Wifi 6 on main router but using a wifi 5 as an access point
I've been researching about this and can't find a straight answer. I have my main router, a NETGEAR Nighthawk AX5 RAX43 and it works great except in two spots in my house, thankfully the house has ethernet runs pretty much anywhere, and I have a spare router, a Linksys MR6350 that I'm currently using as an ethernet gigabit switch basically.
Can Iset it up as an access point so my devices seamlessly connect to it when moving along, will having one SSID working on wifi 6 and wifi 5 be an issue?
I've had issues before with wifi roaming (I think that's what's it called) so I'm not sure if maybe getting another wifi 6 router down the line will be a better choice.
Can Iset it up as an access point so my devices seamlessly connect to it when moving along, will having one SSID working on wifi 6 and wifi 5 be an issue?
Depends what you mean by seamlessly. You can give them the same login details but these won't be Mesh systems so they will not cooperate in handing over client from one wifi source to the next.
Re: Wifi 6 on main router but using a wifi 5 as an access point
If you give then the same SSID and password, you will get client directed roaming which works well most of the time, except for cases when you have a sticky client that refuses to roam unless the signal is extremely weak.
A proper mesh setup can help with those types of issues, as well as provide smoother roaming, by using functions like 802.11r where if supported by the client and AP, then paired with 802.11k and 802,11v, when you move closer to a different AP on the same network, the WiFi signal strength read out on the status bar on your smartphone, or in the windows task bar will look like the signal suddenly got stronger with no signs of a disconnect and reconnect.
On the other hand, when the network or device does not support it, then you may see the device disconnect for a fraction of a second as it connects to the closer AP.
Only issue is that many mesh network devices, including the ones from netgear, will disable functions like 802.11r by default and you will need to enable it in the advanced WiFi settings. For most devices it will work fine, but as a more recent trend with some IOT devices, and older smartphones, some APs will not allow you to select WPA2 only, and may limit the lowest security to WPA2+3, and a weird issue is some IOT devices as well as older smartphones, that support both WPA 2 and WPA 3, as well as 802.11r, may fail to authenticate with the AP when it is using WPA 2+3 security while also using 802.11r.
It is a weird issue that impacts multiple brands, though it does seem that there are some workarounds, since I have seen some of the newer enterprise Cisco APS implement 802.11 kvr in addition to WPA2+3 without encountering those issues, thus it seems like there is flexibility in implementations to improve compatibility.
