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Roborock 2.4Ghz Wifi issues and some solutions

Roborock S6 Pure vacuum cleaner and it's charging station.

I just bought a Roborock S6 Pure vacuum robot. Having 2 cats and plenty of hair every day lying around we needed something that could do a quick clean every day.

While I’m vary happy with it’s performance, there is a WIFI connection issue that has been plaguing all Roborock S5 and S6 vacuum robots.

The Problem

The problem I encountered was that it was not that hard to get the Roborock S6 connected to the WIFI.

Just make sure that your WIFI password does not have any weird characters in them (symbols) as apparently your vacuum cleaners’ wifi programming can’t handle that.

However, once it was connected, I couldn’t really control it from my phone – it worked, but only infrequently. If I was further away, on the other side of the house, then it worked, maps got loaded. But only sometimes, with frequent timeouts and slow internet errors. Weird, but it got me thinking…

As officially stated in the manual, Roborock does not support the 5Ghz Wifi spectrum. And nowadays that is becoming more and more standard in routers. Most routers still support both though, sometimes separately, sometimes transparant for the user. Some of the new ones only support 5Ghz, although for your own comfort, you are better off with one that supports both.

At home I have got a router that supports both, and automatically chooses how to connect to a device depending on the throughput – I have the same network name for both radio networks, so my phone only sees the one network name, but depending on distance it’ll be the 2.4Ghz or the 5Ghz network (the higher the frequency, the faster the connection, but the harder it is to penetrate walls with the signal; so the further away you are, the better it is to use 2.4Ghz).

And that caused the problems : when I was farther away from the robot and the router, I got notifications; I could access the amp, etc… because my phone automatically used the 2.4Ghz radio network. But when I wanted to change settings I automatically went close to the Roborock. And closer to the router, so the phone switched again to the better 5Ghz connection. All without me knowing it. And normally that’s not a problem. However, when you are communicating with a 2.4Ghz device, that IS a problem…

Solutions

Here are some solutions to your problems :

  • First, check that your WIFI password does not contain any strange symbols.
  • Set your encryption scheme from WEP to WPA. Honestly, if you are still running WEP, you’re asking for troubles. WPA or WPA/2 is better protection as WEP nowadays is eminently hackable.
  • If you only have a 5Ghz network router : you’re out of luck. You can still use your Roborock, but without the smartphone interface. But…
    Do check in your router that your router perhaps DOES have 2.4Ghz, but it is turned off. For that you will need to access the router’s administrative interface, which is different for each type of router and how it has been setup… Time to start searching for that router installation manual ! If it is turned off, turn it on, and then setup that network and connect your Roborock to it.
  • You have a router that supports both frequencies, and both are active but using different network names : eg. “RadioGagoo24Ghz” and “RadioGagaa5Ghz” – make certain to use the 2.4Ghz network name and *not* the 5Ghz.
    Additionally, the device you are controlling may need to use 2.4Ghz network as well. I’ve read reports from people that did not manage to control their Roborock using their recent iPhones, but did manage to do that with an (older) Android phone (one which probably only has a 2.4Ghz radio).
  • For those dual router, you could, if you want to, disable the 5Ghz network and force everyone to use the old network. But you are losing out on high-speed downloads, and some devices nowadays like USB network antenna’s (for plugging into pc’s without a wifi card) only support 5Ghz…
  • You have a router that supports both frequencies and meshes them into one network name (which is what I have) – and you want to keep on using that solution for whatever reason : what worked for me was to enable the 2.4Ghz GUEST network (and only that one) and link the Roborock to that. I also allowed devices on that network to connect to my network.
    Afterwards I set my mobile phone back to my regular network, but I can still control the Roborock ! This works because
    a) the Roborock now has a dedicated 2.4Ghz network and can save information like maps. And because it can talk to my internal network,
    b) my phone can see it and communicate with it.

I hope you manage to get your Roborock working. And honestly, Xiaomi, if you are reading this, an upgrade on your next model to 5ghz is something that you really need to consider. The problems selling this to European and/or American customers will only get bigger staying on just the 2.4Ghz network.

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10 replies on “Roborock 2.4Ghz Wifi issues and some solutions”

I had the issue when I upgraded the router and used new SSID. The app failed to connect to Wifi no matter what, so I disabled the 5GHz on my wifi router and only 2.4Ghz was on. After disabling 5Ghz, the app immediately connected to wifi and I was able to get connected. Try it out.

It does not matter whether your phone uses 5ghz or 2,4ghz as it doesnt connect to roborock. It connects to your router. Your router is connected to roborock via 2.4ghz WiFi.

Hi
I have the same problem efter updating to a asus mesh wifi (Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8) dual solution, i cant get my roborock 6 maxv to connect, butif i share my mobil hotspot ican connect and if i use my isp router it works too, so i guess the problems leis in the ax wifi 6 mesh… tried with the guest didnt work.

Hi Again
i solved the problem by deactivering (Target Wake Time) on 2,4 g wifi
now it wakes on my new mesh system…
hope it helps other ppl out there
have a gr8 day..

Thank you! omg. Had this problem for years without any solution. Thank you for saving me all the headaches.

I had the feature in my router where 5Ghz and 2,4Ghz signals are combined. Roborock S5 could not connect. I turned it off and created only 2,4Ghz wifi with same network name and password what I was going to use in the “combined” wifi setting. After Roborock connected itself to 2,4Ghz network I could turn the combined network feature back on and Roborock connected to that without problems.

So it seems that pure 2,4Ghz network is needed only in the “activation phase”.

I was struggling with Wi-Fi connection through my Cisco home router. Connection failed on 3rd step every time. I disabled SSID (2.4GHz) network from Cisco and published HotSpot with same SSID from secondary mobilephone and voila, Roborock connected to wi-fi.

Next disabled mobile wi-fi and enabled Cisco wi-fi back online and I noticed that Roborock is connected to the Cisco router, but Roborock app fails connection. On the Cisco router I checked Roborock device settings and by default my router denied Roborock access to the internet. I made allow rule for Roborock and connection works fine.

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