How do you turn off 5G on a router and leave only 2.4G? The night I helped my mother-in-law with a camera, I temporarily turned off 5G and explained the switch locations for all five brands at once

went to her mother-in-law's house for dinner on Saturday and helped her put the newly arrived camera online. The app prompted, "Please make sure your phone is connected to 2.4G WiFi." Her router is dual-band, with just one name. My phone is stuck to 5G in the living room at -47, stuck to 5G. For this prompt, I went through the whole process of "turning off only one band" from start to finish, and casually noted down the switch positions for all five brands.

to clarify first: to turn off a single band, you have to remove the "dual-band integration" feature

Many people get stuck at step one: go to the backend and scroll through the menu, but can't find the phrase "Turn off 5G." It's not that there aren't any, it's being hidden. When

dual-band integration (some brands call it dual-band optimization, Wi-Fi multi-band integration, 5G Select, and ASUS calls it Smart Connect) when enabled, 2.4G and 5G share the same name, and the backend only gives you a main WiFi switch—once it's off, both bands shut down at once. That's the method in the article where you turn off WiFi and only use network cables that one. To turn off each band separately, you first need to separate the dual-band integration, with 2.4G and 5G each returning to their respective homes, so each band has its own switch.

this is a familiar issue for Xiaomi users. the three-step integration of dual frequency I've written before: the Tianyi Gateway version is in the optical modem backend and it's the same logic. After opening it, the WiFi names changed to two, and family members reconnected their phones once more. Just give me a heads-up.

Compare and record: splitting the dual-band = both are enabled, the name is separate ; Turn off single-frequency = turn off only one and continue working on the other ; Completely off = completely routing the network . Three things, don't mix them up.

Why did I temporarily turn off 5G: My camera was connected to the internet, but my phone was stuck to 5G

so I went back to my mother-in-law's house. The common online rule is: "Keep your phone away from the router; if 5G weakens, it will naturally drop to 2.4G." I tried it, walked to the balcony with my phone, and the 5G signal dropped from -47 to -72 before letting go. The phone switched to 2.4G, but halfway through setup, I moved, and it suddenly switched back to 5G, and the app reported a failure. Twenty minutes of fussing, three failures.

here's why apps are so stubborn: when configuring, they have to hand the current WiFi name and password to the camera, but the camera only has 2.4G of RF inside. Many apps simply lock down a single check—if the phone is connected to 5G, they won't let it through. Reasoning with it is useless; it only recognizes the current state of the phone.

later changed his approach: go into the background and turn off 5G for ten minutes. Her old TP installed a dual-band integrated system, and after removing the dual-band integration, she set up a tab each for 2.4G and 5G in the router settings → wireless settings. Uncheck the "Enable wireless function" option from the 5G tab and save. My phone suddenly dropped to 2.4G, and the app ran the network setup process again—it took three minutes to complete. After setting up, I turned the 5G back right in front of her—don't skip this step, or everyone watching dramas or playing games at home will disconnect and reconnect. My aunt was watching a drama at the time and got hit by a bump, but luckily I gave her a heads-up.

smart device network only recognizes 2.4G as a hardware flaw, and many modules don't even have 5G RF. comprehensive troubleshooting of network distribution failures I wrote an article about disabling dual-band and temporarily shutting down 5G, which are both tactics within the system. This article will focus on "turning off 5G" in detail.

and five brands hidden: the same

pattern on one table, each menu name has its own name:

two additional → my Wi-Fi 2.4G and 5G switches. After removing Xiaomi's old dual-band integration, the single-band switch might still not be available. Try upgrading the firmware first. If it still doesn't have one, don't force it: give the 5G a recognizable name and let it stay on its own, or lower the signal strength by one level —both count as soft shutdown. Huawei's '5G Select' is the official term; only by turning off its two frequency bands can you turn it on and off. Also, after making changes, don't just click save and leave—Huawei officially recommends shutting down and restarting the router once for a smoother effect; Asus has a switch for both 2.4G and 5G tabs, so you can switch to which one you want to turn off—no need to guess.

also made a blunder: not finding a 5G name doesn't mean 5G is turned off. It could also be that the channel falls into DFS bands like 52 or 64, which share radar with the router. If the router detects the radar, it shuts up for dozens of seconds. I wrote about this in my on bandwidth. First, confirm it's really off, then suspect anything else.

can you turn off 2.4G in reverse? I ran a ten-minute experiment with my whole family

and after returning from my mother-in-law's house, I started thinking the opposite: I scanned the neighborhood with my phone—there were 17 2.4G hotspots, and the clean channels 1, 6, and 11 were all occupied. The 2.4G was packed like a morning rush. Might as well just turn off 2.4G and keep 5G, quiet?

got to work without hesitation. At 10 p.m., I turned off 2.4G on the AX3000T. Ten seconds later, the Mi Home app started popping up offline notifications: two cameras, a robot vacuum, five smart sockets, two speakers, an air purifier, a kettle—14 devices directly connected via WiFi all went missing, and the alarm flooded half the screen. One unexpected detail: the Zigbee bulbs and temperature and humidity sensors were all alive because the multimode gateway ran via network cables, and the sub-devices didn't rely on home WiFi. How to choose equipment protocols is this article.

ten minutes later, I obediently turned on 2.4G, and the device gradually reconnected automatically. The vacuum took the longest, taking two or three minutes to recover. Two other sockets still hadn't recovered the next morning, only coming back online after being disconnected and replugged in—IoT disconnects for a long time can cause tantrums. The Mijia app was considerate, posting another update in the middle of the night saying "Device has been restored," essentially showing me the wound once again. The experiment concluded in one sentence: as long as you have a WiFi smart device at home, 2.4G cannot truly be turned off . It's not a burden—it's a dormitory for IoT.

truly suitable for families with 2.4G off, I thought about it. There's only one option: zero smart devices, phones, laptops, and TVs. People have no complaints about 5G coverage—for such a small apartment, turning off 2.4G really does reduce interference. To confirm if your home is in your home, first check the backend device list. Each device's details indicate which frequency band it connects to, and count it to guess correctly.

5G is off: a speed bill

2.4G off isn't enough, so what if you keep 5G off for a long time? I turned off 5G at home all night and tested: under gigabit broadband, my living room phone dropped from 560MB to around 280MB, and my study laptop dropped from 610MB to 260MB—comparing 2.4G and 5G I did a round of tests around the house. 2.4G is strong through walls, but the ceiling is only stuck at 200-300Mbps.

interestingly, the phone in the bedroom is actually faster: 5G load-bearing wall only has 170MB left, while 2.4G at the same location still has 24MB. So for a distant room where you keep going in circles, keeping 5G off for a long time and keeping the whole family on 2.4G, sacrificing the living room for a stable bedroom, is a worthwhile trade-off. On the other hand, if your home has full 5G coverage, turning off 5G is pure self-harm. To be fair, the 200-plus Mbps 2.4G is more than enough to carry a 4K TV, and the bitrate for 4K streaming is only 20 to 300 Mbps. The real frustration is the large files on the phone and internal network transfers.

there's a compromise: if you think the phone jumps randomly between two bands when you connect the dual-band band, you don't need to turn off the bands—just split the dual-band, name two devices, or manually pin the phone to 5G. The naming rules are in the of the about changing WiFi names. This is the path ninety percent of families should choose.

Conclusion: Which to close and what to order

Consolidate decisions into a single table:

Five-step step: Go to the backend, first unplug the dual-band integration→ find your own switch for the target band→ turn it off and save→ device list verifies another band. Connect the device to the → temporarily turn it off. Remember to turn it back. I put a note on my mother-in-law's router that said, "5G switch is set to the second layer of wireless settings," so I don't have to check the menu again next time I set up the network.