New Frame TV and matching soundbar constantly lose Wifi Connection

[jake999]

I have the Samsung Frame TV (2022 model  QN65LS03BAFXZA) and the latest Samsung soundbar with the matching bezel to the tv frame (HW-S801B/ZA).  If I change the TV -> soundbar connection to Wifi, it tries for a bit then cannot connect and defaults back to TV speakers.  (both devices are on the same mesh wifi network.)  My wifi router is an Eero Pro 6 with automatic band steering (it's not configurable per device.). I see the TV always chooses the 2.4 ghz network and the soundbar always connects to the 5ghz network.  They are connecting to the same node of the mesh. This band mismatch seems to be the source of the problem.  Eero supports a feature to temporarily disable the 5ghz network limited to 10 minutes for troubleshooting purposes.  When I disable the 5ghz band, the TV and soundbar both go onto the 2.4 ghz band and they work perfectly together. Sometimes they stay on this band for several days and everything works perfectly. Then at some point, the soundbar will hop back to 5ghz, at which point the tv will tell me the soundbar is disconnected and revert to the internal TV speakers.

Is there any way to force the two devices to use the same wireless band so they are able to stay connected to each other over wifi?  Bluetooth is not a good option because it is glitchy and tends to drop as well (BT mode also introduces a horrible delay - audio lags about 1 second behind video - which makes it unusable)

Has anyone solved this problem?

[Nickypmd89]

Any solution from anybody. Having the same issue. I’m about done with Samsung TVs and devices. Constantly running into issues. TV and soundbar (both Samsung products) never staying connected. PS5 constantly having issues with smooth gameplay. I mean it’s pretty absurd how it’s only their products and consistently an issue. Sony and LG TVs without a single problem. 

[jake999]

Can anyone from Support team comment on this?  It's a pretty major issue for brand new latest generation products.  We really need some guidance on this!

[Ray Wong]

I got the same problem... they cannot connect when 1 having 2.4g and the other having 5g.... On the other hand, I do not understand why the sound quality by wifi is much better than bluetooth.

[Avarus]

I know this may not be possible for everyone, but I’ve confirmed and fixed this Wi-Fi band mismatch problem. My setup has the FrameTV box very close to my router/network setup, so I wired in the TV and immediately the speaker connected and worked properly.

I doubt you’re going to get a response from Samsung on how to have a speaker stay on the 2.4ghz band. What I’d do is look at your router settings, and see what options you have to either disable 5ghz altogether, which won’t make a noticeable difference to your Wifi connectivity overall. Some tomato or DDWRT routers give you the ability to pick band by device connected, but the retail router interfaces don’t give you that level of customization or expert settings.

Not the best technical answer here, but rather than fiddling with bands I’d suggest figuring out how to wire your TV and you’ll never run into this issue again. 

Cheers!

[Avarus]

I can comment on the Bluetooth vs WIFI sound quality. Effectively Bluetooth is connecting device-to-device “over the air” and naturally loses packets due to the nature of the technology. You’ll typically notice this difference when plugging in a device directly as well. With wifi you are connecting two devices to one network at a much higher bandwidth, and with almost zero packet loss between those devices. 

You’ll never be able to compare Bluetooth to Wifi/Wired in terms of quality, as it’s a very aged technology that only recently has begun to have some updates to the standard. Even so, BT will never match Wi-Fi connectivity for speed and quality 👍