Is it possible to change the wifi channel?

[xdreamwalker]

I have plugged in the Arlo base and have found that it is transmitting its wifi signal on the same channel as my own wifi network. Is it possible to change the channel that Arlo uses?

[ChristineT]

Good afternoon xdreamwalker,

I have consulted with our development team and found that the Arlo base station transmits on the same channel as the router by design. Primarily, due to the base station and router (access point) being installed in relatively close proximity. So essentially, if the base station is in close proximity to the router (which is most often the case) the base station and the router need to be on the same channel to get the best performance from both.

Otherwise, if you have the base station and router in close proximity but on different channels, the out-of-band RF signals for both devices will "cross-talk" with each other's channel greatly reducing the throughput of both.

If you absolutely need to have the base station and router on a different channel you can relocate one of the devices so the distance between the base station and router is greater than 20' (feet) or in a different room.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for your inquiry!

Christine

Arlo Team

[EaSi123]

This seems to be not true.   It just detects a Wi-Fi signal and tries to use the same channel.  Here it's overlapping a 2.4Ghz 40Mhz instead of choosing a 20Mhz channel what would be more feasable.   Creating an option to set it to 1,6,11 would be a must.  (an advanced option, with explanation how channels work for Wi-Fi)

[tivoboy]

I'm in a similar camp on this.. Just found out that the SSID is being broadcast (so it's really not like the original VUE cameras where there was nothing being broadcast.. makes sense, those were on the same wireless protocols of course.

but, indeed the arlo netgear NETGEAR32 SSID is on the same channel as my primary apple airport extreme.  which I purposely moved to 9 since in the area there are others with 1, 5, 6, etc..

The only reason I searched a bit for this was since my computers wireless function has been spotty ever since putting the arlo system in place.  I bit of searching around for available AP's led me to learn that indeed NETGEAR32 was on the same channel.

As they are indeed right next to one another, I'm not buying this "must be the same channel" rhetoric

[Showguy]

I have to disagree with the Netgear explanation. Being on a different channel would eliminate wifi interference. Example when you setup a roaming network in your home the ssid and password of the multiple routers are always the same but the channel is different to avoid wifi bounce interference. All I know is the reliability of my 10 camera system has seriously degraded over the 5 months I have had it. 

[TomMac]

The only way I know to change the Arlo channel is to

1) change you wifi router to the channel you'd want it on and do a full reset.. then the Alro will come up on that channel. Then just change your router back to the original channel.

2) move the Arlo base far away from you main wifi router and do a full reset... the Arlo should pick the clearest channel.

Ass backwards , but that all i got.

[jhurd3]

Is there a fix to this yet?  I have changed the channel of my router and Arlo automatically follows to the new channel within 24 hours.  This is irritating as it causes interference with my wifi and has drastically slowed performance. 

[jguerdat]

You can try using a longer Ethernet cable and position the base station further away from the router (20 feet is often suggested).  The base will then choose it's own channel.

[jhurd3]

Would arlo still function if i ran a powerline adapter to the other end of the home and plugged arlo in to the adapter?

[jguerdat]

Can't say for sure since I don't use that arrangement but as long as you have good Ethernet signals with sufficient bandwidth it _should_ work.

[bryankennedy]

There really is no way that the Base Station is doing anything other than increasing interferance by doing this. I live in a very remote area without any nearby wifi signals, and yet the "Netgear 35" network follows the channel I set my primary router to. There is absolutely no reason to do this - the base station would get better range if it found an empty channel and stuck with that. As long as the router sticks to Channels 1,6,11, there should be no "overlapping" issues.

1. Set my router to channel 11 from Channel 6. Wifi SNR increases.

2. The Base Station switches to 11 (from 6) about 5 minutes later, SNR drops.

[ittroll]

I just installed an Arlo system and I am finding the same. The Arlo base station is matching the channel of my router. Surely it would be better to choose an alternative non-overlapping channel?

[jguerdat]

Not a WiFi expert but it appears that it's an OK thing to do in reality. Someone posted a link a while ago explaining it but I didn't read it.

If you really want to change the channel, you have two options:

1) move the base a fair distance away (20') using a long Ethernet cable.

2) chnage your router channel manually and restart the base. Now, reset the base to the preferred channel. You'll have to do this every time the base is restarted.

[ittroll]

Yeah it is OK, but it would be better to use a different non-overlapping channel. It would be trivial for Netgear to give us this option.

1) Not really an option to run a 20' through my house,

2) Reports in this thread state this does not work. The base station will update to the new channel even without a restart.

[jhurd3]

I moved the base station via a powerline adapter and downloaded the wifi analyzer app. Once the base station was up and running, I utilized the app to determine what channel it was on. Then, I accessed my router and set it to a different channel. Arlo has stayed where it's at since then. This also allowed me to put arlo in a more central location. Now I have two routers and arlo runnning; all three on separate channels.

[mountainmonster]

Ok.. let me sum up what we all have learned. 

Some developer at Netgear thought it was a smart design to have it's 2.4 wifi base station perform a seek and destory on your home wireless. I will refrain myself and simply say that the logic behind this is very flawed. If you choose to have an arlo base station and also want 2.4 wireless in your home, you are in trouble. 

Now Arlo will simply tell you, "sorry deal with it" and "Nope your screwed go away", or my favorite. "move your base station 20 feet from other wifi", I don't know about you, but that is REALLY crappy customer service. 

So you have 2 choices. 

1. Take the crap back and buy a product that has been tested by real people

2. Take a old junk WAP and setup a SSID right beside the Arlo base station. Call it something like "follow-me-you-pos" or similar. The Arlo base station will follow that SSID and you now have a way to decide what channel it is on. 

I have had this setup for about a week now and seems pretty solid. 

So Arlo customer support.. take that!

Tim

[jguerdat]

In addition to post #2 in this thread, read this:

http://www.metageek.com/training/resources/adjacent-channel-congestion.html

[mountainmonster]

Channel overlap of  1 to 3 channels over is nasty on 2.4(that is common knowledge),  Direct overlap can cause mahjor havoc on devices also, but 5 channels off, say ch 1 vs ch 6? clear as a bell, users do not get that choice. They are force with direct overlap.

The issue here is Arlo has forced everyone to have same channel overlap. You have  eliminated the ability of a user to move his/her home wap to ch11 and have Arlo on ch6 or ch1 or arlo on ch11 and home was on ch1 etc, etc. By eliminating this configurable ability(which is available on almost all WAPs), you have guaranteed a direct overlap, in which many devices will have issues , if you think they don't have issues,  then why is this post even here?

So it is simple, give users the ability to configure the channel.  The fact you forcefully interfere with your customers home network is insanity. I would bet many users have very nasty issues and have no clue that there little Arlo is the culprit. Well I assure you, I am gonna post on as many places as I can the deal.  I tried to be calm about this, but your customer service reps, simply told me to contact my router vendor for assistance(really? All they will tell me is that some netgear keeps chasing your channel and beating on it.)

So my little solution is working. I just wish Arlo had the guts to admit they screwed up, but I highly doubt that will happen. 

Tim

[Screwdriver1]

Seriously.....who the heck thought this was a great idea? Let the user choose the channel and width.

[ittroll]

I agree that it is very poor that the Base Station channel is not configurable but I also appreciate that this would be quite difficult to intoduce.

The base station is meant to be a simple consumer-friendly plug and play device avoiding the need for any network setup. This advanced feature would need to be carefully implemented to avoid confusing the majority of users who are blissfully unaware that wifi channels exist. I suspect it would also require updates to the firmware, website and mobile apps.

[tivoboy]

Uh, what? they could certainly offer this config as the default, but offer the ability to alter the channel selection and separation in an advanced system menu ala most other router and appliance oem's and NETGEAR as well

[ittroll]

I am sure they could. But remember that unlike most other routers you don't have a direct admin interface into the base station. Configuration is done via the website or mobile app. So they would need to implement the change across all consituent parts so that the base station could accept advanced system settings from these other sources and also recover if someone enters some unsuitable values.

[mountainmonster]

You make a great point. I don't believe it would be an easy feat, but I don't think they need to go as far as that. The real issue is that the Base Station seeks out the strongest signal and then overlaps it. That is a problem. If that undocumented feature was disabled then more advanced users could adjust their Local Wifi and problem solved.  I am at 9 days with my fake ssid and it appears to work for me, but I wish I did not have to go to this extreme. 

Thanks,

Tim

[fototx]

What a continuing headache this co-channel interference is.....I just added an Arlo Q to my stable of 5 wireless cameras and it seems as if the interference from the Arlo basestation into my Netgear router is worse than ever.  Regardless if the additional camera has contributed more to this or not, the fact is that Arlo does, by design, introduces co channel interference.  And in my case, severly degrades the performance of all of the other wifi devices hanging off the network.  I can pretty much guess what is happening when we have strange performance problems on our tablets and laptops. Perhaps this same issue causes cameras not to connect or to pixelate...

Over the last 2 weeks, I have shifted my router channel a dozen times to improve performance (and it does improve performance).   Each time, it seems as if the Arlo basestation shifts to the new router frequency.    In the past, once I shifted my router channel it would stay pretty stable unless I had some sort of power or network issues causing reboots.  BTW, wifi analyser is a free app to see what is going on in your RF network.

I agree with others that the explanation provided by Netgear is flawed - that by design 2 routers co-channeled operate better.  Completely flawed unless those transmitters are separated by 20db, hense the Netgear recomendation to separate them by 20 or more feet or different rooms.  Sorry guys, 20 feet LoS does not give a 20 db path attenuation.  At least at these frequency and drawing on years of radio network design in the cellular industry.   

So as long as Netgear thinks that a reasonable work-around is available, they will not provide a more robust solution.  Simple as that.  Kind of like the whole "fix the camera connection issue" by taking out the batteries!    I am saying that this not only severly affects the performance of the network outside of Arlo but also highly suspect that camera performance and connectiviy would also be affected.   After all, I am sure my router is also interfering with Arlo - it works both ways...

Nonetheless, can the product manager update us on fixing this going forward?  As stated earlier,  I beleive a reasonable solution is to allow an advanced configuration in the app to allow an override of the automated channel "feature".  For the masses where this not a problem, then its busienss as usual.  For the masses that it is a problem (or at least a suspected problem), it allows for simple changes to clear up the issue.

[jguerdat]

Certainly not a manager, but the coexistence of the base and router works fine. If you have an issue, perhaps it's something else. I have a Netgear R7000 router with Arlo enabled so it uses the same channel. In addition, I've used a base station in close proximity with no issues sharing the Sam channel. The current setup has two base stations on the same channel but separated from the router (still using the Arlo capability built into the router) which are using a different channel. So, using the same channel may be unusual in the normal context but very workable.

If you want the base to use a different channel, simply use a long Ethernet cable or WiFi extender to physically separate the base from the router.