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Beck38's avatar
Beck38
Roku Guru
2 years ago

Any way to set wifi priority

8 years in with roku, but ran into this problem recently, where I need to set priority on wifi connections to a new ultra (model 4802x).  The unit is in a back bedroom, and the 2.4ghz wifi off the home hot spot works but is closer to the 'edge' (20mb/s and signal strength) than a new dual band repeater (5ghz, a bit better signal and 60mb/s) but will occasionally for whatever reason 'switch' to the 2.4 and then will start occasional buffering.  Doesn't appear to want to switch back, even if maybe the signal on 5ghz dips for whatever and comes right back up.  

So why doesn't the software allow some kind of priority system, whether device would be forced to look at a preferred connection if it switched for whatever reason every few seconds to switch back.  Seems obvious to me.  Maybe a door got closed causing the 5ghz to drop a bit, the unit switched to 2.4, then the door reopend bringing the 5 way back up, much better.  From what I see, it never switches back to the 5.  Again, maybe needs some human setting to kick it.  Priority.  

Just thinking.  Maybe the code is there to switch back, but I dont see it working.  The human has to manually 'kick' the unit back to the better setting.  

Think about it.

tv & player wifi

4 Replies

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  • Strega2's avatar
    Strega2
    Roku Guru
    2 years ago

    You might want to give the bands their own SSIDs. Then you could put each device where it works best.

    • Beck38's avatar
      Beck38
      Roku Guru
      2 years ago

      And exactly how would that set a priority for the unit? The 5ghz works by far the best, but as I explained, due to the RF level being changed due to things like someone walking down a hallway (temporarily blocking the higher frequency), a bedroom door being closed (same blockage) or whatever.  I could simply delete the 2.4 wifi setting, then when the temporary flip to it wouldn't work.  I just want it to change back to the setting with lots more throughput the next 10-20 seconds later.  I find it hard to understand that there isnt a priority setting that will switch the reception back to the ssid/frequency/throughput that is the best.  Interestingly enough, the tp-link repeater I'm using does exactly that, if one frequency dips for a second it streams the data from the other for that second until the other picks back up; I just dont dont see that happening in the roku, it gets 'stuck' on the other (lower working) link and doesn't appear to switch back when the blockage goes away.

      • HDMIGuy's avatar
        HDMIGuy
        Roku Guru
        2 years ago

        Can you give the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz bands different names (SSID).  Then just connect the Roku device to the 5 GHz band.  If the 2.4 GHz had a different name it would not connect when losing signal from the 5 GHz band.