Router will change the WIFI network for the connected machines according to distance from the router

[ChaoscripT]

Hi,
There is any chance to do something like this,
In my router, TUF-AX5400 I set 2 separate SSID, one for 2.4 and one for 5,
When my phone is disconnect from the 5Ghz network, it's connect to the 2.4, when when I get closer to the router, it's still 2.4 network instead of switch it back to the strong one, 5 Ghz.

Beside to make a one network that covers both 2.4/5 there is other solution?

About the one network SSID, there are any cons?

Regards.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi,
There is any chance to do something like this,
In my router, TUF-AX5400 I set 2 separate SSID, one for 2.4 and one for 5,
When my phone is disconnect from the 5Ghz network, it's connect to the 2.4, when when I get closer to the router, it's still 2.4 network instead of switch it back to the strong one, 5 Ghz.

Beside to make a one network that covers both 2.4/5 there is other solution?

About the one network SSID, there are any cons?

Regards.

Not for two separate SSIDs. If you use the same SSID, then smart connect will do what you're looking for.

On the phone, you can try tweaking the settings, in Android under developer options there is a "wifi scan throttling" that you can disable, not sure if Apple has something similar. May or may not help.

Many people use a single SSID without issues. If you want the flexibility, you can have your main network use the same SSID for both bands and smart connect, then create a guest network with access intranet enabled and two different SSIDs. That way you can bind stuff that you want to always connect to one or the other to the guest, and stuff that you want to auto switch to the main.

 

[ChaoscripT]

Not for two separate SSIDs. If you use the same SSID, then smart connect will do what you're looking for.

On the phone, you can try tweaking the settings, in Android under developer options there is a "wifi scan throttling" that you can disable, not sure if Apple has something similar. May or may not help.

Many people use a single SSID without issues. If you want the flexibility, you can have your main network use the same SSID for both bands and smart connect, then create a guest network with access intranet enabled and two different SSIDs. That way you can bind stuff that you want to always connect to one or the other to the guest, and stuff that you want to auto switch to the main.

Hi,
Thanks for the answer.

I have iPhone, so I don't think I can tweak something there, but always prefer an idea/solution that work for all the network/machines.

The one network with Guest one sounds something great,
I try to think why I need some Guest network.

Machines that connect only for 2.4Ghz, for example roborock robot, tvs, have problem with Smart Connect/One SSID?

What's the best settings for the Smart connect rule?

Regards.

 

[bbunge]

Hi,
Thanks for the answer.

I have iPhone, so I don't think I can tweak something there, but always prefer an idea/solution that work for all the network/machines.

The one network with Guest one sounds something great,
I try to think why I need some Guest network.

Machines that connect only for 2.4Ghz, for example roborock robot, tvs, have problem with Smart Connect/One SSID?

What's the best settings for the Smart connect rule?

Regards.

You are best to start with the default WIFI settings. Use the Dual Band SmartConnect with the 2.4 and 5 GHz set to auto channel. Use DFS if you want. You may find that the 2.4 GHz can be set to 20MHz with no ill effect. The default SmartConnect rules work for most but if you change something remember what it was so you can change it back. Otherwise a router factory reset is needed.

 

[Morac]

The way iOS works is it learns your preferred Wi-Fi network over time. As such if you manually switch back to the 5 GHz network, over time your iPhone will learn that’s the network you prefer and switch to that one when it’s in range. It won’t be immediate, but it should work.

 

[sfx2000]

In my router, TUF-AX5400 I set 2 separate SSID, one for 2.4 and one for 5,
When my phone is disconnect from the 5Ghz network, it's connect to the 2.4, when when I get closer to the router, it's still 2.4 network instead of switch it back to the strong one, 5 Ghz.

read this...

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

For the best security, performance, and reliability, we recommend these settings for Wi-Fi routers, base stations, or access points used with Apple products.

support.apple.com

Split SSID will always have issues with devices that move around the WLAN...

 

[ChaoscripT]

read this...

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

For the best security, performance, and reliability, we recommend these settings for Wi-Fi routers, base stations, or access points used with Apple products.

support.apple.com

Split SSID will always have issues with devices that move around the WLAN...

Thanks for this guide,
I've changed the DHCP lease time to 8 hours instead of 24 hours,
And also changed the security to WP2/WPA3-Personal instead of WPA2-Personal.

Regards

 

[coxhaus]

I've changed the DHCP lease time to 8 hours instead of 24 hours,

Why would you do this? You are creating more router traffic. I use 7 days DHCP lease times to minimize DHCP traffic.

 

[sfx2000]

Why would you do this? You are creating more router traffic. I use 7 days DHCP lease times to minimize DHCP traffic.

DHCP lease time - I keep mine at 24 hours, but it really depends on the size and scope of the network - I've got less than 30 devices on the LAN, so the difference in traffic is small in the larger picture of what traffic is moving around my LAN...

 

[ChaoscripT]

Why would you do this? You are creating more router traffic. I use 7 days DHCP lease times to minimize DHCP traffic.

What do you mean by router traffic?
It's good? not good?

 

[Tech9]

What do you mean by router traffic?

Minimizing DHCP traffic on small/home network idea is similar to going to bathroom before you drive as fuel saving idea. In theory - it works. In reality - it doesn't matter. I have 2h lease time on my networks.

 

[coxhaus]

It all adds up in terms of traffic. I don't remember exactly DHCP but it seems like at half the lease time it starts contacting it's clients and continues throughout the lease until the lease is renewed. You need to read up on DHCP leases. Home networks get away with lots of things you should not be doing.

Using a week for DHCP spaces out the traffic.

 

[Tech9]

And how much more traffic is this? Discover, Offer, Request, ACK - done. Multiplied by the number of clients, <100 on a home network. Is it in number of packets or in GB? What exactly "traffic" you are spacing out?

 

[coxhaus]

It all adds up. Personally, I don't think you should run DHCP on the router. It takes a time slice of CPU.
I run it in my switch and before that I used a Microsoft DHCP server.

Start reading in Microsoft documents. There are a lot of them. Here is one.

DHCP Server Operational Events

learn.microsoft.com

 

[Tech9]

You won't notice any difference between 10 min and 1 week lease time. This is how much it adds up.

 

[coxhaus]

You won't notice any difference between 10 min and 1 week lease time. This is how much it adds up.

You will be creating a lot of broadcast traffic multiplied by the clients on your router every few minutes that will interrupt your internet traffic flows. You are kind of shooting yourself in the foot making it harder on your router.

I would not do it but then again, I would not run DHCP server on my router.

 

[sfx2000]

It all adds up in terms of traffic. I don't remember exactly DHCP but it seems like at half the lease time it starts contacting it's clients and continues throughout the lease until the lease is renewed. You need to read up on DHCP leases. Home networks get away with lots of things you should not be doing.

Using a week for DHCP spaces out the traffic.

It's pretty small considering the other "overhead" traffic that I see on my network - from ARP requests to NetBIOS and other services discovery (take a look at Bonjour/Avahi, it's very chatty).

To refresh your memory - you're correct in that expected behavior of a client is to start requesting at 50 percent of the lease time - so for 8-hours, it would start asking at the 4 hour mark, but stops once the handshake is done (DHCPDISCOVER -> DHCPOFFER -> DHCPREQUEST -> DHCPACK)...

 

[sfx2000]

When my phone is disconnect from the 5Ghz network, it's connect to the 2.4, when when I get closer to the router, it's still 2.4 network instead of switch it back to the strong one, 5 Ghz.

Beside to make a one network that covers both 2.4/5 there is other solution?

Getting back on track - clients will see two different SSID"s are two different networks, so in your case where the device triggers the fail over to the 2.4GHz SSID, is because it either lost the 5GHz, or hit a threshold that triggered a better network scan.

Going from 2.4 back to 5GHz, the client doesn't see a reason to just if the SSID for 5GHz is different than the one it is on...

On Common SSID - the client should (and usually does these days) periodically look for better AP's on the _same_ SSID, and if so, commit to the jump from one AP to another.

 

[Tech9]

You will be creating a lot of broadcast traffic

No, this traffic is measured in some packets back and forth. Not a problem for common Gigabit wired network or AC/AX Wi-Fi APs. Under 0.1% of the capacity. You can't even measure the performance difference. And this on a cheap under $100 home AIO router running DHCP server. It's late 2023 now.

 

[coxhaus]

It's pretty small considering the other "overhead" traffic that I see on my network - from ARP requests to NetBIOS and other services discovery (take a look at Bonjour/Avahi, it's very chatty).

To refresh your memory - you're correct in that expected behavior of a client is to start requesting at 50 percent of the lease time - so for 8-hours, it would start asking at the 4 hour mark, but stops once the handshake is done (DHCPDISCOVER -> DHCPOFFER -> DHCPREQUEST -> DHCPACK)...

Wait till you are working with a large network, at 8 am in the morning your switches will become slow as everybody turning on their PCs will create a lot of broadcast traffic talking to your local DHCP server plus Microsoft's netbios is very chatty. By 9 am things get better.

If you use 10 minutes for DHCP then all that traffic starts in 5 minutes and continues all day long.