Adding an AP to wifi router with same ssid?

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May 5, 2012
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321
Location
Arizona
I took a class last year, industrial 1 day class for work for UniFi. They gave us a free UniFi AP.
My home set up is an ASUS RT-AXE7800 router. (all in one router/AP/switch)

Our property has the main house, and a separate studio. WiFi couldn't reliability reach both with the WiFi router, so I ran 2 CAT 6a cables from the studio back to the main house demarcation point and plugged them into the ASUS router. (opposite side of the house) 1 cable is the wife's computer, and the other cable is the UniFi AP.

Suffering from Dunning Kruger affect, (over confident) I tried to set up a seamless wifi where my wife could go from house to studio seamlessly without switching networks (primarily for her smartphone). I ended up with 2 SSIDs.

due to a router "reset" (another story) i am having to redo my network setup.
This time around,

I was wondering if it's possible to get the Unifi AP that's hard wired to the ASUS router, to have the same SSID as the Asus router.
The goal being if a wifi device is happy on the house WiFi and then goes to the studio, the wifi will seamlessly transmission to that AP. Like a cell phone tower while driving down the freeway.

Thanks in advance
 
For the most part it will work. Especially with modern wireless devices. Roaming is handled by the client device. A general rule of thumb is to have a connection of about -69db to each AP at the halfway mark between the two APs. Otherwise, it's likely the device will stick to the original AP as long as it can without roaming to a better AP.

Client roaming isn't seamless, though. Smartphones typically attempt to roam when the screen is off and the phone is locked. If you truly want seamless where you can continuously play an unbuffered stream of data, you'll need to set up some form of mesh network. Either buying an out of the box solution or getting deep in the weeds of fast transition mobility domains.
 
Yes it's possible will it make for a seamless roam likely not. The client often dictates when its time to switch AP;s not the router AP itself. There is no hard fast rules for this and sometimes it's a *****.
 
Thanks, there wouldn't be a need to seamless data transfer while moving from house to studio, I guess my goal was for my wife to not have to manually switch to the 2 different SSIDs.

I will see if i can set that up when I get back from my trip next week.

If memory serves, I downloaded UI software to my laptop to program the UniFi AP. I don't recall why I ended up with another SSID, but likely due to the fact I couldn't get it to work right last year.

But, is it as simple as programming the AP with the same SSID and password as the router?
 
Thanks, there wouldn't be a need to seamless data transfer while moving from house to studio, I guess my goal was for my wife to not have to manually switch to the 2 different SSIDs
This will work, but you can't use features like Fast Roaming and BSS Transition. She won't get a seamless roam, but it's a lot better than changing SSIDs.
 
Yes, unifi AP can be setup with same SSID, all you need is to use unifi app on phone to adopt the AP, assign same SSID paying attention to upper and low case letters, same password.
You will be able to adjust transmission power on the AP, channels in 2.4 and 5 GHz.
 
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