2019 MacbookPro 16" Slow Wifi Transmit Rates

[DaveXX]

I received a call from the Apple support rep I've been working with and supposedly the engineers have been unable to replicate the problem. They wanted to do more logging on my devices and I said no. I give up. I'll just keep this feature turned off since faster wifi is more important to me than the watch unlock option. Plus, I don't have anymore time to waste with the support team.

I want to see one damn test with an apple watch and a ****ing apple engineer who don't have this problem.

I have even a offical letter that this was even reproducable in the offical apple store with his own wifi.

This "i cannot reproduce it" is ********. They just want to annoy you until you give up thats all... I never saw a working setup with watch unlock and it doesn't matter if you have series 3, 4 or 6 with MBP 13, 15 or 16....

You really think that an apple engineer cannot reproduce it? It's a fraud nothing else. They have to bring a solution and they have to solve it but they don't by playing dumb... unfortenately this problem has not the attention it should be because most of the consumer don't know that the problem is not related to their own wifi...

 

[stevenandrew69]

Apple engineering is a f**** joke. Had the same problem since 2019 and yes disabling "Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac" solves the problem. Tried it 10 times already and 10 times out of 10 the transmission rates drop from 1000, 866 to 16, 24 etc.

 

[gussic]

I am also getting this on my 16 inch MacBook Pro, I troubleshooted for ages thinking it was an issue with my WiFi lol.

Annoying that you have to turn off the unlock feature, because in my experience it was very useful. Undecided about if I will report it to Apple or not. Part of me says I should given the money spent on this thing, but hmm

 

[DaveXX]

I think the worst thing is how apple ignore problems like this. I tested that with MBP 13, 15 and now 16 and with different generations of the Apple Watch including the newest its always the same.
The biggest problem with apple is if you create a ticket you don't know what happens. if they just ignore it, **** on it, or whatever they do .... its a secret... and you will never get any feedback.

 

[gussic]

I don't get the slow down to 27mbit transfer speed that some have been noticing here, but i have been getting substantial slow downs - my normal wifi speeds are about 500-600 mbit per second, with Apple Watch Unlock on that goes down to 150 - 200. The moment i turn it off it goes back up to 500-600

 

[DaveXX]

I don't get the slow down to 27mbit transfer speed that some have been noticing here, but i have been getting substantial slow downs - my normal wifi speeds are about 500-600 mbit per second, with Apple Watch Unlock on that goes down to 150 - 200. The moment i turn it off it goes back up to 500-600

It's a difference between the TX Rate and the actual rate... i have exactly the same behaviour with the current OS. I have a 1Gbit connection and it will slow down from 600 to 150 but additionally everything seems to be slower e.g. open a youtube video (it can even buffer). The Problem will not occur immediately after activating apple watch unlock - sometimes its 30 Minutes sometimes a few hours. So this make it very hard to demonstrate it in a genius bar.

Usually if the problem occurs the tx rate shows weird numbers like 17 or 27 (just press option and click on wifi symbol).... (in the screenshots there are just some seconds between - same wifi, same signal)

 

[gussic]

Thank you, I've been able to reproduce similar results to what you post above.

 

[markjericho]

Since I've updated my watch and MacBook Pro to the latest version, knock on wood my wifi speed problems appear to have been fixed. It's been a few days now and they are still at full throttle. Has anyone else noticed an improvement?

 

[DaveXX]

Since I've updated my watch and MacBook Pro to the latest version, knock on wood my wifi speed problems appear to have been fixed. It's been a few days now and they are still at full throttle. Has anyone else noticed an improvement?

I will give it a try with latest MBP 16 and Series 6 with latest versions. Will report back if there is any improvement.

 

[Bluestraw]

Since I've updated my watch and MacBook Pro to the latest version, knock on wood my wifi speed problems appear to have been fixed. It's been a few days now and they are still at full throttle. Has anyone else noticed an improvement?

Thanks for the hint - I've tried this today with my MBP on the latest OS and after several locks / unlocks all is good! iOS isn't on the latest so seems that Big Sur 11.3 must (finally) contain the fix

 

[gussic]

I have found that whilst it isn't dropping the speeds down as bad as it was before, it does have a hit to WiFi speeds. Without unlock with Apple Watch on I get 600 – 650 Mbps from my WiFi 5 connection at home. With it turned on, this drops to 450 – 490 Mbps. I think that's a tradeoff I'm happier to make, but annoying it isn't better.

 

[evil_yoda]

I'm on the latest Big Sur 11.3 on my MacBook Pro 16 and I'm still seeing TX issues with my Apple Watch series 3 when unlock is turned on.
Has anyone seen any WiFi improvements with the AW3, or is everyone seeing better speeds using a newer watch?

 

[Bluestraw]

Mine's a series 5 and it seems to be working ok...

 

[NeoVg]

News from me! The bug now seems fixed for me (Mac mini 2018) _and_ Bluetooth works _much_ better now.

For quite a while I had Wifi completely disabled, as my Magic Mouse and Keyboard disconnected very often when it was enabled and also all Bluetooth headphones (besides the AirPods Pro for some reason) had lots of audio stuttering. Since Wifi was bugged anyway (the famous 14 / 27 Mbit TX Rate), I didn't really miss it.

After upgrading macOS to 11.3 the Bluetooth issues came back and I noticed that the update enabled Wifi, so I disabled it again and the problems went away.

Some days later, I had to check something in my router's settings and just for fun changed the Wifi channels to the highest available ones, which are also happen to be the least congested here (channel 13 and 128). For even more fun, I re-enabled Wifi and also Unlock With Apple Watch and behold - now everything is working as intended. No slow Wifi for days, Unlock With Apple Watch is working, no Bluetooth disconnects and all headphones are usable again, even through an additional wall. It's like magic!

 

[DaveXX]

It's defintely better. I have a much more stable wifi and watch unlock will not make it unusable anymore...
It's crazy after so many years they finally could fix it? Was it so difficult or they didn't care before?

 

[NeoVg]

Update:

I've reported in May that the problem disappeared for me after I changed my routers Wifi channels (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...low-wifi-transmit-rates.2220783/post-29864647). It did work in fact, but after a few days, my Bluetooth problems came back and I had to disable Wifi again.

Fast forward: About two weeks ago I upgraded to macOS Monterey Beta, what - again - re-enabled Wifi without asking me. Just for fun I didn't disable it right away and behold: It's still working. No "slow Tx rate" bug (that one is gone since May) and no Bluetooth stuttering or disconnects for far. I hope it will stay like that, at least until a new Mac mini is released. Nope, Bluetooth disconnects again. I'm so sick of this...