My parents have a Netgear R7000 running a newer version of DDWRT. They needed to extend their WIFI network so I advised them to buy Unify AP LITE. I helped them set it up today. I used the app and configured the AP to have the same SSID and password as their existing router. My idea was that their clients, such as phones, would automatically switch to the nearest access point, either the unify or the one on the router.
However, this does not seem to be the case! When I scan for WIFI, I now see two indentical SSID and I have to login to both. It is as if there are two completely different WIFI networks, but they are called the same.
How can I change it so that it looks like it is only 1 WIFI network but it has multiple AP?
As a side note, I can mention that I have previously helped a friend set up their Unify AP with an ASUS Router. I used the same SSID and password that time and it worked perfectly fine.
What are the other settings like? WPA2-PSK with AES-CCMP and WPS off? … Make sure you match those as well.
You can try wifi analyzer android app if you use an Android phone (otoh easiest way to see some of those settings, it should show enough detail and let you compare beacons on your two APs)
As client device moves physically away from first AP it’s connected to, and closer to the second… Signal strength will drop and once it reaches a threshold (used to be around -70dBm for Android) the client device will initiate a background scan around other frequencies, to search for APs with better signal strength that are part of the same network as indicated by the beacons containing ssid and crypto settings and other flags. This background scan means the packet processing will pause, as it does when the channel is noisy, while the client station snoops to see what’s happening on other frequencies before returning to first AP channel. Causing some delays and retries.
If it finds a better AP, it’ll tune back and disassociate from the first AP, and tune to the second one and begin associating. Without any fancy handoff related extensions this takes 2 roundtrips or 2-3ms if little or no congestion.
Once associated, packet processing resumes. Any packet going out towards the router with the source mac address of e.g. the phone will update all the switches forwarding tables and you’ll see incoming traffic from the router redirecting to flow towards the second AP/your phone. Typically if you’re using your phone there’s something that the software had queued up, a tcp ack packet or similar that causes this new path through your network to be established.
Any packets going to the original AP over that 2-3ms period while changing APs are lost / dropped.
There’s a number of extensions to avoid having to re-establish the entirely new crypto session on the new AP, and shorten that time. Also there’s a number of extensions to avoid having the client device go randomly searching for other APs, it can just be told what their mac addresses and channels are, and how to associate with them if it wants to. It still needs to measure the signal strength to know whether changing to them makes sense.