Mesh router vs using 2nd access point

[Andrew1972]

Does anyone know if mesh routers do anything to ensure the WiFi device is on the strongest source of WiFi signal?

I currently have two WiFi routers with same WiFi name(1 main and 2nd the router function disabled used simple as WiFi access point hooked via Ethernet to one another).

I find my connection on iPad or phone seems to stubbornly stick to one even though quite slow making us have to turn WiFi on/off to hook to the close one and speed goes from 3Mbps to 50 Mbps. I am already in market for main access point as I am using an old WiFi router as access point (Cisco E3000) that only does about 50Mbps despite the 150Mbps available. It also tends to crash.

At home we don’t download a lot but rest family heavy consumer of streaming and my job at home lots of video conferencing. According to ISP we use 450Gb per month.

 

[Wheel]

Your devices see the other router as the separate system it is and won't roam to it in the same way as a mesh network. Mesh networks are designed to switch to the device with the best signal. You might be better served with a different SSID if you stick with the 2 routers.

 

[Donald]

A home mesh has only one Ethernet cable connected AP. The rest are wireless connected.

And all the APs are typically the same manufacturer and understand mesh.

There are some new mesh standards that allow interoperability, not sure much hardware is out that supports the standard yet.

 

[tomcat27]

I have the Netgear Orbi system. I presume it's doing a proper handoff to the strongest WAP

 

[gathermewool]

I have two Asus routers. One is the master router, hooked directly to my modem; the other is a node and is used to direct traffic to/from the other side of the house.

The master and node routers use the same exact SSID, so my phone isn't looking for a strong signal between two different routers (i.e., just one SSID of [gathermewool] instead of [gathermewool1 and gathermewool2].

Using the app, I can see which devices are connected directly to the master router, as well as which are connected directly to the node (via wifi, not hard-wired, though I could hard-wire via Ethernet to the node, if I wanted). I don't know how quickly the hand-off happens, but I haven't noticed any slow-downs. I've even turned off the second router to save energy while going away on trips and noticed a rapid transfer; I turned it off and noticed my signal drop by a bar, maybe two, depending on which way I'm headed after turning it off.

I don't recall a delay in service; however, I also don't recall often doing anything bandwidth intensive soon after transitioning from one router's zone to the other. I also haven't noticed any issues with devices that remain in a specific zone, like my echo or PC, which will always see the node router as the stronger signal, and always show up as a client for the node instead of the master router.

 

[sxg6]

Depending on the mesh system, you can have multiple AP's hardwired, not only one node. A few months ago I got the linksys velop mesh wifi system, the larger nodes, not the newer smaller ones. I got the 2 node system, and both are hardwired, one directly the cable modem, the other is connected to a switch. The system does a good job of connecting my phone to the node with a stronger signal, I haven't tested my laptop yet. It's interesting, even if I'm on the other side of my house, and my wifi signal looks lower than it should be (as if I'm connected to the node farther away), the speed tests always show that I'm still getting speeds that indicated I'm actually connected to the closer node.

Prior to getting the velop, I had one asus wireless router, and I can't remember the other wireless router I was using.. Even with the cheaper asus wireless router I had, I could set a maximum rssi. I'm no network engineer, but it seems like rssi is like the router pinging the network devices. If the rssi (ping) gets too high, it can kick the device off the network. So I set the asus router to have a maximum rssi of around 75 I think, and then I think what I ended up doing for the second wireless router was limiting it's signal strength. Both had the same ssid and password, and while it worked ok, it wasn't ideal.