Question re: setting up a router as an AP.

[goobee]

I have a Edimax BR-6478AC that can be set up as an access point. The instruction manual is ridiculously vague on how to set it up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833315124

Question: Do I give the SSIDs a different name or keep it the same as the main router? I currently have the main router set as "WNDR4300" and "WNDR4300 5G".

The instructions for the Edimax BR-6478AC just says to name them. Thanks.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I would use a different name...that's just me though.

here's a guide: http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

There's lots of guides, just search for "router as wap" and you'll have lots of information available.

 

[goobee]

Thanks, that was very helpful, I found what I needed. It appears if you want seamless roaming, you can use the same SSIDs/passwords or if you want specific zones (ex. upstairs, downstairs), use different SSIDs.

 

[grendel19]

You won't have true seamless roaming with consumer products. You need a wireless controller for that. But you can always have multiple AP's broadcasting the same SSID, in which case, it will be up to your end device on how aggressively it will disassociate with its current AP and connect to the next nearest AP with the better signal.

 

[goobee]

Good point. I set the second device up with same SSIDs and walked around with my cell phone to see if it would automatically switch from one to the other and it didn't.

Principally, this configuration should work fine for the wife. She has little concept of wifi and keeps trying to connect to the neighbor's stronger signal (even though it's passworded) when outside.

So long as she is not walking around with her tablet, she should be fine where ever she starts it up I suppose.

 

[azazel1024]

Yeah, it usually works pretty well. The disassociate and reassociate time is only around 1 second or so.

Depending on what you are using, it should be pretty seamless. I've tested it in my house a bunch since I have a router at one end and an AP at the other end. File transfers, web page loads and such forth pretty much are always seamless, occasionally you'll notice a second or two "hang time" on the file transfer before it resumes. Rarely it'll just hang (I think I've seen it happen ONCE on my laptop, in about 40-50 occurances of roaming between on laptop, tablet or phone).

Streaming video usually works pretty well to, as most cases it is buffering at least a few seconds, depending on the service, or more.

VOIP can be buggy though, same with video conferencing. With facetime I've had it drop the connection twice in about 5-6 times and skype I've had it drop once in the maybe 3 times I've wandered between.

Outside of VOIP and video conferencing it is generally pretty trouble free.

My suggestion is to turn up roaming agressiveness to the max on whatever devices you have. At least I have no issues with it and it tends to switch sooner, which is often better. Of course things like iDevices you can't do anything, but anything Windows related you can.

Broadcom drivers you want to set roaming to Max bandwidth (NOT range) and Intel is just aggressive. There are, I think another setting on both you can tweak (how often it looks).

Basically both Intel and Broadcom on the most agressive settings will start looking to connect to another access point once the dBm strength hits -60 and on most agressive settings will connect to a network only 10dBm higher in strength. On the least agressive settings they won't roam until -80dBm and the network has to be at least 20 (or maybe 30?) dBm higher even then. I do NOT recommend that at all.