Setting up smart devices and accessing 2.4ghz via mesh

[Pennyfloggins]

Hello,

I have a google mesh system and a pixel 5 and there doesn't appear to be anyway for me to change the frequency band on my pixel to set up a smart light. I have walked to the far ends of my property to try and force the move to 2.4 but it stays on Freq 5 and the drops back to mobile data. 

Surely this should be easier? I am on a fully google platform? Make life easy for me people! 

[David_K]

Nest Wifi doesn't have a feature to do that and neither do Pixel phones unfortunately. Some smart devices have an option to do setup using a Wifi network generated by the smart device itself. It might be worth checking if that's an option for you if simply moving your phone and the smart device further away from the router isn't working to force it to use 2.4 GHz?

[Pennyfloggins]

Hi there and thanks for the reply. This is a light bulb so whilst it's a 'smart' light bulb it's not that smart I don't think. 

That's incredibly frustrating. Do you have any idea what my options are here? If I change the router out I will lose the connection when I go back to the mesh I would say? 

Surely with all of Google's infinite wisdom this could be resolved?! 

[David_K]

If you can't get the device and your phone to be connected to the 2.4 GHz band at the same time, you have 3 options:

1. Find a better smart device that doesn't require 2.4 GHz for setup
2. Use a different Android device for setup that has a setting to force connect to the 2.4 GHz band
3. Use a Wifi router that has a setting to enable different network names for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands

The only other option I can think of would be to try using a Wifi hotspot. You would need 2 devices to set this up though. 

1. Turn on the Wifi hotspot feature on a phone or tablet. If you're not sure how to do this, refer to the manufacturer's support website.
2. Connect a second phone or tablet to that Wifi hotspot.
3. You can then use that second phone or tablet to setup your device and connect it to the Wifi hotspot on the first phone or tablet.

This would at least get it connected to Wifi so you can see if it has any options in the manufacturer's app to then change the Wifi network its connected to etc.

[MichaelP]

In addition to these excellent suggestions, I have one more twist on the "walk far away" approach: disable WiFi on your phone entirely for a minute after having walked away. Android phones in particular have a tendency to "stick" to what's working rather than switching, so by turning off WiFi while you're out of useful 5GHz range, the phone may pick 2.4GHz to start with when you turn WiFi back on. You may have to experiment with the distance to get it to work. All of that said, option #1 is the best – I have plenty of 2.4GHz-only smart plugs and smart switches that I had no issue setting up from a phone on 5GHz. Companies that continue to produce products that don't work properly in a modern dual-band WiFi network need to get the message.

[Pennyfloggins]

Thanks for the solutions so far! I think disconnecting and reconnecting wifi at end of the yard might be the ticket. I will check it out tomorrow and report back!