I cannot find anything reliable on Mr. Google, but long and short of it - I have two devices that keep roaming to my router, when a satellite is literally 5 feet away. And, what's worse - they keep losing connectivity to the router... these are stationary devices that never move. I'm really interested to know if there is any way to "pin" them to the satellite that they are sitting right next to. <vent>And, mini vent... I just can't believe it keeps pairing to a device that it doesn't have a reliable connection to. </vent>

DDTriGuy wrote: I have two devices that keep roaming to my router, when a satellite is literally 5 feet away Just to clarify: these two devices are originally connected to a satellite, and then change connections to the router? (roam)

They have been connected to the Satellite when I rebooted the router (was hoping they'd stay)... So, yes, it does appear they roam over to the router. It's just weird that these two devices constantly have connectivity issues (so I have zero idea how it thinks the router is a better choice).

I did an experiment a year ago with my old RBR50 system. Set up Wireshark in monitor mode to capture the management frames from the Orbi router and satellites. What I found at the time was that when the router and satellites were rebooted, the router began broadcasting Beacon Frames considerably before the satellites did. (as much as a minute). I have intended to repeat the experiment to gain more precision in the numbers, but it is "not at the top of my list" right now. One consequence of this could be that when the entire system is rebooted, the WiFi signal disappears from all access points (router and satellites). Thus every WiFi device in the house goes into "search mode" in order to regain their network connections. Beacon frames are broadcast between 5-10 times each second. If those IoT devices "see" a WiFi signal that they recognize, they may latch onto the router and stop looking. It was really fascinating to watch the device in my house probing and associating with the various access points. (at the time I had one router and two satellites.) An easy experiment would be to power cycle those IoT devices and see what they do. So, what is a user to do? Try to keep reboots to a minimum. Power the router and satellites with small UPS systems so that 'minor' power interruptions do not cause a reboot. If the system does reboot, make a note to self: cycle those two ignorant IoT things.

You know, you bring up a good point... we just had a power outage in the area a couple of days ago. So based on what you are saying, they may have stuck to the router when power came back. The other things that are staying on the Satellite are OS systems (Mac, AppleTV) but the things stuck to the router are IoTs, as you predicted. Let's see how that rolls...

Rebooted, they went back to the router!!! And have like 1 bar of signal strength. So weird.

RBR840 and Satallites | NETGEAR Communities

12 Replies

CrimpOn
Guru
Mar 17, 2023
DDTriGuy wrote:

I have two devices that keep roaming to my router, when a satellite is literally 5 feet away

Just to clarify: these two devices are originally connected to a satellite, and then change connections to the router? (roam)
- DDTriGuy
  Aspirant
  Mar 17, 2023
  They have been connected to the Satellite when I rebooted the router (was hoping they'd stay)... So, yes, it does appear they roam over to the router. It's just weird that these two devices constantly have connectivity issues (so I have zero idea how it thinks the router is a better choice).
  - CrimpOn
    Guru
    Mar 17, 2023
    I did an experiment a year ago with my old RBR50 system. Set up Wireshark in monitor mode to capture the management frames from the Orbi router and satellites. What I found at the time was that when the router and satellites were rebooted, the router began broadcasting Beacon Frames considerably before the satellites did. (as much as a minute). I have intended to repeat the experiment to gain more precision in the numbers, but it is "not at the top of my list" right now.
    
    One consequence of this could be that when the entire system is rebooted, the WiFi signal disappears from all access points (router and satellites). Thus every WiFi device in the house goes into "search mode" in order to regain their network connections. Beacon frames are broadcast between 5-10 times each second. If those IoT devices "see" a WiFi signal that they recognize, they may latch onto the router and stop looking.
    
    It was really fascinating to watch the device in my house probing and associating with the various access points. (at the time I had one router and two satellites.)
    
    An easy experiment would be to power cycle those IoT devices and see what they do.
    
    So, what is a user to do?
    
    Try to keep reboots to a minimum.
    
    Power the router and satellites with small UPS systems so that 'minor' power interruptions do not cause a reboot.
    
    If the system does reboot, make a note to self: cycle those two ignorant IoT things.

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RBR840 and Satallites