I am considering purchasing a few Aqara products (Water Leak Sensors, Valve Controller T1 and a Hub for now). I read that many of the products cannot be setup on dual mode Wifi. The problem is my WiFi system (Netgear Orbi RBR40 + 3x RBS40) does not provide a way to disable 5Ghz Wifi. There was a 5Ghz switch when I bought the system, but it got removed on one of the software updates. Grr.
I don’t want to buy a whole new mesh Wifi system just to hook up $150 worth of Aqara stuff.
Is there a workaround that allows Aqara systems to be set up if the 5Ghz Wifi is still running?
Only the hub needs to be connected to wi-fi.
The M3 hub is dual band and can also be connected via UTP cable, it has a POE port.
The other devices connect to the hub via Zigbee. The G3 camera also has a hub function and is dual band.
In general, there are no issues with Aqara devices that operate via Zigbee or Wi-Fi, such as the cameras, hubs, or the FP2.
What you heard likely referred to Matter devices. However, this is a manufacturer-independent issue and is not due to the devices themselves, but rather the Wi-Fi routers/access points. It can happen that mDNS (multicast) data packets are not cleanly transmitted from the 2.4 GHz network to the 5 GHz network because the router discards them. This is primarily necessary during the initial setup. Once commissioning (pairing) is successfully completed, it works again because the devices then communicate directly (unicast). That is why you often receive the tip to temporarily turn off 5 GHz.
As mentioned, this only affects Matter. Since most Aqara devices work via Zigbee or directly via Wi-Fi, you should have no problems. With new devices, you can even choose between Zigbee and Matter over Thread. Whether you will face issues with pure Matter devices depends on your router/AP.
Water Leak Sensor → Zigbee only → no problems
Valve Controller T1 → Zigbee only → no problems
Aqara hubs work directly with Wi-Fi → no problems
more examples:
Presence Sensor FP2 → Wi-Fi only → no problems
Motion Sensor P1 → Zigbee only → no problems
Motion Sensor P2 → Matter over Thread only → maybe it works*
Climate Sensor W100 → Zigbee or Matter over Thread → no problems with Zigbee
Matter over Thread from other manufacturers → maybe it works*
Matter over Wi-Fi from other manufacturers → maybe it works*
*If you connect all devices to the same Wi-Fi network (all to 2.4 or all to 5 GHz), it will definitely work. It may also work if the router does not discard the packets between the bands. The only way to find out is to try it. Workaround for Matter over Thread: connect all devices to your smartphone’s hotspot, pair the Matter device, then switch back to the router/AP.