@David-TP  Wow, well there is pretty simple answer to your question. If you live in a crowded dense area and anybody sets up a modem or MESH network on the 2.4 GHz with a 40MHz bandwidth, you are being very a-social and causing a nightmare for all your now suffering neighbors, and forcing them to buy more and stronger signal modems and or MESH networks causing the 2.4 GHz band to become unusable, unless you sit next of a connection point. The only one that benefits from the forced 40MHz bandwidth is TP-Link and all the companies selling modem hardware. Maybe a class action lawsuit would help forcing this issue to be fixed.

David-TP wrote

ReinierL  @tmorris1 Hi I see you also followed the other post here: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/525212

And based on the screenshots provided, the 2.4ghz could work on 20mhz as well, not only for 40mhz.

 

Currently, the channel and channel width on Deco could not be manually changed but the good news is that this feature has been under re-evaluation。

So besides requesting this feature again,  it would be better if you could tell us directly what issues you have experienced with the current channel and channel width.

 

Thank you very much.

Best regards.

 

  @David-TP 

What does "under re-evaluation" mean?  Does this mean they are thinking about fixing the problem or the are going to fix it?  Not holding my breath.

Horrible and erratic throughput of only a few kilo-bits per second.  I could use a WIFI channel sniffer to see that the Deco is picking channels that interfere with adjacent rpouters around me.  It always chose 40Mhz channel width so you are guaranteed to interfere if anyone is around you.  TP-Link Kasa plugs and switches wouldn't connect to cloud (also had trouble local), Blink cameras became unusable, etc.  Anything 2.4Ghz was unusable.

I went back to my Asus access points and set a 20Mhz channel and all is fine.

  @David-TP I understand very well that Intel has done studies in a clean environment that prove that a 2.5 GHZ / 40 MHz bandwidth signal has a better throughput. But in the real Wifi world everybody agrees that this is a very big NO-NO running at 40 MHz width is just "NOT DONE".

Sounds like TP-Link is advising me to drive in the middle of two lane freeway in a normal size SUV trying to convince me my that there is less risk of ending up in a collision and reaching a more stable speed. Very valid, as long as you live in Montana, drive a 3:00 am when the freeways are totaly empty.

In short, we need a hard date!!  When is TP-Link going to provide a firmware fix update on there routers that are messing up / pulluting the 2.4GHz Wifi enviroment

  @David-TP 

David-TP wrote

  @tmorris1 Thanks for the update.

At the very beginning, there is no intention to allow manually changing channel and channel width, and gradually, with more and more feedback, the engineers finally agreed to add this feature. But since they did not provide any ETA, I do prefer " they are thinking about fixing the problem".

 

The 2.4ghz of Deco supports both 20mhz and 40mhz. if the devices are 20/40mhz as well, they will decide by themselves which bandwidth to use and if the client is 20mhz only, then it will only use 20mhz.

And you are right 40mhz is easier being interfered with signals around than 20mghz. Since the channel width could not be changed on Deco now, I could not say it would not cause the abnormal behavior of smart devices. So It might or might not be the problem.

Smart home devices might not be a good example to test the channel width and if you could find a Window PC that could customize the bandwidth, you could test the speed and stability when it is on 20mhz and 40mhz when connecting to Deco.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005585/wireless/legacy-intel-wireless-products.html

Best regards.

I have already done that a long time ago and found that 20Mhz works.  Any 40Mhz channel in my environment makes 2.4Ghz unusable.

  @David-TP as of July 2022, i still cannot change the 2.4ghz channel and bandwidth on my Deco x20 with the latest FW and Deco App version. please do something

  @JYLoo they won't do anything and never will.  Just buy a different brand.

 @David-TP 

Let me add my voice to the chorus of those requesting the ability to choose a specific 2.4 GHz channel number and also set the channel width to 20 MHz, instead of the default 40 MHz, which frankly, is a very poor engineering design.

My reasons for requesting this is because of strong WiFi signals interfering with weaker zigbee and Thread signals that occupy the same bandwidth. Careful WiFi channel selection, along with restricting channel width to 20 MHz, can eliminate such interference entirely. I am currently evaluating the Deco XE5300 mesh system with 3 points in an environment with multiple zigbee networks. The inability to select the 2.4 GHz WiFi channel and restrict width to 20 MHz has played havoc with the zigbee networks.

As Matter-driven smart homes become more prevalent, there will be a rise in the number of smart home devices that use Thread and Zigbee. Eliminating such conflicts should be a high priority for your engineers.

There is an excellent analysis on WiFi/Zigbee coexistence on MetaGeek that you should bring to their attention. The fundamental issue is nicely summarized in this diagram:

David-TP wrote

  @tmorris1 Thanks for the update.

At the very beginning, there is no intention to allow manually changing channel and channel width, and gradually, with more and more feedback, the engineers finally agreed to add this feature. But since they did not provide any ETA, I do prefer " they are thinking about fixing the problem".

  @David-TP 

It has been 5+ months since you posted this. Can you clarify whether your engineers still plan to add the feature of manually changing 2.4 GHz channel choice and channel width? I am evaluating the Deco XE5300 for a few installations. But cannot make a recommendation to purchase until there is some clarity on this issue. I am two weeks into my evaluation, and if there is no clarity from you within another 1-2 weeks, I will return the system and start evaluating other mesh WiFi 6E systems.

Extremely disappointing that this still has not been implemented! I upgraded my M5 to X55, but still running into the exact same issues with 2.4GHz devices (unresponsive IP cams, extreme ping latency of seconds), and network optimization does not help. When I move them to another brand Wifi AP on 20Mhz, all issues are resolved.

Most people use the 2.4GHz band only for backward compatibility anyway, not for optimal throughput!

Is this still on the to-do list? Please give this priority, at least the channel width option!