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Need Advice on AP Router in Bridge Mode

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cjb4

Occasional Visitor
I am bit confused on use of terms Access Point mode and Bridge mode. I have 3 Asus wifi routers (RT-AC5300, RT-AC66U, and RT-AC1200) The 1200 and 66U are configured as APs and hard wired via an ethernet connection. They both put out the same SSID name as the AC5300 wifi network. I set this up for a seamless and strong wifi connections for phones and laptops moving throughout the house. The 5300 is not strong enough to reach all parts of the house with its signal and definitely won't beam a fast enough signal to stream throughout the house . The current setup has works fine except I started losing connectivity for some of my Sonos wifi speakers. The speakers were all connected via a Sonos Boost forming its own network. What is happening is if the system goes down and then comes back up some of the speakers will connect to one of the AP routers signal instead of the network formed by the boost.
Sonos is telling me the only way to prevent this from happening is to put the AP routers in bridge mode. But based on my limited knowledge of AP and Bridge I don't think this will work. As I understand it a router in bridge mode only rebroadcast the main routers wifi signal. As I said the signal is too week in some parts of the house, in addition whatever signal it does pick up will be reduced by half.
Am I missing something here? Is there any way to have the Bridged routers transmit the main routers wifi signal through a hardwired connection? In other words plugged in to the same network. Stupid question?
Thanks in advance for any assistance,
Carmine
 
What Asus calls "Media Bridge mode" is the opposite of Access Point mode. In other words the connection back to the main router is over WiFi (not Ethernet) and the clients connect to the Media bridge by Ethernet cable only.

I don't know whether this helps with your Sonos Boost device.
 
So the client connected to the bridge mode router would have a signal only as strong as the wifi signal from the main router measured at the placement of the the bridge router. e.g. if the signal from the main router measures at 5 Mbps where you place the bridge router that's the best you will get from the Ethernet connection?
 
if the signal from the main router measures at 5 Mbps where you place the bridge router that's the best you will get from the Ethernet connection?

A router in Media Bridge mode is like a high-power client device. It will offer higher throughput compared to individual clients. I'm using an RT-AC66U router in Media Bridge mode and it keeps most of the time the maximum link rate possible of 1300Mbps (like 3x3 AC client). Usual 2x2 AC client on the same spot can't maintain the maximum link rate of 867Mbps, most of the time connects at 585-650Mbps. In other words, the throughput you measure on your cellphone, laptop, etc. on that spot is going to be lower compared to a router in Media Bridge mode on the same spot. This is just to complete the information on Media Bridge mode. I don't think you need a Media Bridge in your setup.
 

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