Connect AP to one Orbi satellite

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DalleV wrote:
Ok, so I reset the new router and let it be in router mode. It shows in the orbi device list with an IP. Thing is when I set the router in AP mode it disappears from the device list.

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A fascinating puzzle.  It is not clear (to me) what mechanism routers use to create their list of Attached Devices.  Several possibilities come to mind, such as:

• Tracking DHCP assignments.  as in, "This MAC address requested an IP using DHCP and I offered 192.168.1.55, so it is probably on the network with that IP address."
• Tracking ARP responses.  as in, "Somebody on the network issued an ARP request for IP 192.168.1.55, and this MAC address responded 'that's me'"
• Tracking data traffic through the router.  as in, "Every time I see a data packet go through the router with IP 192.168.1.55, I know it is on the network."

Huh?  What's this geezer's point?  Some years ago, I noticed that my Nest thermostat was erratic on the network.  I would see it on Attached Devices at 192.168.1.10 (which was the entry in the LAN Setup table) and then, "poof" it would not be there.  After much bewildering frustration, it finally turned out that the thermostat would disappear from Attached Devices if the smartphone app (Nest) was not running.  i.e.  if 15 minutes went by with absolutely no communication between the Nest and the smartphone, it would drop off of Attached Devices, but would appear again as soon as the app was opened.

It is also a puzzle (to me) how long the Orbi firmware takes to detect changes in Attached Devices.  (It certainly is not instantaneous.  A new device may not show up for several minutes. When my phone first enters the driveway, it connects to a satellite in the garage at 2.4G.  I enter the house, climb the stairs, and open Attached Devices to see that the phone is connected to that satellite at 2.4G even though I am sitting three feet from the router and the phone says it is connected at 5G.  Sure enough, in a few minutes, refreshing Attached Devices shows the phone connected to the router at 5G.)

How about an experiment with this new router.

• Assign it 192.168.1.55 in the LAN Setup table.
• Put it into AP mode and reboot.
• Use some device on the Orbi LAN to ping 192.168.1.55.  (computer, laptop, app on smartphone, tablet, Chromebook, etc.  Does the router respond to ICMP (ping) ?
• After a couple of pings, open the Attached Devices display and see if 192.168.1.55 is on the list. Refresh the display a couple of times.

Voxel has done a lot to keep the Orbi firmware up to date and added features.  Somehow, I doubt that he has tinkered with the basic networking code that builds the internal table that Attached Devices draws from to make the web display.