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Forum Discussion
dchbbc
Dec 17, 2018Apprentice
RBR40 What connects to each satellite
I have an RBR40 and 3 satellites. They are all over the house. One is the furthest in my garage. Why is it if the main unit is at the opposite side of the house, everything still connects to that ins...
- Dec 17, 2018
dchbbc wrote:
I have an RBR40 and 3 satellites. They are all over the house. One is the furthest in my garage. Why is it if the main unit is at the opposite side of the house, everything still connects to that instead of the Orbi that is 2 inches away? If I look at the device list for a satellite that I’m right next to, it shows nothing hooked up but the main unit has 16 things on it. They are all working with good signals.
This is how wifi works. If a device has good coverage then the device will stay connected to the base station that it connected to the first time. It will try to connect to another base station or band only if it if it finds another base station with a stonger signal.
If you have a large area of overlap between the coverage areas of the base stations then the -most probably- all bands will have similar signal streangths. So there will be no situation that the device will find a better signal in another base station to hop over to.
So if your devices are working fine with the furthest station then you have no problems and you don't really need to worry about it or do anything.
ekhalil
Dec 17, 2018Master
dchbbc wrote:
I have an RBR40 and 3 satellites. They are all over the house. One is the furthest in my garage. Why is it if the main unit is at the opposite side of the house, everything still connects to that instead of the Orbi that is 2 inches away? If I look at the device list for a satellite that I’m right next to, it shows nothing hooked up but the main unit has 16 things on it. They are all working with good signals.
This is how wifi works. If a device has good coverage then the device will stay connected to the base station that it connected to the first time. It will try to connect to another base station or band only if it if it finds another base station with a stonger signal.
If you have a large area of overlap between the coverage areas of the base stations then the -most probably- all bands will have similar signal streangths. So there will be no situation that the device will find a better signal in another base station to hop over to.
So if your devices are working fine with the furthest station then you have no problems and you don't really need to worry about it or do anything.
Chuck_M
Dec 17, 2018Mentor
Does this mean if you set all your gear up next to each other and THEN place them, that you could have suboptimal connectivity between?
- FURRYe38Dec 17, 2018Guru - Experienced User
This would be recommened yes. So that you can make sure the system is updated and configured for your needs. Once this is done, then turn off and place at the remote locations.
Chuck_M wrote:
Does this mean if you set all your gear up next to each other and THEN place them, that you could have suboptimal connectivity between?
- Chuck_MDec 17, 2018Mentor
FURRYe38 wrote:
This would be recommened yes. So that you can make sure the system is updated and configured for your needs. Once this is done, then turn off and place at the remote locations.
Chuck_M wrote:
Does this mean if you set all your gear up next to each other and THEN place them, that you could have suboptimal connectivity between?
This doesnt make sense to me base upon the earlier comment...
Here is why: If you initially set them up together (next to each other) and they can all clearly see and communicate wiuth the router (base).
When you subsequently place them around the house where one can see the base well but the other cant, it sounds like the other will still try (or prefer) to communicate with the base vice the other sattelite since that was the behavior it learned on setup.
Am I getting this concept wrong?
- FURRYe38Dec 17, 2018Guru - Experienced User
You can test all of this out once you have the satellites place. Turn them all off accept for one. Test with connecting your devices up. See where they connect, router or satellite. Then turn that one off and turn a different satellite ON and test again. Same for the 3rd satellite. Check to see where the devices are getting connected too.
Can try then with two satellites.
Also be sure that Daisy Chain is checked. This actually disabled this feature on this version of FW. If you don't have the satellites in a chain or line out from after each other, Daisy Chain should be disabled.
- ekhalilDec 17, 2018Master
Chuck_M wrote:
Does this mean if you set all your gear up next to each other and THEN place them, that you could have suboptimal connectivity between?
Once you move the base stations the devices will search again for the best AP's to connect to. The devices are continously measuring the wifi power level, once the device finds a better wifi level in a new AP the device will try to connect to that better AP.