’ve called several manufacturers of mesh systems and can’t seem to fine one that has this feature: the ability to have separate names (SSID’s) for the 5ghz and 2.4ghz networks. My network has evolved over several years and several standard routers. A lot of my IOT devices will only connect to the 2.4ghz network and a lot of the older ones refuse to connect to a combined SSID. Therefore I have always had separate names for each network. I’d like to move to a mesh system, but in a single SSID scenario, I’d have to reconfigure 30+ devices and I’m not yet willing to do so.
If you are going Mesh - well, for most of the OEM's, you're going to have to deal with single SSID.
Single SSID means that all AP's are on the same network, so moving from one AP/Radio to another is a lot less overhead.
this is not a bad thing - as all AP's are part of the same extended SSID - so it fools the client stations a bit - there there's the logic of 11k/v/r which can help - except that there are clients that are basically stupid and don't do it right.
In IEEE 802.11 - each SSID presents itself as an independent network - standalone so to speak, so moving from one SSID to another involves quite a bit of overhead, as they need to do not just the WiFi auth handshaking, but also upper layer stuff - DHCP request/response, etc...
And we have the issue of sticky clients...
I know that Asus has AIMesh - which should really be call ASMesh as it's not very smart - we get huge issues that folks respond - well, that's how it works... which gives mesh a bad name... there's not anything Smart (connect) or Intelligent about it.
We got requests for support here - and most folks are like - well, that's how it works (not) and clients are going to client and do what they want in any case. They are much more aware of what the radio conditions are than the AP is...
My advice - don't do mesh if you want more than the canned Private/Guest Network solution - going custom - this path ends in pain, as clients don't give a rats butt what your network plan really is - they just want to connect...