R7000 2.4 signal and wifi speeds flaky (1.0.9.34)

Look at my post above. I put a bunch of links in it regarding SmartConnect and the load balancing that happens behind the scenes.

There is no trickery. It simply looks at the connecting adapter and takes into consideration what is connected now and balances for best overall performance. It might put slower devices on your 2.4Ghz network, but if they are dual band and you move out of the 2.4's broadcast range, it's going to move them to the 5G broadcast. I personally like to control this myself which is why I use separate SSID names for my networks. You can try it and see how it works. If you decide its not right for your, then I would go with my original suggestion. 2 networks, 2 names.

The links make a case for tri-band, but I'm still not getting dual-band.  My devices wouldn't care which of two 5G radios are selected (if I had a tri-band router), as they would both have the same signal strength.

 

Given that my devices are going to attempt to pick the radio (right?), how does smart connect force them to use one of two (or three) different options?

 

Again, I was confused when, with SC enabled, the 5G radio disappeared from perspective of my laptop.  Was this because I was experiencing a frequency dropout, or was it because SC attempts to "hide" all but one frequecy?  And again, I really don't understand the capabilities of beamforming.

JJNorcal,

 

I can tell you are confused... R7000 and Trr-band routers are different cases. I've got both an R7000 that I DID not use Smart Connect with and an R8000 that I do.

 

First, there are differences in what Smart Connect can do and NG's implementation works.

 

Smart Connect as the name implies will 'figure out' what goes to what SSID. It will also manage 'load'. That is in its 'specs' (I forgot which chip maker makes this but for this discussion it doesn't matter).

 

On the R7000 it works managing both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz band. With it enabled a SINGLE SSID is seen. SC somehow determines what frequency to connect a device to by what it can. That is all 2.4Ghz devices will go to the band. Now comes the tricky part Dual Band devices, they can use either. However, as stated before there are differences on those band. Basically strenth at distances from the router. From what I've seen in reviews NG's implementation isn't complete. Once a device is assigned a band (and it can change which one from day to day) it stays on that band as long as connected. The implementation will level the number of devices per band as they connect. That means it is possible an AC device might wind up on a 2.4Ghz band UNLESS in the R7000 it is implemented that that device will got to the 5Ghz band automatically. For that reason I've never used Smart Connect. I alway let the device decide what band to connect to and all 5Ghz capable devices use that band.

 

Now on the Tri-Band R8000, different story.  Only the 2 5Ghz bands are under Smart Connect Control. The NG implementation doesn't always work well and again, as it seems it doesn't load each 5Ghz radio equally but for me that isn't a problem, but could be for some. In the Tri-band case each 5Ghz radio is assigned different channels, with the slower 5Ghz devices (N speeed) assigned to lower frequencies and faster 5G devices (AC speed) to the higher frequencies.

 

Now if you are using the SAME SSID for both bands this can be a problem. Especially for dual band devices. How can they tell if they are connecting to 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz signals? Do they see 2 SSID's and guess? Do they see one only? For ease of use, make them different. I'm sure there are devices that are or could be near the edge of the router signal (or weaker due to walls/floors) that might work better with a different band and two different SSID's makes this an easier choice.

JJNorcal

 

 

IrvSp has described it perfectly.  Also, please note that the KB articles I references says applies to in the right hand pane...  "R7000" and describe the behaviors of the radios depending on the dual or triband capability. 

 

Further, he confirms what I said at the very start.  The importance of using separate SSIDs for the broadcats if you aren't going to use SmartConnect.  So we've come full circle and as you can see, he is in agreement with my suggestions depending on the route you decide to go.   

 

You've been given suggestions and tools to help you troubleshoot and tailor your settings for what should be optimal performance.  The rest is up to you.

 

 

Appreciate the info and advice.

 

Did some googling.

 

There clearly are a good number of one vs multiple SSID debates out there.  Some adamanant for one (automatic from end user's perspective) and other adamant for separate (complete control on a per device basis).

 

The technique I've been trying to understand seems to be called "band steering".  I read through a couple of different implementations:

https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/features/3254-what-does-wifi-band-steering-mean/

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Radio_Settings/Band_Steering_Overview

 

Only link I saw on roaming in conjunction with band steering recommended enabling the feature and made a case for throughput improvements:

https://www.excentis.com/blog/wi-fi-roaming-gotchas

 

So I re-enabled smart connect this morning and did a few experiments, still with version 1.0.9.28.

 

First off, while wifi immediately came up after reconfig, I was unable to access router admin.  A paper clip reset cleared this problem.

 

Attached Devices indicated that my win10 laptop was using 2.4, but I could not get my iPhone to show up.  I moved my laptop closer to the router and at some point it was moved to 5G (I think immediately after the router reset).  I then did some roaming experiments, and from what I can tell, my laptop was forced to stick on 5G even though the signal got extremely week.  When I got to a spot where the 5G signal was gone, my laptop stuck with 5G for maybe 30-60 seconds and then finally switched to 2.4.  Without smart connect, Windows aggressively switches to 2.4 well before the 5G signal disappears.  My iPhone showed up in Attached Devices at some point using 2.4, and I have not been able to get it to show up as 5G (I can confirm radio selection in win10 but not on my iPhone).

 

To be fair, smart connect does force my laptop to stay on 5G in places where, while weaker than 2.4 by some threshhold, 5G speedtests outperform 2.4G.

 

After my laptop was downgraded to 2.4, it was left on 2.4 even though the 5G signal was usable, albeit weaker than 2.4.  These are locations where Windows would have chosen 2.4, but smart connect had let me use 5G before the radio downgrade.

 

NetSpot behaves the same as when I first tried smart connect.  The signal associated with the radio not selected (for device where NetSpot is launched) disappears for periods of time then it comes back, disappears, and repeat.  I verified that I could connect to my 2.4G printer, so not a radio dropout.

 

Please let me know if any of my observations are unexpected.  And thanks.

You might think reading some links makes things clear to you, but they are either for 'true' smart connect or theoretical.

 

NG's implementation do NOT do load balancing after device connection. Once on an SSID you stay on it.

 

Your first link is for Band Steering which although similar is not completely the same.

2nd link appears to be for Cisco AP's... and is a different implemtation.

Last link, not even about the same thing. It is using the SAME SSID as the other router(s) are using the same as the original. So let's say you are at an airport and you connect at one end and walk to the gates you stay connected. Your device picks the strongest signal it can find and automatically picks the closest one up. Same as Range Extenders in the home.

 

What we are discussing is using the SAME ID for BOTH (or more) SSID's on your router. You said you set the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSID to be the same. I asked then HOW COULD ANY DEVICE know which band it was connecting to? Either it would only see ONE SSID, the strongest one probably, or BOTH but not know which one to use? That IS the problem! Now if a device that can only use the 2.4Ghz band this will not be a problem as it can't see the 5Ghz band. It is the Dual band device that will have a problem.

 

Smart Connect FORCES the 2 bands on the R7000 to be the same... and it determines where who goes, and in some cases it will put a Dual band device on the 2.4Ghz band. There is NO guarantee with NG's implementation which band a Dual Band device will go on either, but the single band 2.4Ghz device will always connect to the 2.4Ghz band.

 

Just like your example of losing the 5Ghz signal, even with Smart Connect the same thing will happen as once a device loses connection it retries. 5Ghz doesn't go as far at the 2.4Ghz but as you get further away from the router the 5Ghz signal does stay stronger until it is gone.

 

Now if your device doesn't 'know' the 2.4Ghz SSID because you never joined it or 'forgot' that connection in both cases you'll be prompted for credentials. If you have Smart Connect enabled and your dual band device was never on the 2.4Ghz SSID (or was told to forget it) you will also be prompted (but it will be saved for future use).

 

You seem to be questioning how things work and trying to justify using the same SSID on both radio's? I can't tell how you could tell one from the other to even suggest you know where everything 'will' connect (without looking at the router to tell).

 

Device connection problems, who knows why?

 

You have 2 choices... and in the case of the R7000, I think only if you know ALL your h/w should you be using 2 SSID's, otherwise, Smart Connect should work for you. That said, you have to realize some device that you want greater throughput on might wind up on the 2.4Ghz band and be limited. Even the 5Ghz band can be limited by an N device on as well as an AC device. I never used Smart Connect as I wanted ALL my 2.4Ghz devices on that SSID, and ALL the Dual Band devices on the 5Ghz SSID.

 

By the way, NG uses Broadcom's XStream architecture, and implemented only what it wanted to, at least on the R8000, see https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32474-netgear-r8000-nighthawk-x6-first-look?start=3, and from it:

 

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Instead, I chose to explore NETGEAR's SmartConnect feature.

To recap, SmartConnect is NETGEAR's implementation of Broadcom's XStream architecture. SmartConnect uses two 5 GHz radios and assigns client to each one when they connect. The assignment is static until the connection between router and client is broken.

Dynamic client assigment is part of the XStream architecture, but vendors can choose which XStream features they use. NETGEAR told me they disabled dynamic client assignment because some devices "do not make a graceful switch".

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Obviously the R7000's is over both bands... but only NG knows what was implemented, or not. I'd be surprised is it has the Dynamic assignment. This is a the SSID load leveling feature making sure each SSID has about the same device load/use.

 

Feel free to do what you please.