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R7000P Connection Issues with MU-MIMO
I have an R7000P running in AP mode and MU-MIMO turned on. This AP is 10 feet and no walls from my laptop. When I boot my laptop, it tries to connect to my R7000 running in AP mode. The R7000 is 40 f...
Since its a Broadcom chipset based router I would disable MU-MIMO, on Broadcom based AC routers regardless of brand it can cause performance issues as Broadcom didnt do a great job of implementing MU. Secondly, MU on a 3 antenna router is pretty pointless as most clients have 2 antennas and for proper MU functionality to have 2 dual antenna MU devices reciving at the same time you need 4 antenna routers. The only AC router on the market that does well with MU is the R7800 (4 antennas), it uses a Qualcomm chipset, and its Synology equivalent the RT2600ac as well which uses the same hardware.
I hear what you're saying. But here is why I think that isn't the right answer.
- The reason for having the SSIDs the same is so that my devices seamlessly switch between Access Points as I walk between the rooms holding the device. A device switches between APs with the same SSID more quickly and seamlessly that it does between APs with different APs. It doesn't make sense to make all of my clients deal with switching between SSIDs because one router doesn't play well with all devices.
- The router introduced a new feature, MU-MIMO, that made it incompatible with existing devices and the router still claims to be 802.11n compatible.
I understand the urge to jump on a workaround. But I don't think that is the right solution either for me specifically nor for Netgear in general.
Netgear does have something that does that. It's called Orbi. Orbi switches devices between satellites and router and between bands. Orbi controls it versus the device controlling what to connects to. In an ideal world, you'd be correct in that'd be the best solution, in practice it sucks because it puts the wireless device makers in control. Rarely does that end up being to our benefit. Sorry this is short, on my phone.
Orbi sounds like a fine solution if you don't have Ethernet available to each of your APs.
If you do a little googling, unless you're running a network with a controller that moves the devices around, the device itself is responsible for moving between AP's. its own drivers/software/firmware is whats in controll of it. Not the router.
Since its a Broadcom chipset based router I would disable MU-MIMO, on Broadcom based AC routers regardless of brand it can cause performance issues as Broadcom didnt do a great job of implementing MU. Secondly, MU on a 3 antenna router is pretty pointless as most clients have 2 antennas and for proper MU functionality to have 2 dual antenna MU devices reciving at the same time you need 4 antenna routers. The only AC router on the market that does well with MU is the R7800 (4 antennas), it uses a Qualcomm chipset, and its Synology equivalent the RT2600ac as well which uses the same hardware.