Can't get 5Ghz AP to work (Raspberry Pi 3+ and Pi4)

1st Official Post

    I want to use the Tethering/Access Point feature on my Raspbarry Pi, and I want to use the 5 Ghz frequency. I've installed Network tools, but no matter what I try, as soon as I select "Enable 'tethered' Wireless Access Point' things appear to drop back to 2.4 Ghz. I'm assuming that the feature needs updating so that Libreelec offers 2.4 and 5 Ghz AP availibility? Is there anything I can do to force 5 Ghz? BTW - connecting the Pi as a 5 Ghz client works fine.

    Don't understand what you are trying to tell me. I have a Pi4 with libreelec. I use the Ethernet connection for most things, so I'd like to use the Wifi as an Access point. It works fine at 2.4 Ghz, but 5.0 Ghz doesn't.

    As I wrote in my previous post I can connect my Pi4 to my Netgear 5 Ghz router.

    • Official Post

    The hotspot (not access point, hotspot) feature comes from software called "connman" that manages connections in the OS. It was originally written for a mobile phone OS to provide a tethered hotspot, e.g. laptop connects to mobile and shares the mobile connection. As a result it is deliberately simple and the only configuration options are on, off, and the ability to change SSID and passphrase. If you want an access point with access point features and config options, you need to get an access point.

    Thanks for your reply "chewitt"!!

    I think people need to re-read my original post. Maybe I'm actually asking for an additional feature, but I believe a feature that will improve the product, libreELEC, which is an excellent product.

    Let's keep things simple: Libreelec has a feature under "Setting/LibreELEC/Network/Wireless Networks (Active)" called "Enable 'tethered' Wireless Access Point". If I enable and set things up, I can connect with my remote device's WiFi (so, my mobile phone in this case) and connect to the Internet over the 2.4Ghz frequency. Great! The feature works :) Now the part which really concerns my question. I have got LibreELEC, running on a PI 3B+ and a Pi4 which can handle the 5Ghz frequency, but I cannot connect on the 5Ghz channels/frequencies. It would be great to connect using my 802.11ac capable devices, so 5Ghz, so I can have far faster Device <-> Pi/LibreELEC <-> Internet speeds.

    My guess is LibreELEC cannot support 5Ghz/802.11ac yet??? No problem if it is not supported, but maybe someone the development team would be interested in implementing?

    • Official Post

    The current connman feature is working as designed. It just wasn't designed to do much (2.4GHz) because that's fast enough for data sharing between a phone and a laptop. Enhancement to add support for 5GHz and more config is not impossible, but it's not a simple task and we don't have people on-staff with the skillsets to do it. So your choices are: a) find someone with the skills and willingness to code it, or b) get a proper access point.

    Quote from chewitt

    b) get a proper access point.

    Do you mean additional hardware, like a router?

    Or there is an option to replace connman software with something more feature-rich (e.g. hostapd)?

    I need additional features for tethering on my pi3, like mac filtering and ipv6

    I'm not afraid to configure it via command-line.

    Is there an official way to do that? I'm one step to get cross-compiler and build it myself :)

    • Official Post

    The connman tethered AP feature "is what it is" unless someone submits code to connman to add features and we (LE staff) have no plans to start writing connman features. It's probably not impossible to add packages for host_apd and more fucntions, but we have no desire to be a router OS so there are no plans to do that either - but we're open source so you're welcome to experiment on your own. The practical solution to "I want a cheap wireless router" is to get a cheap (hardware) router. Or you can switch distro to something with package management that allows configurability. LE is by deliberate design a locked-down and fixed medicentre purpose (not router or general purpose) distro.