Separate 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands on Nest WiFi

[Bill1]

Do you intend to separate these frequencies in future? It is frustrating when one tries to connect devices that require 2.4GHz only. TP-Link has "Smart Collect" which can be turned on and off to provide two separate WiFi SIDs. It would have been great to have two separate frequencies that one can choose from manually.

[David_K]

This is a mostly a user to user community, therefore we know as much as you in respect to potential feature updates I'm afraid. I’d encourage you to also send this feedback directly to Google. You will not receive a response, unless Google need more details from you, however the team are still reading the feedback.

What I can say is, as you know, some smart home devices only use the 2.4 GHz band and will not be available for setup if your phone is on the 5 GHz band. You may be able to tell your Android phone to only connect on the 2.4 GHz band temporarily in your phone's Wi-Fi settings. Refer to the manufacturer's support information to see if your phone has this feature. The waves of the 2.4 GHz band can travel a greater distance than those of the 5 GHz band. If your phone does not have the ability to switch Wi-Fi bands, try to move farther away from your router and points until your phone moves to the 2.4 GHz band. Then proceed with setting up your smart home devices. 

[Jeff]

Hey, Bill1.

Thanks for asking your question here in the community about the different bands. I can say for now that there are no plans to ever separate the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands in the manner you described. The vision for the product is to keep things as simple as possible, and allow the network to intelligently handle connections to the bands and have it always act as a single network.

There are definitely pros and cons to having the mesh network work this way, but for the vast majority of our users, having the network function with a single SSID works best for them. Even so, I will pass your suggestion along as something you would like to see added as a feature. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Jeff]

Hi, everyone.
As we haven't had any activity here recently I'm going to go ahead and close the thread. If you have more to add, feel free to start a new discussion.
Thanks