AX 6000

[GreggCFO]

I have an Orbi RBR750 router with two satellites an RBS750 and 850. I would think that with Mesh i would walk around my house and the phone or laptop would switch automatically to the strongest point. However, I can go from my family room to my upstairs and my signal will go from 200 mbps to 20 mbps download speed (I have a 400 mbps router). Then without moving, if i turn off wifi and then turn it back on, now it is gett 200 mbps again. It seems to me that once it is connected to one router or satellite, as I move farther away, it locks into that satellite and doesnt switch to the now closer one until i turn it off and on. This makes no sense to me. I thought that was the purpose of the mesh wifi.

[FURRYe38]

Be aware its up to the connecting devices to pick and choose where they connect to, based on signal, noise and envrionment and there design. They may not disconnect from a low signal source until it's fully out of range or like you did, turn off the wifi radio on the decice then back on, then the device connects to the more stronger signal. 

[kildare]

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@FURRYe38 wrote:

its up to the connecting devices to pick and choose where they connect to, based on signal, noise and envrionment and there design.

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Well, this is true, but not the whole story...

Actually there is a standard extension for the IEEE 802.11, called 802.11v, for the Wireless Network Management.

Network assisted Roaming - Enables the WLAN to send messages to associated clients, for better APs to associate with clients. This is useful for both load balancing and in directing poorly connected clients.

Simply speaking, by means of this standard the wifi router/AP could send a kind of "suggestions" to the mobile wireless devices to inform them that their radio signal level has become too low, and therefore to search for a stonger AP/satellite (i.e. roaming).

This feature can be managed in the settings of some advanced wifi router/AP (Asus, Linksys, etc.): in fact in presence of a wireless mesh system it's very likely that, when the device's current wifi signal level falls under a certain threshold, a stronger signal from another AP/satellite might be available.

Through these settings it's possible to set the threshold under which these messages are sent to the wireless devices, for ex. when  signal level falls below -50 dBm.

In my experience Asus AX mesh system lets user choose if enabling these messages ("Roaming assistant: Enable") and the signal threshold ("Disconnect clients when RSSI lower then: ... dBm")

IMHO Orbi AX appears to adopt an approach of type "set and forget", where all these (and many other) options are automatically controlled: this simplified approach is useful in case of unskilled users and generally works well in normal situations, but if some problem occurs then the user has few or no ways to modify the Orbi's auto configured options.

Anyway, as you said, at the end it's always up to the wireless device to follow or not the roaming suggestions from the router/AP.