Multiple wifi configs across AX aps - profile steering?

RouterOS General
1

I have many wifi profiles on multiple ax devices. All managed by capsman. All are wave2.

I know about band steering making my phone effortlessly switch to 5GHz options over 2GHz ones.

Lets just be a little practical here: 2 wlan profiles:
1.) Main
2.) Guest

I recently added a new device to a place where ONLY Guest profile is needed.

=> I added this Guest profile to my Android phone.

Problem: my android phone now usually catches the Guest even in other locations (where normally Main is available).

Now in spite Main might have less signal, I really wish my phone to PREFER Main over Guest.

Band steering can’t really help as both profiles are on 5GHz.

Do we have something you would call “wifi profile steering”?

2

Good question …

AFAIK:

It’s up to the client to decide which SSID gets selected.
There is little you can do on the AP side.
You could try to play with ACL rules to block access above certain power level for a certain device (based on MAC provided there is no auto-MAC being used) but it can result in the client avoiding that SSID completely.

So you would have to see if you can find something on your phone where this can be prioritized.
A quick search learned me that SSIDs marked as “metered” will get lower priority. Maybe you can try that first on your phone ?

1 Like
3

Will try for sure. Thanks for the idea! :slight_smile:

4

Interesting setup! Managing multiple WiFi configs across AX APs can definitely get tricky. I’ve found that fine-tuning the access list and steering thresholds helps improve client transitions. Curious to see what steering methods others are using with this kind of setup.

5

Thanks folks! Setting up the Guest wifi as “metered” seems causing my phone to prefer the Main wifi.

It was a great idea, thx again.