1. 2.4GHz: more range and better wall penetration
The 2.4GHz band is the older of the two and has a clear advantage: it reaches further and passes better through walls and floors in your home. If you have rooms far from the router or several floors, it's the band that usually keeps the best coverage.
The problem is that the same frequency is used by a huge number of devices besides your router: microwaves, bluetooth devices, remotes and sensors from other manufacturers, and also your neighbors' wifi, which very likely broadcasts on the same band. All of that makes 2.4GHz more "congested" and, as a result, slower and somewhat less stable in areas with many nearby networks.
- Advantage: more range and better penetration through obstacles.
- Disadvantage: lower speed and more interference from other devices and networks.
2. 5GHz: more speed, but less range
The 5GHz band is more modern and offers much higher speeds, in addition to suffering less interference, since fewer household devices use it than the 2.4GHz band. That's why it usually gives a faster, more stable connection when the device is close to the router.
In exchange, it has less range and struggles more to pass through walls and obstacles. If you move away from the router or there are several walls in between, the 5GHz signal loses strength much sooner than the 2.4GHz signal, and you might end up with less speed than expected or even no connection to that network at all.
3. Which band to choose depending on the device
The most suitable band depends on where the device is and how much speed it actually needs:
- Use 5GHz on devices close to the router that need speed: high-quality streaming, online gaming, video calls or transferring large files.
- Use 2.4GHz on devices far from the router or that don't need much speed: smart bulbs, wifi plugs, sensors, basic cameras or any connected household device that barely uses data.
For devices that move around the house, like a phone or laptop, it's normal to let the device itself decide at any given moment, since it can switch bands depending on which room you're in.
4. Why you sometimes only see one wifi network instead of two
Most current routers broadcast both bands, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, at the same time. The difference is in how they present them:
- Some routers merge both bands under the same network name, so you only see one wifi network in the list. In that case, it's your own phone or computer that automatically decides which band to connect to based on signal and distance.
- Other routers show two different network names (for example, one ending in "_2.4G" and another in "_5G"), which lets you manually choose which one each device connects to.