I recently realized that I needed to split out my home wifi network into two networks, a 2.4GHz network and a 5GHz network.
The reason for that is that previously I only had one network that was 5GHz, but I came to realize that a bunch of smart home devices require 2.4GHz.
This was news to me and apparently, when we got the internet on in our home, either the technician asked me if we want two networks and I said no, or perhaps, he didn’t ask and just set us up with 5.
Either way, I came to learn that some smart home devices require a 2.4GHz wifi network in order to connect.
I reached out to my ISP and the process was really easy. I thought “job done” but that was just the start of my excitement.
What devices broke?
Strangely, some devices went offline, while others stayed on and never skipped a beat. The list of devices that went offline was:
- Inkbird temperature and humidity sensor
- Meross door sensor
- Sonos Arc and sub
- Our HP printer
Devices that did not go offline:
- Homey Pro
- Aqara light bulb
- Aqara vibration sensor
- Aqara water leak sensor
As I’m writing this, I think a reason for the durability of these devices might be that my Homey Pro is actually connected via POE cable and most of these devices were connected with Homey directly, rather than first pairing with Aqara and then porting into Homey. I think the Aqara light bulb might have been an exception.
Anyway, the point is that lots of stuff broke, but some things didn’t break, which is nice.
Just change it back?
I thought about a possible solution to the problem that didn’t end up helping. I thought that if I just change the name of the 5GHz network back to what it was before I split the network into two and changed the name, that might magically resolve the issue.
Nope, that didn’t solve it.
This seems kind of strange to me because, as far as I know, I just created an additional 2.4GHz network but didn’t actually create a new 5GHz network. So it stood to reason in my mind that only the name had changed and if I change the name back, everything should be fine.
Honestly, I wasn’t too optimistic about that idea fixing things and I turned out to be right to be skeptical!
What next?
I’ve already gotten started with resetting some of the devices and reconnecting them. Maybe I was being a bit dramatic in my video (above) and it’s not actually such a big problem. It’s just not something that I was aware could happen or was ready for.
I’ve already reset and reconnected:
- Inkbird temp & humidity sensor
- The printer (that took a long time to figure out!)
- The Sonos Arc and sub
But I wasn’t able to figure out how to reset the Meross door sensor. I managed to get the accompanying hub to flash green and amber, which I assume means that it’s in pairing mode, but I couldn’t add it back into the Aqara app.
Bit of a side tangent while on the subject of that Meross door sensor, but I was never previously able to get that device into the Homey ecosystem and I was kind of surprised that I was able to connect it in the Aqara app the first time because I’m pretty sure I live in an unsupported country.
Somehow I was able to pair that device last time, but this time, I don’t even see the exact device as an option to try to connect to in the Aqara app, so I don’t know if it is because I’m in an unsupported country or maybe there’s something else going on.
In any event, I seem to now have just about everything back online, except for that door sensor. If that’s the extent of the damage, I can live with that. Especially since it was never in Homey anyway.
Alexa funk?
There are some other kind of weird things happening now though. Alexa is one of them.
After reconnecting my sub and soundbar, I can control them perfectly in both the Sonos app and also in the Homey app.
In Alexa, I can see that the device is “online”, but I seem to be unable to control it in Alexa at all. Previously, when I was having some issues with Alexa, the soundbar would be intermittently showing “online” and “offline” in the Alexa app, but that doesn’t seem to be happening now.
More annoying is that my Sonos soundbar isn’t responding to Alexa voice commands at the moment, only my phone is. That was one of my favorite things about getting some of these smart devices in my home, and now that functionality seems to be either broken or on hiatus.
Hopefully, it’s just a case of Alexa being a bit temperamental and everything will return to normal soon.
Lessons learned
I wish someone had told me this before I got started on my smart living / smart home journey, but it seems incredibly important to make sure that you have a separate 2.4GHz wifi network in your home before adding any devices.
If I had known this before I got started adding devices, this whole mess could have been avoided.
If you’re reading this because you’re interested in getting started with some smart devices in your home, learn from my experience and split out your home network before you take the first step with a smart device.
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