I’ve done some investigation.
The official concencus is that 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz should have different network names if you want to guarantee a connection on a specific frquency.
If the signal for 5Ghz is lower, then the connection will be swapped over to
the 2.4Ghz band. In the UK, I believe all ISPs create separate networks for 2.4Ghz
and 5Ghz networks as per recommendations.
We only enabled band steering in a recent OSMC update. This
was done with a ConnMan update. It would be interesting to see if
this has changed behaviour.
I would also be interested in being able to selectively connect to a 5GHz variant of a network. Is there any progress on that feature?
If you name your 2.5G and 5G networks differently then you can select them in MyOSMC->networking. If you want to prefer 5G, I find disconnecting from 2.5G and selecting ‘disconnect and forget’ does that.
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Yeah I know that. I hoped that I could get around changing all of my 2.4Ghz-only devices when I rename the networks.
There was this offer to add a feature that allows to configure OSMC s.t. it always prefers 5GHz even if the signal strength is lower. I was just curious if there is any progress on that. Some CLI-based method is also fine.
I think you can do it by modifying wpa_supplicant.conf.
Since I also wanted to connect my Vero 4k to 5ghz wifi, I made this test.
Split the wifi into one 2.4ghz AP with the old name so I didn’t have to re-connect every other device I have in the house, and another 5ghz only AP with -5 suffix.
Made the Vero forget the old AP and connected it to the 5ghz AP, flawless.
Did the same with my PC and it shows 5ghz and AC protocol. I don’t know where the OP got the idea that splitting the APs would make the 5Ghz become limited to N protocol…
Yes, wpa_supplicant.conf is the right direction. I suppose I could place a config file in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and modify /lib/systemd/system/wpa_supplicant.service s.t. it will be read – but I dont know how wpa_supplicant is used right now and if the config file will be respected. Also, I do not want to mess with the system more than necessary.
Does anybody know more about this?
Unfortunately I don’t know a lot about this.
I think if you take a backup of the systemd unit you’re fine; you should also use a systemd drop-in; so it is not overridden with updates. There’s some info on that here: systemd.unit
Sam
I looked into this quite a while back and found that using a config file didn’t seem to work and would probably break connman. This is because the wpa_supplicant service starts using the -u flag, which means it’s using a dbus control interface.
A quick check indicates that connman seems to be controlling wpa_supplicant via dbus:
sudo busctl monitor fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1
then in another session:
connmanctl enable wifi or connmanctl disable wifi
Of course YMMV, and if anyone manages to get the config file and connman working together, please tell us.
I think it can work together.
IIRC, the advice came from ConnMan mailing list.
Perhaps they can work together. What advice was that (ie do you have a link)?
Hm, perhaps the opposite: [wifi] Selecting band frequency
Eventually we’ll move to iwd.
Not sure how the state of things are there yet.
Sam
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Same SSID in 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands require Band Steering in AccessPoint/Router to work properly (useful info). Called «Smart Connect» in ASUS routers.