Phones suddenly dropping off the Wi-Fi - why?

Cliff_G — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:07:45 GMT

A strange and very annoying thing has suddenly happened over the last 2 days - both our mobiles in the house have been dropping off the Wi-fi.

The Router is a ~3 month old EE Smart Hub Plus. To satisfy some older devices I have both 5 and 2.4 GHz bands available on both the Main Wi-fi and the Compatible Wi-fi. The phones are both Samsung A20e on Android 11. It is only the phones that we have problems with, our Samsung and iPad tablets and a Dell and HP laptop are all fine. We have older devices such as Kindles which also seem to be ok, just tested my Kindle and it connects fine. The router is strategically situated in the centre of the house upstairs but at the top of an open stairwell, a position we've used for 15+ years with good spread to the farthest rooms.

Originally the phones were attached to the Main Wifi 5 GHz and worked fine for around 3 months. 2 days ago they both started receiving very weak signals and dropping off the wifi. I moved them both to the Compatible wifi (which has 2.4 and 5 GHz) and thought this had sorted it, 2.4 GHz in theory being stronger through walls/floors etc. This seemed to work but they started dropping off again. Rebooting the router would re-connect them for a while but after some hours they would drop off again. Rebooting the phones does not help.

A strange thing is that the phones will now not detect the Main wifi even with the router just rebooted and the phones right next to the router.

I use an Android App called Wifi Analyser on my tablet and it appears the 5 GHz signals are actually stronger, around -40 dBm, with the 2.4 GHz weaker at -60 dBm. The 5 GHz's are on circa channel 106 the 2.4 Ghz's on channel 1, occasionally channel 10. The only other Wifi signal around is a very weak one from a neighbour, at ~ -90 dBm on channel 2.

We have DECT "landline" phones but have always had these.

The phones have not had a software update during this time, they are both the same version, and to have a hardware problem on both phones at the same time seems unlikely.

So I can't work out whether the router is faulty in some way (warm/failing? but we're in Scotland and have not seen the high temperatures in the south) or the phones have both had something happen at the same time.

Driving me nuts, as we depend on Wifi Calling on the phones (we're out in the sticks with no mobile signal). Thankfully we have a Home Phone installed, which works fine.

Any ideas, anyone? Thanks

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Phones suddenly dropping off the Wi-Fi - why?