I have some AIMesh nodes, my devices are connecting, and staying connected, to further away nodes. If I disconnect, and reconnect the WIFI, I then usually connect to the closest node.
Are there any settings I can change so that the devices will connect to the closest node or change to the closest node quicker?
Thanks
I do not generally have the issue
@Tech9 refers to, in my two indepedentn AiMesh networks, where the signal is too strong being teh cuase of not connecting to the closest node, but everyone has different sets of devices and setups, so there is simply no one size fits all.
What devices exactly please?
- If they are IoT devices some have an in-device RSSI threshold that allow you to tune and which after a while, gently moves them to the node with the strongest signal i.e. closest.
- If they are ESP32 IoT devices used in HA, then HA have recently introduced that capability into FW you compile and upload to the device, albeit somewhat crude and limited.
- If they are general Phone, Tablet etc. devcies then as @Tech9 correctly (and often) mentions the devices themselves decide, clever little suckers that they are. You can play around with threshold RSSI for :
- A. Wireless, Professional, "Roaming Assistant (RA)" (2.4GHz / 5Ghz) ... or OFF
- B. Wireless, "Smart Connect" (also accessible directly via "Networks Tools, Smart Connect Rules" for (i) Steering Trigger Condition (STC) and (ii) STA Selection Policy, noting there are 2 values for each band 2.4 GHz 5GHz-1 etc.
however these tend to be more for steering between 2.4 GHz ← → 5GHz and less about node. There are countless threads on what RA, STC and STA all do and what recommmended figures are, so I am not going to launch into numbers here - no one set will fit everyone, you need to tweak it, if that's really what you want.
- You can also try and 'bind' devices to specific nodes; I tried that for a while but I do not like it and has the disadvantage of leaving devices orphaned if a node goes down. On the Router, I like to stay as close as possible to default settings as possible. Not to stay I have not made changes, but that's the aim.
One observation I had is that sometimes when you reboot your system, Main tends to wake up and come up quicker than others and offers an acceptable RSSI to a device; so it stays there. When the node comes up later with a better signal, the device is snug and warm on Main i.e. it's "good enough". If that device is not clever enough to have a selection algorithm inside it, just a "this number and better is good enough" it will not move later to your node desperatly seeking clients, no matter how strong that other signal is.
I know this from countless hours of fiddling around and restarting various nodes (and main, while nodes remain "up") so that the devices migrate to the closest node (that you really really want, thank you Spicegirls) because they lose their connection when you reboot Main or a node
seperately from the other AiMesh devices. Which ias all great until... you reboot the Aimesh system and its fun and games all over again.
So you need to ask yourself (any Client Eastwood fans out there) "am I lucky" and it will never need rebooting or "you know what"I can live with teh weaker but actually acceptable RSSI it is on. Which comes back to Tech9s ultimate suggestion do you really need that node, although my spin on it is, yes, maybe, for your roaming, transient devices you like to have on a good 5GHz signal (if you set RA thresholds that do not get too 'sticky') or for other client devices that are tunable (in-device).
HTH.
