RBR840 and Satallites

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.