I have a question for some smart networking people here

[G+_J Miller]

I have a question for some smart networking people here.

 

I have a great N Linksys router in my home. I get great signal throughout my home but a lousy signal in my garage. So I bought a wired to wireless adapter (link linked to this post) to put in my garage to get a better signal in the garage.

My thought was that my Android mobile devices would connect to the best signal throughout the home and I could stream anything without the buffering I am getting now.  

I connected the new WAP to a wired LAN in the garage and I set the SSID and the WPA2 encryption key the same as the router so they are identical. I can see the 2 signals on my WIFI Analyzer. I then took both devices off Uto channel and put the router on Channel 6 and the access point on channel 11.

 

Now when I arrive home through my garage, my Android phone connects to the WAP and when I go in the house my signal is terrible because it will not connect to the home router signal.

When my phone is connected to the router and I go into the garage, I get a lousy signal because it will not automatically switch to the stronger WAP.

 

Is there a setting to tell Android WIFI to auto connect to the strongest signal like it does with the Mobile Tele Towers? Manually switching to the new signal every time I go from the house to the garage is not doable for me.

Did I waste my money on this WAP?

What is the best way to extend your WIFI so your devices can automatically get the best signal.

Thank you for your time.

http://www.tp-link.com/lk/products/details/?categoryid=239&model=TL-WA801ND

[G+_Akira Yamanita]

Are the router and AP on the same network (as in devices connected to the router can communicate with devices connected to the AP)? If not, you should use different SSIDs to avoid unexpected hopping, although you're having the opposite problem.

 

As for the matter of roaming, your phone might have an advanced option (on the WiFi menu) "Avoid poor connections". You could try that. If one device is single band and the other is dual band, you could try setting the other to single band. Otherwise, I would reduce the signal power on the router and AP to limit the coverage areas to where you expect them. If done properly, you would still have some overlap between the areas, but when you're actually in the garage or in the house, the signal from the other should be weak enough to force the switch to the closer AP. However, this would still be a relatively abrupt transition and you might sacrifice coverage in areas not directly between the house and the garage.

[G+_Ben Reese]

I used to have a similar setup, but I chose to keep separate SSIDs and manage the connections myself. If both APs are have the same SSIDs and the same password but your devices still aren't hopping, I could only think of a couple things that could be the problem.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is that your phone is busy on the network when you first get home and connect to WiFi. If there are active connections, it may opt to stick with the progressively weaker signal instead of breaking that connection.

 

The second thing that comes to mind is that you could have different WPA2 encryptions on the two APs. My DD-WRT options are TKIP, AES, and TKIP+AES. I could imagine a potential problem if the two are using different encryptions.

[G+_Pepe La]

I too experience this. For me, whether the particular droid device is using an access point on the same subnet (using same ssid and security) or travelling back and forth about the property between separate subnets (different ssids and security), there is never a smooth transition as the device will hold onto that initial received signal to the bitter end until it eventually drops completey, shows the gray flashing wifi signal, and either connects to the more powerful signal, or causes me to pull up the settings menu and connect manually.

 

On the other hand, my iOS devices seem to handle the above mentioned setup's much more fluently, and without problems. I'm not promoting one device over the other, I love and hate them both equally, just sayin.

 

Having spent numerous hours reading router manuals, wiki guides, forums, etc. (oh, and many KH episodes), I'm confident my router configurations are not the culprit. This topic is discussed many times throughout android forums I have come across and I've yet to see a solution.

 

I feel your pain, and would like to see a solution to this as well. I'm wondering if this is just an android thing?

 

[G+_Akira Yamanita]

Pepe La It's hard to say since roaming is controlled by the drivers. Even if the OS can set the aggressiveness, it's still relying on the drivers to make good decisions about when to connect to a different AP. if the issue happens on Nexus devices, then that's pretty sad. I haven't noticed any problems on either Nexus 7 (both generations), but I don't need to switch APs in my home and the business environments that I am in have wireless controllers that can facilitate roaming. 802.11k and 802.11r support could help with these issues.

[G+_martin rednal]

I had this problem in the past with customer sites. But now use unifi access points which automatically pass you to best/closest ap seamlessly. Fairly cheap too. http://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

[G+_J Miller]

Akira Yamanita I found the "Avoid Poor connections" option. I will check that out for a while. Thank you for the other tip on adjusting the power output. Can you point me to a YT video on how to do that properly? Thanks again.

[G+_J Miller]

Ben Reese I do not think the phone is too busy as it is on my phone network with equal settings for doing network things. When I come home, I double checked both AP's encryption as they are both encrypting with WPA2 personal.

[G+_J Miller]

martin rednal thanks for that tip. I do installs in big homes sometimes and would love to have these as a go to.

[G+_Albert Rios]

Try this to see if it provides what you need... http://twit.tv/show/know-how/38