@Wrayman 

Yes, I was aware of that thread. But given that TP-Link have had their fingers firmly in their ears for five years & presumably their thumbs stuck in another orifice, I felt the need to vent separately. I could live with auto selection of channels if it actually did anything, but my experiment today confirmed that it does absolutely nothing. In fact I believe it was that thread where it was confirmed by TP-Link that the 5GHz channel is stuck on 36 regardless of how congested it is.

This forced me to look around & surprisingly, the lack of manual control is typical of most manufacturers, bar the very expensive ASUS. Whether they're all equally poor I've no idea. Looks like I have to start saving for the ASUS...

RBZ5416 wrote

  @Wrayman 

 

In fact I believe it was that thread where it was confirmed by TP-Link that the 5GHz channel is stuck on 36 regardless of how congested it is.

  @RBZ5416 

This is not correct statement. Right now my Deco mesh runs 5 GHz on channel 48. Used to be channel 44 about 4 months ago, last time I checked.

  @Alexandre. 

Quote from @David-TP in the thread linked above:

The 5GHz channel appears to be configured based on the region the device was manufactured for use in and they are apparently not auto-selected

So maybe you're not in the UK?

RBZ5416 wrote

  @Alexandre. 

 

Quote from @David-TP in the thread linked above:

 

The 5GHz channel appears to be configured based on the region the device was manufactured for use in and they are apparently not auto-selected

 

So maybe you're not in the UK?

  @RBZ5416 

I am not in the UK, but also I am making the point that 5 GHz is not stuck on one specific channel, as I observe it to change. Same for 2.4 GHz band, its channel changes over time.

The statement that Deco mesh runs 5 GHz band on one and only, hardcoded, channel is not correct.

  @Alexandre. 

What can I say? The statement I quoted is from a TP-Link employee & the thread that  @Wrayman linked to has 193 posts over five years requesting manual selection. So what you see appears the be at odds with both the manufacturer & a great number of customers. I can't explain that.

For the record, I didn't say that the 2.4GHz channel will never change, only that I was unable to make it do so. Even when a stronger signal was present on exactly the same channel. But whether it changes or not is immaterial given that the channel selection process is obviously deeply flawed in the first place.

  @RBZ5416 

RBZ5416 wrote

  @Alexandre. 

What can I say? The statement I quoted is from a TP-Link employee & the thread that  @Wrayman linked to has 193 posts over five years requesting manual selection. So what you see appears the be at odds with both the manufacturer & a great number of customers. I can't explain that.

 

You must understand that TP-Link Support representatives attending this forum are often not native English speakers. Also, TP-Link Deco documentation from 3 years ago when I got my Deco mesh was just terrible in that respect, but they did improve it a lot since then. 

Also, if you ever worked in IT industry or nearby, you should have learned never trust system manufacturer documentation 100%. How system behaves in reality overrules what documentation says, if these two disagree.

Let me introduce my version of that quotation:

1. The 5 GHz channel ranges are configured based on the region the device was manufactured for use;

2. The 5 GHz channel range can not be auto-selected;

3. The 5 GHz channel and channel ranges are definitely not manually configurable;

4. Deco mesh will automatically select what it believes is the best channel, within allowed channel range, when you run "Network Optimization" or reboot Deco mesh;

and

5. Please stop asking for manual selection of channel. Our software developers/project manager/product manager are not considering it. We, TP-Link Support, can open feature request tickets for them to implement this feature, but these tickets are either dismissed, closed, or set to such low priority that nobody would ever allocate time to implement it.

The last one is my opinion on what TP-Link Support would say if they are allowed to, but get a hint: if in 5+ years and 4 iterations of Deco hardware (WiFi5, 6, 6E and 7) this did not happen, you think it ever will?

If you really need channel selection feature and can't run WiFi mesh without it, buy different WiFi mesh.

-------------------------

My Deco mesh channels today, for the reference: