I’m getting a hap ax3 for my home. I’ve been told it likely won’t cover the entire house. If i were to buy a second ax3 or even a hap ax lite, would this using wifi 6 essentially extend the range?
What I’d want is to have my 3 SSID configured and work on both devices. And if someone is on wifi for example connected to one mikrotik as they walk, it would seamlessly switch to the other device once that one is the closer/better reception?
Is this possible? Or do I have to buy a specific wifi extender.
Mesh is a marketing thing…and should be avoided (in the concept of having a wireless backbone) at all costs.
Just put a LAN cable in between the two devices.
I definitely would wire the 2 devices together. My main goal is just to ensure that the wifi networks/SSID are all one. So I don’t have to join each device to multiple APs/SSIDs and then when people move they get worst reception because it doesn’t auto switch to the stronger signal AP.
Regarding capsman, everything seems to indicate that it is just for configuring from one place. Since this would only be 2 devices and I would do everything from cli, I don’t really care about the centralized config. I really just want the shared SSIDs
I have been looking at a similar thing myself. There is no problem having the same SSID, in fact it is a better idea than separate unless you really want to know which AP you are using. However, it appears to be better to set different channels if you can, so they do not interfere.
I have a Linksys mesh system which is in specification (and chip) an Audience in a slightly different white tower. Two units are wired, one has to use radio for backhaul though it gets very little work to do.
It is important to remember that it is up to the client to roam. Despite the fact this is supposed to be “seamless mesh”, I have observed that my device hangs on to the main when I go into the area with the wired secondary. That’s one way of doing seamless. The main AP at this point offers -63 dBm, while if I flick WiFi off and on to switch over I get -43 dBm with reported speed improvement that can be substantial but is not obvious in use. It depends a bit where the computer or device wakes up. They are reluctant to drop a viable signal.
As an experiment I just moved back to the study, 2 metres from the main AP behind me. Still showing on the downstairs unit, -67 dBm with Tx down from 585 to ~300. Flicked WiFi off and on and I am back to the main, Tx near 700 Mb/s.
There is a lot of fooling that goes on with supposed seamlessness. It depends on what your device wants to do.
Adding: my conclusion from “looking at a similar thing myself” was that there was no speed or utility reason today to upgrade from the old ac devices to ax for my general WiFi. I learned quite a bit about actual performance along the way.
@erlindend! Mesh is not a marketing gimmick LOL, its a systems where only one WIFI device is wired to the router or ISP modem/router and the rest of them connect to each other over wifi.
For a client device to successfully roam between 2 APs, the APs need to be managed by the same instance of RouterOS. For information on how to centrally manage multiple APs, see CAPsMAN
You can configure both devices separately but you will be without 802.11r/k/v
Another thing is, that if you have working config, running CAPsMAN isn’t that hard, basically few “clicks” more.. Just don’t be afraid of it..
It is advertised as being a solution, it is an absolute terrible implementation for a (in most cases) non existent problem. Besides, there lives the perception (yeah…really) that it is required for having better roaming experience. I know what it is…and what not
