Question How to change WiFi channels on the TP-Link Deco X68 ?

[Summest]

Hello,

I have a TP-link Deco X68 with firmware 1.1.0 Build 20220530 Rel. 38490. I am unable to determine the hardware version but I just bought this unit in July 2022. App version is 2.14.3. Unit is Wi-Fi 6 ax.

I would like to be able to change the channels I use on the 5G band and the 2.4G. Currently I am more concerned about the 5G channels, since there is plenty of open space to choose from. I cannot find a method of changing channels like I used to be able to do on my Wi-Fi 5 ac routers. I have tried the application on my cell and also using a browser on my PC to enter the router through an IP address. I also tried the automatic mode that checks for interference.

The reason I would like to change channels is to move away from two of my neighbors' routers on the same channel.

Would you happen to know how I can change channels?

Thank you,
Summest.

 

[kerberos_20]

thats a mesh router, not a standalone full fledged router with tons of tweakable settings
your mesh router has no option to change channels, it will determine on its own which channel is least congested

 

[bill001g]

Another reason that device likely does not have any setting is it will attempt to use every possible radio channel there is on the 5g band. This is partially because it has 2 5g radios but it is also wifi6 where it attempts to use 160mhz radio bands which also overlaps weather radio.
Because of the weather radar channels it is attempting to use the FCC rules do not allow you to manually set this.

You are also making the assumption your neighbors are only using single channels. It is highly likely they are using blocks of 4 channels in a row to get 80mhz or if they are using wifi6 they are using blocks of 8.

On the 5g band in most countries there only 2 blocks 80mhz wide..ie 4 channels. On most routers they are around 40 or 150.

It is highly likely the 5g band is massively over used even if the scanner acts like it is not.

In any case the device you are using will interfere with every neighbor anyplace around that is attempting to use wifi. The only solution to this is the newer wifi6e but your end devices must also support wifi6e. So far the 6g radio band has a massive amount of bandwidth so for now there is not much interference between neighbors.

 

[Summest]

thats a mesh router, not a standalone full fledged router with tons of tweakable settings
your mesh router has no option to change channels, it will determine on its own which channel is least congested

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Summest]

Another reason that device likely does not have any setting is it will attempt to use every possible radio channel there is on the 5g band. This is partially because it has 2 5g radios but it is also wifi6 where it attempts to use 160mhz radio bands which also overlaps weather radio.
Because of the weather radar channels it is attempting to use the FCC rules do not allow you to manually set this.

You are also making the assumption your neighbors are only using single channels. It is highly likely they are using blocks of 4 channels in a row to get 80mhz or if they are using wifi6 they are using blocks of 8.

On the 5g band in most countries there only 2 blocks 80mhz wide..ie 4 channels. On most routers they are around 40 or 150.

It is highly likely the 5g band is massively over used even if the scanner acts like it is not.

In any case the device you are using will interfere with every neighbor anyplace around that is attempting to use wifi. The only solution to this is the newer wifi6e but your end devices must also support wifi6e. So far the 6g radio band has a massive amount of bandwidth so for now there is not much interference between neighbors.

Thanks for your reply. I won't see 6e anytime soon. I just got 6 since my phone uses 6.

 

[bill001g]

It depends on the phone but that vast majority only pretend they support wifi6, they do not support the full 160mhz radio band. In addition I did not look your router up and it too does not support the 160mhz radio band and I though it did from the name.

So now I am somewhat unsure why they would prevent you from manually setting the radio it can't run on the radio channels that interfere with weather radar I don't think.

In any case this low end wifi6 equipment does not run any faster than wifi5 for most people. It can't use the most important feature of wifi6 that increases the speed and that is 160mhz radio channels. Also the qam1024 data encoding used in wifi6 only works very close to the router and farther away it drops to a less dense encoding. In the end it runs only slightly faster that wifi5 (802.11ac) for most people. There is nothing wrong with it and since the price of this stuff has dropped to about the same as the older 802.11ac it really doesn't matter.