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Forum Discussion
RBR50/RBS50/RBSS50Y - Auto/manually setting wifi's devices' preferred SSID IP addresses needed!
I have a large three-level home on a 3.5-acre propety. I have one Orbio main router (RBR50), two indoor satellites (RBS50), and two outdoor satellites (RBS50Y. The main router and all indoor and outd...
What you are asking for is to make Orbi control the roaming decisions. Please note the following:
- Roaming decision is always taken by the device not the wifi router (the AP which can be the Router or any of the Satellites). The AP can just help and suggest to the device to roam but can't take the decision to roam.
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Orbi supports 802.11k, v and r to enhance wifi roaming.
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Orbi uses band-steering (part of 802.11v) to force the device to move to the band in the Router/Satellite that the device receives better.
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There are devices that do not support roaming enhancement standards, usually called "Sticky devices", those devices can cause bad user experience. For those "Sticky Devices", what Netgear can do to improve the user experience is the following:
- To implement a Min_RSSI_Value -I don't see that this is currently implemented in Orbi. This is a value that can be configured on the AP's (individually in the Router and all Satellites) per radio band so that a wireless device is required to meet a minimum signal level, as seen by the AP, to be able to reliably connect/use a particular AP, otherwise the AP will take action against that device.
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This works by sending a de-authentication packet to the wireless device that does not meet the minimum RSSSi requirement (the Sticky Device), which effectively tells the device that it's not welcome on that AP, It is then up the device to find a better AP to connect to. It may connect back to the same AP, especially if it is the only one within range.
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This should be configured on a per AP basis. This does actually require some careful configuration, and -probably- that's why Netgear chose not to implement it on this non-enterprise product.
Do I remember correctly that one possible workaround is to power cycle the device? i.e. if the device was already looking for a connection when Orbi goes online, it may connect to the first Wi-Fi AP that shows up (such as the router) and then not change when a better connection appears shortly after. Even if this were possible, my guess is that a power outage or Orbi firmware update could result in devices waking up and grabbing the undesired AP again.
CrimpOn wrote:
Do I remember correctly that one possible workaround is to power cycle the device? i.e. if the device was already looking for a connection when Orbi goes online, it may connect to the first Wi-Fi AP that shows up (such as the router) and then not change when a better connection appears shortly after. Even if this were possible, my guess is that a power outage or Orbi firmware update could result in devices waking up and grabbing the undesired AP again.
Yes, the simple and -currently- the only solution for "sticky devices" is to power cycle the device so it will look for the best AP.
Power cycling Orbi -for sticky devices issue- is not a good choice, since the Router will always come up first so all those devices will choose to connect to the Router and not any of the Satellites and stay connected there.
Crimpon: Thanks for your response.
I have repeatedly tried power cycling my wifi devices that connect to inappropriate Orbi router/satellite on the same SSID. Unfortunately, that doesn't correct the issue.
When wifi devices initially connect to a router/satellite for a specified SSID, I do not know if the/some wifi devices permanetly "remember" the mac address and/or IP address they initially connected to or not. If anybody knows about this, please advise.
JBinIL wrote:
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I have repeatedly tried power cycling my wifi devices that connect to inappropriate Orbi router/satellite on the same SSID. Unfortunately, that doesn't correct the issue.
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If after power cycling a device, the device chooses the same AP, that means that you have too much overlapping between the AP ranges. You need either to take the AP's away from each other or reduce the Tx power levels of the AP's.
ekhalil wrote:
If after power cycling a device, the device chooses the same AP, that means that you have too much overlapping between the AP ranges. You need either to take the AP's away from each other or reduce the Tx power levels of the AP's.Now this sounds like a possibility. (tedious and with potential side-effects, and maybe not actually possible)
i.e. telnet into the "wrong" AP and reduce transmit power to (very low). Power cycle the device and it should find a "more appropriate" AP. Then restore power to previous level.
In this specific situation, I believe the discussion centered around devices that were 100 and 200 ft. from the AP. Dropping transmit power on something 200 ft away, should make it "disappear" as far as the device is concerned. Of course, reducing power could also prompt other devices to make inappropriate decisions.