Most of the smart home devices are 2.4 GHz only. When one considers the expansion of the IoT a lot of devices are still being launched with 2.4 GHz only. Given a choice, I would have greatly preferred a 5 GHz only model, especially since I could have improved battery life with higher 802.11ac speeds in that wrote: I can think of a number of reasons why the Ionic would have ended up as 2.4 GHz only, but it's still disappointing. I hope some of that information is helpful. The only issue with such a design is that rare case where a device does not support 5 GHz. Running a properly designed 5 GHz only network ensures you're always getting 802.11ac (high) speeds regardless of client behavior, among other positives. 5 GHz is not immune to all of those, but with the very wide range (basically 5 to 6 GHz) of channels, smaller cells due to signal propagation and larger choice of channels, those interferes are easy to avoid. The AP will often use a technology known as band steering or band select or something similar that through a mechanism such as initially responding to beacon APs with only 5 GHz initially, will attempt to steer clients to join on the 5 GHz channel where there are significantly higher speeds available.ĭue to all of the many things that interfere with 2.4 GHz, including bluetooth, neighboring APs, cordless phones, wireless speakers, LED monitors, satellite TVs, microwaves, etc.it's much easier to have a clean wireless experience in the 5 GHz bands. While you will see consumer devices that will run two SSIDs side by side (wireless and wireless5 ), most APs will run a single SSID which supports both frequencies, with only the 5 GHz frequency supporting 802.11ac speeds. 802.11n is a standard that works in both the 2.4 and 5 GHz spectrum, and an AP that has both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios will often support the same SSID on BOTH radios, meaning that a device can connect to either the 2.4 GHz radio in the AP or the 5 GHz radio. An 802.11n signal that is 20 MHz wide (there are consumer grade APs that support 40 MHz channel bonding in both 2.4 and 5 GHz, while commercial APs only support 40 MHz channel bonding in 5 GHz), will be limited to a max speed of 72 Mbps based on the limitations of 802.11n.Ĩ02.11ac will typically use 40 MHz, possibly 80 MHz (20 MHz is possible, and wave 2 officially supports 160 MHz, but 40 or 80 would be typical channel widths) and higher speeds available through QAM 256 modulation, these higher speeds and channel bonding (wider channels) are what allow 802.11ac to have significantly faster speeds than 802.11n.ģ. There is nothing technically preventing 802.11ac technologies (QAM 256) from being used on the 2.4 GHz spectrum, but due to overcrowding and interference in the 2.4 GHz spectrum, the 802.11ac standard only uses 5 GHz, where we have (in the US, under current regulations) 25 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels as opposed to the 3 channels in 2.4 GHz space.Ģ. I am a wireless engineer, so I want to clear up a few misconceptions:ġ. There does seem to be some confusion on your part around wireless. The Aria 2 is also Bluetooth compatible and compatible with more Wi-Fi networks so the frequency is not that much of an issue. Granted 2.4 GHz has the potential for more interference from other electronic devices including wireless phones I rarely run into this issue in my home and I have a lot of wireless devices both on and off the network and usually do not have an issue. Since this is a bathroom scale the frequency that has a broader range and that could go through solid walls better would be a better choice over a frequency designed primarily for higher data loads and network traffic which gives the advantage to 2.4 over 5 GHz. I was actually surprised at the number of new devices that are not dual band and that are operating only on the 2.4 band especially consumer electronics. There is a common misconception that higher frequency networks are superior to lower frequency ones when in actuality 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz are different wireless signaling frequencies that each have advantages for Wi-Fi networking. I have a Dual band Router and have done a lot of research into the 2.4 vs 5 GHz issues and this is not necessarily a bad decision by Fitbit to stick with 2.4 GHz.
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