Forcing 5Ghz instead of 2.4Ghz

Hi guys,
fast and maybe interesting question. In my house I have a router with band steering activated ( 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz with the same SSID ), and I want to force the rpi with volumio to access the 5ghz net instead of 2.4ghz. I had no luck on doing this modifying the wpasupplicant file. Any advice?

Hi Ferorake,
I’m not positive on responding to your specific issue, but I just setup Volumio on my RPI 4 and only see 2.4GHz SSIDs… This doesn’t happen with other OSs on the RPI.

Maybe difficulties with the 5GHz band are more intrinsic to the API.

on the 3.xx version also problems…

Like Ferorake, I have 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on the same SSID, and I want to force connection to 5Ghz. My RPi4 with Volumio does sometimes connect on 5Ghz after restart, but 90% of the time it will connect on 2.4Ghz. If I power off and restart the RPi, sometimes it will switch to 5Ghz after a few tries, but more often it stays on 2.4Ghz and I give up after retrying too many times. The router is 12 feet away, line of sight in the same room (very strong signal and high speed on other devices).

a primo at 5GHz?
Would Love it

You need to separate the SSID in your router.
Create a name for the 2.4GHz and a different name for the 5GHz. Then set up volumio with only access to the 5GHz SSID.

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Yup, different SSID is the only way as of now, last time I checked the network discovery code, it made no effort in trying to identify if it’s 5ghz or 2.4ghz network, instead it just compares the SSID of different networks.

Anyway it’s always good to have different SSID for the networks, since volumio is not the only system that behaves like this.(ie. Older chromest devices gets confused really badly)

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the new version of Primo presented at the High-End Fain in Munich does support WiFi at 5GHz

Maybe I’m too stupid. The Fritzbox transmits on 2.4 and 5 GHz. Both have always had different names. But the VOLUMIO PRIMO refuses the 5 Ghz, I don’t even know where it can be changed. :nerd_face:

This is what I did to fix the network:

First I renamed my 2.4G SSID to NAME2, keeping the 5G as NAME.

Then I created a file in /boot using

sudo nano /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf

In that file I put:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=[your country code - 2 letters, caps, mine is NL for Netherlands]

network={
ssid="your 5G or 2.4G SSID"
psk="your wifi password"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Then save the file and reboot. Remember the quote marks for ssid (wifi name) and psk (password).

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:wink: that’s why I only use Macs and iPhone. Thanks anyway, I think I’ll sleep on it and open a bottle of wine first :clinking_glasses:

and with wine :wine_glass: you mean beer :beer:

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I think success also comes with beer

Hmmmmm. After reading what Darmur said above about the new version of Primo supports 5GHz, which also suggests that the older one doesn’t.
Ive just checked the specs for the Primo and it only supports WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
For 5Ghz you need 802.11 b/g/n/ac. ac meaning WiFi 5

WiFi standards explained

So separating the SSID’s or even modding the config file wont have any effect if it cant connect to 5Ghz in the first place.

the odd thing is that something different is stated everywhere. Here is an article from the CHIP a computer magazine. It says “n” works on 2.4 and 5Ghz :rofl:

I own a PRIMO
I have two network 2.4 and 5GHz
PRIMO see only 2.4 GHz…

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Yapp, like mine.
On good days it shows 150mbit, but always only 2.4Ghz band

The thing is, even with 5ghz capable hardware like rpi4, volumio will only show another one of the networks either 2.4ghz or 5ghz depending on which it happens to find first, that is when the SSID is same for both networks.

@Darmur @volumio
What i said above should be fixed, before the primo launches to avoid unnecessary support emails, because many people use the same SSID for both networks and to make it worse some modems/routers comes configured like that out of box.

two diifferent SSID in my case

We have read that. Nevertheless, a simple changeover without SUDO commands does not seem to be possible. Basically bad, at least for PRIMO customers who decided not to tinker and pay a little more.

And as you can read WE DO USE differnt WLAN names. :sneezing_face:

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