AiMesh - connect to closest node

[JohnD5000]

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

 

[OzarkEdge]

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

Once your AiMesh is up and running and settled down with all nodes broadcasting their SSIDs, do your wireless clients BOOT UP and connect to the nearest node? If so, that's as good as it gets.

OE

 

[Tech9]

staying connected, to further away nodes

This may happen when the clients are too close and the signal is too strong. AiMesh doesn't have much wireless tuning options, you have to reduce the number of nodes or spread them out further away.

 

[killweav]

The best move is to let the system handle itself. The "closest" node isn’t always the fastest or most stable for a device. If you’re itching to tweak things you can adjust the roaming threshold (dBm) or slightly lower the main router's transmit power to encourage devices to switch nodes. You could force (bind) a device to a specific node, but that usually leads to connection headaches down the road. While you have options, letting the auto-optimization do the heavy lifting is the most reliable way to go.

 

[jksmurf]

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.

 

[Tech9]

I know this from countless hours of fiddling around and restarting various nodes

Anecdotes, theories and speculations...

 

[jksmurf]

Anecdotes, theories and speculations...

Now now... don't go there. This person deserves a fair response with no baggage, just movie quotes...

 

[Tech9]

This person deserves a fair response

I don't see any officially disclosed information. I'll let the OP know when it becomes available.

 

[jksmurf]

I don't see any officially disclosed information. I'll let the OP know when it becomes available.

Let it go.

 

[bbunge]

Anecdotes, theories and speculations...

Correct as usual!

 

[degrub]

Black boxes, all of them.... reminds me of the story of the blind men discovering an elephant

 

[Lax]

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

Yes, you have the following two options to choose for your mesh node to connect to (Pls see attached pics):
1. Backhaul priority
2. WiFi uplink

 

[jksmurf]

Yes, you have the following two options to choose for your mesh node to connect to (Pls see attached pics):
1. Backhaul priority
2. WiFi uplink

With all due respect, I believe the issue lies with his devices connecting to nodes, not nodes connecting to Main or or other nodes i.e. not BH Route or Mechanism.

 

[SANdood]

From my own experience with the exact same problem, this is likely caused by all of your routers/mesh nodes power levels being too high for your geographical distribution of them. As mentioned by others, you don't have much flexibility to change this when using AiMesh, as all the relevant parameters are opaque to you. You MIGHT find a power level setting that works (I'm pretty sure that what you set at the Router is also used by each AiMesh node)...and it is definitively NOT the best idea to run at the maximum (Performance) setting.

With the help of ChatGPT, and later Claude, I switched away from using AiMesh and now my remote access points are both running in wired AP mode. This not only affords me being able to adjust each ap's power levels independently, but also allows me to utilize different channels for each frequency band - in my case, this eliminates the congestion (AiMesh uses the same channels on each node), but also allows me to use the deeper/less utilized 5G channels for better load distribution with less impact from my "noisy neighbors" (and their poorly tuned Routers). And also tuning Roaming Assistant per band AND per router/access point really helped a lot.

So, you might want to spin up an AI (I would now most seriously recommend Claude over ChatGPT), and ask it for help tuning your asuswrt-merlin network. You'll need to spend some time describing things (including uploading a rough drawing of your router and AP locations, along with any particularly difficult clients), and then see what it recommends. For me, the difference is night and day - my clients now typically connect to the right AP and stay there, with only the mobile devices seamlessly roaming across APs and/or channels/frequencies.

OH - and if you do switch from AiMesh to AP mode, make sure that you use the same WPA/WPA2/WPA3 settings on every AP for each SSID. I found a TON more reliability/stickiness by adding back simple WPA to the 2.4G Guest & IoT SSIDs (I use WPA/WPA2-Personal on those).

 

[jksmurf]

I switched away from using AiMesh and now my remote access points are both running in wired AP mode. This not only affords me being able to adjust each ap's power levels independently, but also allows me to utilize different channels for each frequency band

This is an excellent reason to shift to AP mode (Claude fan here too btw).

However the note needs balance in that folks needs to realize what they lose by selecting the AP only option, not just what they gain (which is in large part stability and reliability, not to be underestimated).

So what do folks lose? Simply put, it’s the propagation of Guest Networks to nodes. Whether you use GNP or Smart Home Master or the older 3 Guest Networks, AiMesh propagates those networks to each node, with limitations on how many interfaces per band depending on GNP or non GNP Models,

With APs, you only get your main network on the nodes, both bands. For many this is sufficient. You can also still have the guest network on your main. This may be sufficient too.

 

[penguin22]

From my own experience with the exact same problem, this is likely caused by all of your routers/mesh nodes power levels being too high for your geographical distribution of them. As mentioned by others, you don't have much flexibility to change this when using AiMesh, as all the relevant parameters are opaque to you. You MIGHT find a power level setting that works (I'm pretty sure that what you set at the Router is also used by each AiMesh node)...and it is definitively NOT the best idea to run at the maximum (Performance) setting.

With the help of ChatGPT, and later Claude, I switched away from using AiMesh and now my remote access points are both running in wired AP mode. This not only affords me being able to adjust each ap's power levels independently, but also allows me to utilize different channels for each frequency band - in my case, this eliminates the congestion (AiMesh uses the same channels on each node), but also allows me to use the deeper/less utilized 5G channels for better load distribution with less impact from my "noisy neighbors" (and their poorly tuned Routers). And also tuning Roaming Assistant per band AND per router/access point really helped a lot.

So, you might want to spin up an AI (I would now most seriously recommend Claude over ChatGPT), and ask it for help tuning your asuswrt-merlin network. You'll need to spend some time describing things (including uploading a rough drawing of your router and AP locations, along with any particularly difficult clients), and then see what it recommends. For me, the difference is night and day - my clients now typically connect to the right AP and stay there, with only the mobile devices seamlessly roaming across APs and/or channels/frequencies.

OH - and if you do switch from AiMesh to AP mode, make sure that you use the same WPA/WPA2/WPA3 settings on every AP for each SSID. I found a TON more reliability/stickiness by adding back simple WPA to the 2.4G Guest & IoT SSIDs (I use WPA/WPA2-Personal on those).

I can say that this was certainly a factor in getting stability in my mesh setup. With full power, the overlap had too strong of a signal strength leading to clients often picking the wrong node. This was especially true when I used MLO with 2.4 & 5 GHz bands, though setting my networks to individual bands and lowering power to balance, results in a clear strongest node from most areas throughout the house (~20db difference between nodes), and clients getting the correct node in most cases.

The one exception is IoT devices that are 2.4 GHz only, often can bounce between nodes, especially if sitting in the middle of two options. In this case, creating an IoT network per node, 2.4 GHz only, and setting these devices to each of them avoids this issue.