here. 

 

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, everyone.
As an update for you all, I wanted to let you know that we have a firmware update coming out now. Some people may have already received the update, but most will see it coming still. Everyone will have it before the end of April. If you receive that update and don't see an improvement in your issues here, please let me know and we can keep looking into things.
Thanks.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, everyone.
The update version for both Google WiFi and Nest WiFi will be 14150.43.80. If you are seeing a different version number when you check in Google Home, you have yet to receive the updated firmware. Let me know if you have any questions about that.
Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Hi Jeff:

Thanks very much for the info.  I just checked and my Google wifi is still running an older version, version 13729.57.27, so I will await the updated version number you referenced.

However, I'm not clear on what functionality will be coming from this new version?  Is there anywhere I can read more about it?  Will this fix the problem that I am having as explained above?

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, Giraffe66.

As of now, the firmware update notes haven't been released on the newest version. They should be released some time soon, but I did see mention of improvement with WiFi compatibility in the announcement. The specifics will be made known at some point soon. Sorry I don't have more info on that at this time, but I'll update when I do have more to share.

Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Thanks Jeff, much appreciated. 

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, Giraffe66.

I just wanted to check in as it's been a week to see if you're still waiting on that update or to see if it has come through by now. If so, have you noticed any changes?

Thanks.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi again, Giraffe66.

Any luck seeing that update yet? If not, it should be there real soon as everyone will have the update by Monday. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks.

Giraffe66
Community Member

Hi Jeff:

My Home app is now showing version 2.49.30.3, which is different than what it was in my last post (which was 13729.57.27) but not the same as the version you indicated would be 14150.43.80. So I have no idea what is going on.  Why would my version numbers be so wonky? Are you aware of any release notes for the new version yet?

Just a note that this is an extra long weekend in Canada due to Easter - we are off from COB last Thursday until COB today, Monday.  We have been tied up with family activities all weekend so no time to investigate anything yet.  

 

chefbbq
Community Member

My problem is resolved. I removed the pucks and have had NO problems since. So relieved, as dealing with this was painful and frustrating. Just chalking it up as one of life's lessons like the 6x6x6 Rubik's cube.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but when you say "pucks", do you mean your Google mesh wifi "points"?  If I understand you correctly, you disabled your Google mesh wifi system and your problem was resolved? 

This is not a solution that would work for me.  My ISP router does not cover my entire house and a mesh system is necessary to ensure adequate coverage. 

chefbbq
Community Member

Yes, that is correct.
I can understand how a mesh solution is required. My situation had changed from the original network configuration so the easy decision was to get rid of the mesh devices by Google. I did spend a lot of time trying to characterize the issues and feel that these were intolerable and unacceptable.
I wish you good luck at a timely, working, frustration free solution.