iPhone wont connect to 2.4Ghz on router, only 5Ghz?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Fife, Scotland
Hi,

Recently, I cannot get my iPhone 12 Pro Max to connect to my Now Broadband hub 2 on 2.4Ghz. It will connect to the 5Ghz connection fine. If I try connecting to the 2.4Ghz with the iPhone it just sits and tries to connect, but never does.

The reason I want to connect to the 2.4Ghz on the router is that I am having a Tado smart thermostat installed tomorrow and from what I've read, the phone app to control it only works on a 2.4Ghz connection. We have a Smart washing machine which also only works on 2.4Ghz.

I can't recall for sure but I think my iPhone used to connect fine on 2.4Ghz, so I've no idea why its not playing ball now? I've tried restarting the router and resetting my iPhone network connections which results in it connecting eventually to 2.4Ghz, but after about 5 mins it drops off and the '5G' symbol appears back on the phone then it refuses to connect to 2.4Ghz again.

Any ideas? It all seems very puzzling!!
 
Draeger said:
The reason I want to connect to the 2.4Ghz on the router is that I am having a Tado smart thermostat installed tomorrow and from what I've read, the phone app to control it only works on a 2.4Ghz connection.
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Unless your 2.4Ghz network is isolated from the rest of your network, it shouldn't matter which band your iPhone is on - devices should be able to talk to each other regardless of band, as they go via the router.

Are your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks on the same SSID or separate?
 
Armageus said:
Unless your 2.4Ghz network is isolated from the rest of your network, it shouldn't matter which band your iPhone is on - devices should be able to talk to each other regardless of band, as they go via the router.

Are your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks on the same SSID or separate?
Click to expand...

Hi, I believe they are separate - When I first got the router I unchecked the 'Synchronise 2.4GHz and 5GHz Settings' and called one 5 and the other 2.4. They both show up in the iPhones wifi networks.
 
Draeger said:
Hi, I believe they are separate - When I first got the router I unchecked the 'Synchronise 2.4GHz and 5GHz Settings' and called one 5 and the other 2.4. They both show up in the iPhones wifi networks.
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Even with different SSIDs they still should be under one network, so the iPhone being on 5GHz should be able to access devices on 2.4GHz just fine.

Shouldn't be the case especially considering the iPhone can see the 2.4GHz WiFi, but maybe try fix the channel (1, 6 or 11), change channel width to 20Hz and see if that works.
 
just a shot in the dark, can you check if both the 2.4ghz and 5ghz are both on WPA 2 personal, I had a issue recently with my Mrs iphone 14 pro max where it was doing the same as yours, ive got the 5ghz on WPA2/3 and the 2.4ghz on WPA 2, with the 2.4ghz on mixed 2 and 3 it wouldnt connect......go figure, I had to force it to 2, yet her phone will also connect to the 5ghz fine on 2/3 mixed, its only the 2.4ghz that plays up.

This is how the router setting looks now:

THxPtUl.jpg
 
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Thanks guys, I'll try some of your suggestions and report back. From memory, I think the 2.4 was on channel 1. I did try rebooting the router, but haven't tried a full reset as yet.
 
Funnily enough I had an issue where my Fire Tablet which I hadn't touched in a while would only connect to one of my 5Ghz APs last night. Eventually I figured out that it's because it just won't "see" any networks on certain channels. I think in this case it specifically just didn't like any of the DFS channels. Which I found curious because usually its on the router/AP end where you often can't select DFS channels if the device is from or has a certain region selected, not on the connecting device's end.

In the case of 2.4ghz 12 and 13 channels are ones that sometimes can't be used on a router since I think the US have rules around it(might be wrong on that), so I'd maybe double check if the channel is on either of those and make sure a similar weird thing isn't happening where the iphone just won't see the network because it wasn't designed to expect those channels to be used.
 
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Jamin280672 said:
just a shot in the dark, can you check if both the 2.4ghz and 5ghz are both on WPA 2 personal, I had a issue recently with my Mrs iphone 14 pro max where it was doing the same as yours, ive got the 5ghz on WPA2/3 and the 2.4ghz on WPA 2, with the 2.4ghz on mixed 2 and 3 it wouldnt connect......go figure, I had to force it to 2, yet her phone will also connect to the 5ghz fine on 2/3 mixed, its only the 2.4ghz that plays up.

This is how the router setting looks now:

THxPtUl.jpg
Click to expand...
They are both on WPA2-PSK (AES).

Pooh said:
Any joy ?
Click to expand...

Not really, unfortunately. After I reboot the phone and router, it's managed to connect to the 2.4Ghz a couple of isloated times (although it takes ages to do so) but within about 20 mins or so, its dropped connection and refuses to re-connect.
 
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Okay, so all of a sudden, I seem to have cracked it and got it working. I changed the security settings to WPA/WPA2-PSK (Mixed Mode) on both the 2.4 and 5GHz settings.

To me, within my settings it also looks like although the 5 and 2.4 GHz bands were available, they were both sharing the same SSID. So I ensured that they were not synchronised and then gave them both individual SSID's. Went into network settings on the iphone, my ipads and also my laptops and 'forgot' the old/previous connections/SSID's.

Lo and behold, it now connects instantly to the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz.

Would it simply be the case that giving the two bands different SSID names has done the trick? The only thing I do notice is now in the iPhone and iPad network settings it is saying 'Weak Security'? :confused:
 
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Draeger said:
Okay, so all of a sudden, I seem to have cracked it and got it working. I changed the security settings to WPA/WPA2-PSK (Mixed Mode) on both the 2.4 and 5GHz settings.

To me, within my settings it also looks like although the 5 and 2.4 GHz bands were available, they were both sharing the same SSID. So I ensured that they were not synchronised and then gave them both individual SSID's. Went into network settings on the iphone, my ipads and also my laptops and 'forgot' the old/previous connections/SSID's.

Lo and behold, it now connects instantly to the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz.

Would it simply be the case that giving the two bands different SSID names has done the trick? The only thing I do notice is now in the iPhone and iPad network settings it is saying 'Weak Security'? :confused:
Click to expand...

I think because now you have given the devices the choice to use WPA or WPA2 is why it is working, the low security warning is probably because they are using the WPA side of it rather than the WPA2 which is more secure and WPA3 being even more secure.

Are your iphones / iPads upto date ? 17.1.1 is the latest
 
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