How can I keep my Firestick from slowing Wifi with its own SSID?

Question

My Amazon Firestick is producing its own Wifi network that interferes with my router, bringing speeds (fast.com) to 3 Mbps when connected, compared to 10 Mbps when disconnected. (On a nominal 100 Mbps connection.)

When I set my DSL-225 router SSID PETERSNET to Channel 12, Linssid shows a second DIRECT-eE-FireTV-13aa SSID appears at the same channel (see image). I understand from this Reddit that the Firestick generates the wifi network for itsremote control.)

When I switch to Channel 1, the Firestick's MAC address 4E:EF:... "follows" the DSL-225 and produces a new SSID at Channel 1, but consistently renamed to a nonsensical \000x\000x\000x....

Interesting that this Amazon device appears as a DHCP client of the DSL-225 as amazon-af0d9b545 4C:EF:... (the same MAC except for the second digit; presumably a second network interface).

How do I prevent the Firestick from slowing down my Wifi?

Solution

I had the same issue, the fireTV's wifi direct signal (for the remote) apparently chooses its band by following the strongest wifi signal, causing interference with your router. My fireTV has a wired connection for internet, but I was seeing the wifi direct signal follow my router around the 5GHz bands. Why on earth they designed it like this, I do not know.

I was able to fix this by disabling SSID broadcast in my router's settings, then switching my router to a different band. The fireTV's wifi direct signal stopped following my router.

Comments

[Tim_Stewart]

The ssid beacon you are picking up is only for Miracast/streaming YouTube etc from your phone. If it's not sending data there should be absolutely no interference. What are you scanning with when you pick up the \000x\000x\000x ssid? This is usually a driver error seen in Kali or backtrack Linux, specifically a network that's in another band then the wireless nic.

[Viosha]

The SSIDs disappear and the speed goes forom 3 to 10 Mbps quite consistently when we disconnect the Firestick, so that is definitely the case. Also, note that we have never used Miracast/Streaming from a phone. We are using Linssid to scan and the SSID from this MAC address is consistently "DIRECT..FIRE..." on Channel 12 and "\000x..." on Channel 1.

[Tim_Stewart]

What kind of router do you have? The easiest solution for this would be to put your fire stick on another band/radio. I have all of ours on the 5ghz 802.11AC radios on our routers, each router has three separate radios, two dedicated to users and one for the streaming devices.

[Viosha]

Router is DSL-225. When you say "put your fire stick on another band..." -- how do we do that? I don't see such a setting in the Fire Stick's admin interface.

[Viosha]

What is a "radio" in this context? I am not familiar with multiple "radios" in a router.

[Tim_Stewart]

Your router supports 802.11b/g/n on the 2.4ghz band. That means it has one 2.4ghz radio. You may be able to get your ISP to put it into a "bridge" configuration, and use a newer router. For instance: the linksys wrt1900ac series has two physical radios, one 2.4ghz 802.11bgn, and one 5.8ghz 802.11a/ac radio. The router choice is obviously your own.

[Ramhound]

Please provide all relevant information in the question body instead of a comment.

[Viosha]

@Ramhound What info are you referring to? The router model is in the body. Something else?

[Viosha]

@Tim_Stewart So whenyou say "radio", you are referring to 5 GHz vs 2.4?

[Ramhound]

@JoshuaFox - The information in your comments are not contained in your question body.

[Tim_Stewart]

2.4ghz vs 5.8, is the band. You can have multiple radio chipsets for both bands. I.e 2 x 2.4ghz radios & 1 x 5.8ghz radio in the same device giving you the ability to have multiple SSIDs attached logically to the separate radios chipsets.

[Viosha]

@ramhound I added a mention of Linssid. I am not sure what else is missing.