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Forum Discussion
texaggie1994
Mar 24, 2024Aspirant
Adding Nighthawk Router as and extender to orbi satellite?
I have Orbi RBR40 with 3 satellites installed and if works wonderfully, except for inside my metal shop building. The satellite is mounted on the wall outside of the building, but inside ...
CrimpOn
Mar 24, 2024Guru - Experienced User
The most obvious solution is to:
- Configure the Nighthawk WiFi router as an Access Point (AP).
- This will automatically disable the DHCP function of the router, so the primary router (Orbi) will assign IP addresses to devices in the shop building.
- Configure the Nighthawk router WiFi with exactly the same credentials as the primary Orbi system.
- If the shop metal walls completely block WiFi signals, then any time a mobile WiFi device enters or leaves the shop, it will lose connection to WiFi and search for a WiFi signal that it recognizes. Almost instantly, it will find the SSID that it has stored and use the stored password to connect.
- The Orbi WiFi and the Nighthawk WiFi remain entirely separate WiFi networks. Devices cannot roam seamlessly between them (using IEEE 802.11r protocol, often called Fast Roaming). This is similar to setting up two WiFi networks miles apart with exactly the same credentials. Get in the car and drive miles to the other system, and your WiFi device will recognize, "Hey. I know that WiFi!" Come back and the same thing will happen. What is different in this case is the metal wall effectively shields one system from the other.
Have a great day!