Roku Developer Program

[joetesta]

i have a wifi router at my desk.  i'm able to connect to the wifi with Roku Premiere and my laptop no problem.  I've tried over and over from Roku Express and for some reason it will not connect to this particular wifi.  The first check mark (your wireless network) always displays a red X after a few seconds.  It's able to connect to another wifi (which I do not have access to the router to admin) but the one at my desk I do have access to.  I rebooted the wifi router, rebooted the roku, checked that wifi is enabled, saw that one of my colleagues can connect their Roku Premiere to my wifi from much further away.

Why would Roku Express be unable to connect to my wifi?  Help!

Imagine if I were an end user with only one network and this was my first Roku purchase!   Horrible experience - does not work at all!

[EnTerr]

what are the settings on said WiFi?
open/WEP/WPA/WPA2, frequency, which channel etc... gory details?
sounds silly but can't exclude the player having bad attitude to some of it

[joetesta]

"EnTerr" wrote:
what are the settings on said WiFi?
open/WEP/WPA/WPA2, frequency, which channel etc... gory details?
sounds silly but can't exclude the player having bad attitude to some of it

Thanks EnTerr - I'm sure it must be something like that (player has bad attitude to a particular setting) since it can connect to another wifi.  And other Rokus can connect to this wifi.  Bizarre.  Now I need to go back onto that network to look.  Gimme a minute now that I set up everything on the wifi this Express was able to connect to (which I do not have access to see the settings).

[joetesta]

I found there are different SSIDs for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.  Everything else is connecting to the 5 GHz just fine.  This Roku Express was able to connect to the 2.4 GHz SSID only, never the 5 GHz.
Does Roku Express + not support 5GHz wifi?  Might have been useful to note that on the box or somewhere...!

For reference, these are the wifi settings:

5GHz 11a/n/ac mixed 
Channel Auto

2.4 GHz 11bgn mixed
Channel width Auto
Channel Auto

Security WPA/WPA2 - Personal
Version Automatic
Encryption AES

[joetesta]

Well turns out this is by design; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku
Express and Express + support only b/g/n
whereas Premiere and Premiere + support a/b/g/n/ac dual-band
I wonder how end users figure this out.

[RokuMarkn]

Well, they could look at the specs on the product page:
https://www.roku.com/products/roku-express

I don't know what the retail box looks like -- it doesn't list the network specs on the box?

--Mark

[joetesta]

No the box I have says "What you need" - "Wireless Router".  No mention that it has to be a certain kind of wireless router.  There's also nothing about this in the "Let's get started!" pamphlet included in the box.

[EnTerr]

Or as i remember RokuMarkn saying :twisted:, "sometimes Wikipedia has it right"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku#Feature_comparison
The Espressos apparently are 2.4GHz only (reminder, 802.11n does not necessitate 5GHz band).

PS. no, wait - the quote was even better

[Neitzsche_Pizza]

Goddamn, this sucks. I had to find this thread in the forums just to figure out why I couldn't connect to the 5ghz network. They know damn well they should've put only supports 2.4ghz on the Express box. Bad show, Roku, bad show.

[RokuNB]

"Neitzsche_Pizza" wrote:
Goddamn, this sucks. I had to find this thread in the forums just to figure out why I couldn't connect to the 5ghz network. They know flower well they should've put only supports 2.4ghz on the Express box. Bad show, Roku, bad show.

Conversely, whoever configured the WiFi should have known full-well to leave it working on 2.4GHz as well as on 5GHz - or split them under two different SSIDs. 2.4GHz has better coverage (more penetrating and "bends" better around obstacles), while 5GHz is shorter distance but less crowded (no interference).