[RP-N53 Range Extender] question on "Roaming Assist technology"

[giopas]

Hi folks,

I have just got a RP-N53 Range Extender to... extend the Wi-Fi signal of my RT-AC87U Router at home.

Just to give the full picture, I live in a small/mid-size apartment, but as I had to place the router at one corner of it, I wanted to enhance the Wi-Fi signal (especially 5GHz band but for 2.5GHz too) to have a pretty decent signal everywhere.

I chose this device because:
(1) it is dual band,
(2) it comes from the same producer of my "little monster" (running Asus-Merlin firmware )
(3) convinced by the so advertised "Roaming Assist technology" explained in the Asus website as follows:

Roaming Assist-always get the most stable connection

With our hassle-free Roaming Assist technology, you never have to switch connections manually between RP-N53 and your ASUS router as you move around the home. Once you enable this function, your device will connect automatically to the strongest Wi-Fi signal, whether it’s from the router or the range extender. This ensures that you always get the most reliable connection wherever you are in the house

What I though, and as explained in the pictures of the Asus website, is that wherever I move in my apartment, my mobile phone would peacefully switch to the strongest Wi-Fi signal without my intervention.

I though that to accomplish that SSIDs should be named the same of those of the router, however in the Wizard setup it is said that using the same SSID can cause frequent disconnections because the device (e.g. a mobile phone) would continually try to switch to the strongest Wi-Fi signal.

I have then set different SSIDs, but in this way there is no switching between the new devices, which in practice does not address my needs.

Am I missing something? How shall I configure the repeater to just mirror SSIDs of the router?

Thanks,

giopas

 

[giopas]

It seems that renaming SSIDs of the repeater to match those of the router made the thing: the signal seems everywhere strong, even 5GHz one.

However let's see after some tests/time how the setup behaves.

 

[Calisro]

I wanted to like the roaming stuff but since they aren't really meshing them (one brain multiple APs) what I was seeing is things drop as i switched APs (downloads, SIP, vpn, etc). I eventually just found a slightly weaker signal was better.

btw, I also used the same ssids.