Wifi 6 dongle for tv

[Franky1971]

Just gone from a 60mb fttc broadband connection to gigabit fttp and speeds are up from 50mbps to 950mbps symmetrical so couldn't be happier with the connection itself. The ISP supplied router (Tp link archer xr 500v) is a bare bones Wifi 5 router so I've upgraded to a Wifi 6 Asus RT-AX86U and the range and throughput is fantastic on compatible wifi 6 client devices such as my Poco F3, son's Galaxy S20 and daughter's iPhone 11. The router is situated on the ground floor and I'm up on the 2nd floor in the loft bedroom where I wasn't getting any wifi 5 signal but the Wifi 6 router gives me full bars and 400mbps throughput on compatible devices, which is fantastic. I've also got a laptop and tv in the loft but they don't support wifi 6 so I'm using a dual band powerline adapter which works well but the throughput is only around 50mbps....... functional but nowhere near taking advantage of the gigabit connection so my question is this.............

I know that I can get a usb Wifi 6 dongle to allow my laptop to access Wifi 6 from the router but would I also be able to do that for my Panasonic HX820 tv?...... only bought the tv a few months ago so not gonna be upgrading for a good few years. It does have a usb port so was hoping a dongle could do the trick as it would be a shame if it was gonna be permanently restricted to 50mbps. Any answers/advice welcome....... TIA

UPDATE: I've moved the WiFi 6 router away from the front room window/next to my son's desktop pc and placed it on a shelf next to the wall closer to the centre of the house and now getting around 150mbps on the 5ghz channel connected to the TV's WiFi and double that on the firestick connected to the TV so it's all good now

 

[next010]

You cant use USB network devices with the TV so its limited by internal WiFi and ethernet link.

You could get an access point (working in client mode) to bridge the ethernet to WiFi but the ethernet link speed on the TV might be limited to 100mbps.

If your not getting connection/loading issues with streaming video services on the TV there is no real need to do any of the above.

 

[mikej]

If you could get a faster signal up there via some uprated powerline adaptors or other route, then a USB to ethernet adaptor might allow you to access speeds greater than the 100Mbps limit of the TV's in-built network adaptor, but this approach only seems to have been tested on certain TVs by LG and Sony so far according to this HDTVTest video, so there's no guarantee it'll work with a Panasonic.

With your existing speed of 50Mbps being more than sufficient for smooth 4K streaming, you'd have to have a fairly good reason for wanting anything faster, though ?

Note at least one comment on that video saying that the guy's NAS storage wasn't visible when the TV was networked via this method.

 

[markc000]

Are you saying you had an old router, swapped it out for one that is WiFi6 capable and the new routers improved signal reaches the loft? If thats the case can you enable some kind of legacy compatibility mode on your new router so both old and new devices can connect? Is it in some kind of WiFi6 only mode? Have you enabled 2.4 GHz?

Or are you saying WiFi4/5 devices connect to your new router downstairs but they refuse to connect in the loft?

 

[Franky1971]

Are you saying you had an old router, swapped it out for one that is WiFi6 capable and the new routers improved signal reaches the loft? If thats the case can you enable some kind of legacy compatibility mode on your new router so both old and new devices can connect? Is it in some kind of WiFi6 only mode? Have you enabled 2.4 GHz?

Or are you saying WiFi4/5 devices connect to your new router downstairs but they refuse to connect in the loft?

The WiFi 6 (ax) routers by default have a stronger signal than WiFi 5 (ac) routers, especially on the 5ghz band and they are backward compatible so will automatically connect to WiFi 5/4 devices. There is no WiFi 6 only mode and everything connects to the WiFi 6 router in the loft due to the stronger signal. The WiFi 5 router's signal was not reaching the loft.

 

[markc000]

The WiFi 6 (ax) routers by default have a stronger signal than WiFi 5 (ac) routers, especially on the 5ghz band and they are backward compatible so will automatically connect to WiFi 5/4 devices.

Hmm. If your Wifi 5/4 devices connect without issue to the new router on the lower floors then I'd enable 2.4Ghz on the router and see if it helped with in the loft. Could be a quick win.

 

[markc000]

Sorry I misread your post. Something to consider here is that a large number of TVs only have a 100Mbs network port, and their Wifi doesnt run to the max speed you might be expecting. I would check this before you start any work.

 

[Franky1971]

Actually, I forgot to update that I've moved the WiFi 6 router away from the front room window/next to my son's desktop pc and placed it on a shelf next to the wall closer to the centre of the house and now getting around 150mbps on the 5ghz channel and double that on the firestick connected to the TV so it's all good now