Using my iPad as a second display on Nest WiFi Pro (6E) greatly reduces my internet speeds

[logdun]

Hey all,

I am using Nest WiFi Pro (6E) on the latest firmware available.

When I connect my iPad Pro to my Mac (OS Ventura 13.3.1) using Sidecar, I drop from speeds near 200-300 mbs down to 15-20 mbs. I confirmed that this only happens when connected to this display here are the steps to check and reproduce:

1. I plugged in the computer via ethernet and got >900mbs (WiFi off)
2. Removed the ethernet adapter and connected to WiFi and got ~300mbs (a normal drop for me when connecting over WiFi)
3. Connected my iPad Pro as a second display and ran the same speed test and got 10-20mbs

Has anyone else had this same thing occur? Any ideas for how to fix it?

I haven't seen any other articles about this in the forums, so sorry if this is a duplicate thread.

Thanks!

[MichaelP · Accepted solution]

Hello @logdun 

After doing a little research on this, it looks like this is a relatively common behavior when using Sidecar over WiFi in general. Apparently, it uses a direct peer-to-peer WiFi network between the Mac and the iPad, which means the Mac WiFi hardware has to switch back and forth between that connection and your WiFi internet connection, which reduces WiFi performance rather significantly. It looks like you may be able to use Sidecar via a USB-C cable connection, which would avoid the P2P WiFi connection. You could also keep your Mac connected to the internet via Ethernet, leaving the WiFi hardware dedicated to Sidecar. But, I don't see a way to make it use WiFi for both functions at high performance. Just to be clear, this does not appear to be a Google/Nest WiFi specific issue. I hope this helps!

[logdun]

Yes, thank you! I was suspecting as much, but this gives me the reasons behind why it is this way. I will let my team know.

[Jeff]

Hey logdun,

It looks like MichaelP was able to provide a good explanation on things here, but I wanted to check in and follow up to see if you had any other questions or anything more I could help with. If there's more you need, just let me know.

Thanks,
Jeff

[AbigailF]

Hi folks,

Chiming in to see if you still need assistance with this. Let us know if you have additional questions ― we'd love to help.
Appreciate you lending a hand, @Jeff.

Best,
Abi

[AbigailF]

Hey everyone,

We haven't heard from you in a while so we'll be locking this thread if there is no update within 24 hours. If you have any new issues, updates or just a discussion topic, feel free to start a new thread in the Community.

Regards, 
Abi