iPhone on Wi-Fi, but showed using 5G

[Morac]

I was in my basement, which is a ways from my router so I only get 2 bars of Wi-Fi (5 GHz) and my iPhone (16.1) kept appearing to disconnect and reconnect from my Wi-Fi.

I’ve read this is an issue with iOS 16.1, but what’s weird is while my iPhone said it was using 5G, I was able to connect to my router’s webpage in Safari using its local ip address. The only way that would work is if the iPhone was on Wi-Fi even though it said it wasn’t. Not only that the router showed the iPhone had been connected to Wi-Fi for over an hour and was still connected.

Basically the iPhone showed it was on 5G, but was connected to Wi-Fi. When I left the basement it showed the Wi-Fi symbol reliably. I suppose this could be Wi-Fi assist, but I’ve never seen that kick in in my basement or in all apps. Is this something new in iOS 16.1 and is it a feature or bug?

 

[Samdh90]

Hi Bud,

Your phone was probably utilizing Wifi Assist. What is said is that the phone will use cellular data when wifi signal is low. Probably the wifi signal was strong enough to still reach the admin page though;

About Wi-Fi Assist - Apple Support

With iOS 9 and later, you can use Wi-Fi Assist to automatically switch to cellular when you have a poor Wi-Fi connection.

support.apple.com

 

[Morac]

Except Wi-Fi assist is only supposed to activate for short bursts of data for Apple apps. I don’t recall seeing the Wi-Fi symbol disappear when it occurs.

 

[sbcdk]

During half my facetime calls at home, the phone shows 4G/5G, even though I am within 5 meters of my router. The moment I hang up, it shows wifi instead.
No idea what is going on. There is a plethora of bugs on iPhone these days, so I just try to ignore it…

edit: specified facetime calls

 

[Samdh90]

Except Wi-Fi assist is only supposed to activate for short bursts of data for Apple apps. I don’t recall seeing the Wi-Fi symbol disappear when it occurs.

Understood but it could be something either new with behavior, or a bug. As @sbcdk stated, might just be a bug in general. Hard to say. One thing is for sure though is that you would not have been able to load your router's config page if you had absolutely no wireless connection short of an internal VPN.