Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New iPad Pro Includes Special Mode to Turn Off Wi-Fi 6E
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I assume via different WiFi access points? As a WiFi 6E device can’t be certified in that configuration.
Obviously, the WiFi 6E restrictions can’t be enforced if your SSID split across different devices…
I agree to a degree. But I didn't say the 5G band is empty, I said that some radio environments have an extremely congested 2.4 Ghz band. And high bandwidth applications such as 4K video or IP video/phone calls may suffer severely on the 2.4 GHz band. Your radio environment is different from mine, but I suggest if you haven't already to use Wifi Explorer to scan your wifi radio environment to get a visual depiction of the SSIDs around you. The results can be illuminating. In the example I gave, there were 30+ SSIDs in the 2.4 GHz spectrum and only about 10 in the 5G spectrum.
Another thing to consider is that the 2.4 GHz spectrum has smaller channel bandwidths (20 MHz for the most part) and only a few select channels for WiFi radio activity. Additionally, 2.4 GHz wifi radios transmit at a higher power and the signals propagate walls more effectively than 5G. Thus, there is not only less separation between channels, there were far more 2.4 GHz SSIDs and clients, stronger signals from neighbors, and thus more interference. High bandwidth applications suffered severely. This is recent experience, so not "antiquated" as you state.
On the 5G band, there are much more channels, including DFS channels, and the channels can have much higher bandwidth than on the 2.4 GHz spectrum. Interference is still a concern yes, but my real world experience is that high bandwidth applications worked extremely well on 5G vs 2.4 GHz in my experience. Also, if you can operate a SSID on a 5G DFS channel without radar interference, you can have a clean channel to yourself, as most of the other routers tend to roam on either the low (36-48) band or the high (149-165) band. But if you live near an airport or weather radar, radar interference on DFS channels will be a PITA.
Roaming is a client decision. The router can help facilitate roaming when there is a mesh network (e.g., by disconnecting a client when RSSI drops below a certain dBm threshold and steering it to a different node) but if there is no mesh, it is the client decision to roam or not. And many clients roam to the 2.4 GHz band and stay there. It is not the fault of the router. Asus routers have a smart connect feature that is supposed to use one SSID for all bands and help facilitate roaming and migrating clients to the 'best' band. But if you look at forums online, you will see that many people have had a bad experience with this feature and have turned it off.
I clearly said "in my experience." It's not about scaring, it's about sharing. It's not about my idea being best or yours being best. There's room my position and for yours. Some people may have terrible network experience, and blame their ISP, when the problem is not the ISP's wire into the house, but rather with having one SSID and most of the wifi clients (including the ones that need high bandwidth) hanging out on the 2.4 GHz band. This is exactly what happened to my wife. If you only use one SSID, have you ever even checked your router to see which band the clients are on? Have you ever tried to optimize your network by splitting it up into chunks, 2.4 Ghz for some clients, and 5 GHz for others? Having separate SSIDs and manually planning the network solved all of my wife's laggy latency network problems.
Really disappointed is all. They were better off not releasing anything rather than screwing and devaluing everyone's m1 by releasing a pointless product
So I have the nighthawk try-band router and had separate names for 2.4, 5 and 6ghz bands. For some reason my M2 iPad was not seeing the 6ghz band, so I renamed the 2.4 ghz band and the 6ghz band to the same name. Now the iPad will connect to 6ghz (I can tell because of the speed) and I also saw the setting in the screenshot below in the wifi settings on that ssid. So apparently, the iPad is connecting to 6ghz automatically when available.
Attachments
This isn't planning for one Apple device - it's planning for every device and my advice holds true.
One SSID has worked perfectly for me and everyone I know for well over a decade now. Cheap 2.4ghz wifi sockets have no problem connecting to the 2.4ghz bit.
It helps if you're using decent AP's as well - i'm using only UniFi stuff for a very few number of clients (compared to their enterprise design) and all have their own channels that don't overlap.
The only device in the entire system which has issues is the Apple Watch and making separate networks for that isn't going to help.
6E is also designed to be a top player to 5ghz, not it's own SSID - hence Apple's recommendation. With a decent AP you can set minimum RSSI for each band, you can enable band steering and more - all this needs to be under one SSID or "Most of them will roam to the 2.4 GHz channel and stay there ad infinitum" (ironically as you said) WILL happen with seperate SSID's as a device will only move SSID if it loses signal even if the 5ghz is now over powering the 2.4ghz, if it sees the 2.4ghz first as it approaches your house and signal stays strong it'll never change to the better network - and it's best not to make phones use one or the other spectrum, they're design to use both and in the future they'll be designed to use all 3 and pick which gives the best signal strength/speed in the area it's in.
It's also best to hard wire everything you can anyway - and not use the routers that come free with the ISP unless you're a very casual user.
Of course it is - but if you're going to refuse to use a single SSID like you should, you should at least put the 5hhz and 6ghz bands on the same SSID and not the 2.4ghz and 6ghz together!
Why is there always someone every time we have faster wired or wireless connections saying "what's the point of this".
1gbit wired clients might max out at 940mbit, but MANY of us are on 2.5gbps and 10gbit connections. UniFi 6e Enterprise device has a 2.5gbps port to connect to a 2.5gbps switch. This is going to enable, eventually, wireless devices which can finally reach and surpass 1gbit connections. Which when you're able to move files around your network at 10gbit speeds is going to still feel very slow!
I really did like Airport routers but now that I've been forced to look elsewhere I won't go back.
Same with the Cinema Display. They took so long to update it I can't be bothered with their offering now.
Agree to disagree on the one vs multiple SSIDs position, and move on. Best wishes!
No, not really, not if your 5 and 2.4GHz have the same SSID. iOS and MacOS take into consideration the predicted/estimated datarate, which is a product of RSSI + noise + channel bandwidth + protocol level. 5GHz tends to have lower RSSI, but also lower noise, wider channel bandwidth and more recent WiFI versions.
M2 iPad Pro 12.9” on eero 6e network with 1Gb connection on 6GHz.
So what are you using nowadays? Apple only offers Linksys in their store. I’m most concerned with privacy these days, so I wonder if they keep other brands out because of their privacy policies.
I can't use a single SSID with Apple products cuz they default to 2.4ghz slowskee! Why is my video lagging.. OH, I'm on the slowest freaking protocol. WHY? I have 5ghz and 6ghz, so why are Apple products constantly on the wrong band? ATV use 2.4, why? It lags and can't stream on 35mb. Go to my iPad 11inch 2nd gen and blam also on slow band. Same with MacBooks. So to fix this I have to split my SSIDs up and put the Apple devices on the correct band they should be using. I call this wrong band lock. Once the device goes to the slow band it never lets go. If the slow band lock issue with Apple is not fixed I don't see this 6ghz "feature" being worth a 💩!
Don't say it is my settings I have AMplifi Alien and I don't fux with the settings it's out of box and Apple products function this way. I was AirPort Extreme purist as well and still same issue with the Extremes. Apple OS' have a "gets stuck on lower band" problem.
Don't say it is my settings I have AMplifi Alien and I don't fux with the settings it's out of box and Apple products function this way. I was AirPort Extreme purist as well and still same issue with the Extremes. Apple OS' have a "gets stuck on lower band" problem.
Last edited:
I use the Asus GT-AXE11000. The config web page shows what band is being used by my devices and the vast majority go on the 5GHz band with a unified SSID. I've seen my devices roam, occasionally going on the 2.4GHz band and then later migrating back to 5GHz, which is where they tend to stay.
Oh gosh, a Kuo rumor. So it'll be right about 1% of the time. Throw enough claims out there and some are bound to come true.
I have an iPhone 13 (iOS 16.1) and a 16" MBP from 2020 and both connect to my 5GHz signal through several walls and a floor. WiFi is very location specific.
If you're not checking your WAP settings, then you're refusing to check the issue. Apple doesn't (seem to) have a problem, considering it works here.
Eventually I plan to do that but I have 50 devices in my house (cameras, alexas, etc.) the are using the 5ghz band and I really don't feel like re-assigning all those devices to the new network name when I really don't need to rn, maybe at some point.
That’s awesome! Would you mind turning off 6E and testing it on 5GHz for comparison? Does your router provide a way of verifying whether the iPad is using 160 MHz channels? Or alternatively would you mind running the Apple wifi performance diagnostics utility and posting the results? Many thanks!
Remember when the 2020 iPad Pro got LIDAR and people were wondering why bother? And then it clicked into place when the iPhone 12 Pro came out with the self same LIDAR? It was a way of getting LIDAR into the hands of developers a few months early while still keeping the iPhone secret.
Why has the iPad Pro got Wifi 6E and the iPhone didn't? I'd like to think it's so Apple can officially test a new Airport Mesh system with a large installed user base of real world products rather than a limited set of laboratory prototypes.
Current third party systems are expensive, appear to be brand locked, and sound fiddly to set up after reading through this thread. Why wouldn't Apple then use the 2022 iPad Pro as the test bed for a new wifi system? They have powerful CPUs, an app ecosystem, and I'm sure a lot of their customers here wouldn't mind being brand locked into an Apple system (for better or worse) which could form the basis of a lot of in-home integration what with their HomeKit and Matter news mentions.
Why has the iPad Pro got Wifi 6E and the iPhone didn't? I'd like to think it's so Apple can officially test a new Airport Mesh system with a large installed user base of real world products rather than a limited set of laboratory prototypes.
Current third party systems are expensive, appear to be brand locked, and sound fiddly to set up after reading through this thread. Why wouldn't Apple then use the 2022 iPad Pro as the test bed for a new wifi system? They have powerful CPUs, an app ecosystem, and I'm sure a lot of their customers here wouldn't mind being brand locked into an Apple system (for better or worse) which could form the basis of a lot of in-home integration what with their HomeKit and Matter news mentions.
I cannot get my M2 iPad Pro to recognize the 6 GHz (Wi-Fi 6E) band from my ASUS GT-AXE11000 router. I've tried everything I can think of. I temporarily changed the router to use just one SSID, but the iPad still did not recognize the network as 6E capable. I enabled the option for PSC (Preferred Scanning Channel) in the router's settings and I've manually switched the 6 GHz network to try every possible channel. No luck.
I only have one other 6E capable device (an ASUS ROG Zephyrus gaming laptop) and that connects to the 6 GHz band with no issues.
Router firmware is up to date.
I only have one other 6E capable device (an ASUS ROG Zephyrus gaming laptop) and that connects to the 6 GHz band with no issues.
Router firmware is up to date.