Mobile devices WiFi wish

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Batman

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#259859 26-Oct-2019 14:43

So my router has high speed but low range 5GHz WiFi and slow but long range 2.4GHz.

Why can't my mobile connect to the fast one when in range and switch to the slow one when I'm in the garden.

Can't be too difficult to implement?

/rant

Hammerer

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#2343793 26-Oct-2019 14:57

My phones have largely done this automatically when the connection drops on 5GHz it will pickup 2.4ghz. Maybe high-end phones do it better but there are apps that will do this on Android so phone quality is irrelevant - not sure about apps for iOS.

I also configure my router to have separate WiFi SSIDs for the two bands so I can see which band I'm using and explicitly chose the band I want to be using i.e. override the OS selection.

https://superuser.com/questions/362366/does-it-make-sense-to-keep-different-ssids-for-2-4ghz-and-5ghz-wireless-networks

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sbiddle

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#2343794 26-Oct-2019 14:57

That's exactly how it works now.

Assuming you have the same SSID for both a device should prefer the 5GHz SSID when in range, and switch to the 2.4GHz SSID when it goes out of range of the 5GHz network. To ensure this does work 100% however you will want a wireless AP or router with band steering and will want to ensure you have the same SSID - if you don't have band steering it'll be best effort.

Batman

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#2343796 26-Oct-2019 15:00

I see. So use same ssid. I'll give that a go. A few years ago it didn't do that.

Is there any router configuration to play with? There's none that is obvious that I can see.

Router is a pretty advanced router (not the commercial grade stuff, but more the gimmick gaming type and I'm sure it has band steering or something like that - turned off all the QOS and other gaming gimmicks and left the pure stuff on).

Batman

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#2344364 28-Oct-2019 11:30

sbiddle:
That's exactly how it works now.

Assuming you have the same SSID for both a device should prefer the 5GHz SSID when in range, and switch to the 2.4GHz SSID when it goes out of range of the 5GHz network. To ensure this does work 100% however you will want a wireless AP or router with band steering and will want to ensure you have the same SSID - if you don't have band steering it'll be best effort.

Works perfectly thanks.

Seamless switching when I'm in the garden.

nzgeek

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#2344498 28-Oct-2019 18:07

Batman:

Is there any router configuration to play with? There's none that is obvious that I can see.

Router is a pretty advanced router (not the commercial grade stuff, but more the gimmick gaming type and I'm sure it has band steering or something like that - turned off all the QOS and other gaming gimmicks and left the pure stuff on).

You may not find band steering options on a lot of consumer-level routers. They're designed to get people online, but that's about as far as it goes. They aren't typically designed for high throughput.

Even the gaming-level routers aren't always great. They can do high throughput, assuming that the client (PC/phone/whatever) has the right hardware, you connect to the correct frequency band, and you've only got 1 or 2 devices connected on that band.

If you want to get good speeds, good range, and have several devices connected at the same time, you may want to check out some of the cheaper corporate level gear. I've personally used (and can highly recommend) the Unifi line of WiFi access points. They require a bit of tech savvy to get up and going, but once they're working, they're amazing. You've got options for band steering (prefer 2.4GHz, prefer 5GHz, or even distributed) and airtime fairness (prevents both wasted airtime and greediness during high load), amongst other things.

If you're not interested in spending money on dedicated WiFi access points, or aren't confident on setting up more advanced gear, what you've got now is probably the best option. Just try to keep the number of devices on the 5GHz band fairly low, or you might see throughput start to suffer a bit.

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#2344539 28-Oct-2019 20:11

thanks i just realised that i had turned off band steering on my router, and recalled that it has band steering by a different name but nobody in the world knows how to configure it!

it's an asus rt-ac3200, with "smart connect"

got it on a black friday special (the reason i bought it)

1eStar

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#2344617 28-Oct-2019 22:52

I've noticed that android devices prefer to connect to the network with the newest credentials entered into your device. So I tend to connect first to the 2.4G network first, then the 5G and it seems to steer itself quite well.

Jase2985

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#2344639 29-Oct-2019 05:10

1eStar: I've noticed that android devices prefer to connect to the network with the newest credentials entered into your device. So I tend to connect first to the 2.4G network first, then the 5G and it seems to steer itself quite well.

thats not what band steering is.

its when you have both the 2.4 and 5ghz networks with the same name it will push devics to the 5ghz one.