2.4 vs 5.0Ghz Wi-Fi

C

Cygnusyyc

New elf
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Jun 27, 2025
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Just curious, is there any difference in allowing your wireless to default to 5.0 verses 2.4 when connecting your router to your computer? I'm asking due to some lag issues I experienced during my Halloween show. I'm hardwired from WiFi booster to controller, but 5.0 from booster to puter. Does it even matter? Couldn't find that in 101.
Thanks.
Cyg.
 
WiFi is best to be avoided if at all possible when running larger numbers of lights, if you can hardwire to your controllers, you will get a more positive experience. Wifi boosters only boost what they can get their hands on. If they get a bad signal, they'll be boosting that bad signal.
 
There are a few factors to consider when it comes to wifi. First and foremost. If you don't NEED wifi, dont use it. It should be the last resort, not the first option.
Boosters and repeaters will always degrade signal. Repeaters will instantly halve the bandwidth of your network as anything they receive, they have to repeat back out.

On the questions asked:

5GHz will have less interference as it's relatively dedicated to wifi. 2.4GHz has Bluetooth, Microwave ovens, kids toys, and all sorts of other stuff in the spectrum.
5GHZ has no overlapping channels (at 20MHz). Meaning each channel can be used independently.
Contra to this, 2.4GHz has 11 available channels in most parts of the world, but they are only 5MHz wide channels. Which means that there only 3 that don't clobber each other, being 1, 6 and 11. If others are using anything in-between, they will appear as strong interference.
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For both - two Access points on the same channel are not a bad thing, they can hear each other and co-ordinate transmissions. It does lower bandwidth however.
5GHz has a shorter transmission distance than 2.4GHz due to the higher frequency, and its permutation though physical objects is lower. This means your AP needs to be closer to the device.

Never crank up the AP output power. Keep in mind it's two way - the AP still needs to hear your device. Just because the device can hear the AP doesn't mean it'll be reliable.

There is also an issue called "hidden node" - whereby two transmitters cannot hear each other as they are on opposite sides of the AP. See diagram below. They both send at the same time, and the AP gets confused, and things need to be retried.
My opinion in this matter is that you should put your AP in the corner of the yard, and have all devices on the one side of the AP. That way, if they can see the AP, they can see all other devices.
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None of this is in the 101 because it's well above what would be required for a show network.
Your best friend is here:
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Cable is king.

Depending on what your using the wifi tho, it should only just be used for stuff like upload, time sync, scheduling and programming fpp? Once that's done it should be all gravy and only minimally use the wifi from there anyway.

I'm on a mix, set to 2.4 for best range.

What kind of lag issues are you having?
 
Thanks guys, amazing feedback, and crystal clear answers.
As for the lag issues, show was working flawlessly during testing. Never missed even a beat. Halloween came and I started to notice it early on. A slight lag between my matrix and song timings. As the night wore on it was beginning to be visible even on eve trough and basic models. I assumed I had the repetition cycle too demanding? In a very basic kind of way I felt like I never gave it a chance to catch it's breath. Sounds kind of silly for me to humanize the lights this way though, but that's what got me wondering about the WiFi. At the time I just surmised that I had expected too much from it.
Lesson learned. Will move towards wired connections for future.
Thanks everyone.
 
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