Hello all,

I've just taken delivery of two AP-903's. These are to replace a UniFi setup consisting of their nanoHD AP, AC-M Mesh AP and 8 port PoE switch.

I went into the UniFi setup quite naive and 'trusting' of people like Lawrence on YouTube.

I found the WiFi coverage with the UniFi products quite poor but the real issue for me was the controller software feeling like a beta product at best. I found a lot of settings within the controller software labelled as 'beta' and many settings I changed in an attempt to improve the WiFi coverage would cause other problems which would result in AP's to become isolated, disconnected or stuck in a provisioning loop.

The only way I could recover was by hard resetting the AP and setting it back up from scratch. This resulted in frustration and the purchase of two AP-903's.

My Mesh is wireless which I know isn't ideal. I am trying to work out how to route Ethernet cables under the floorboards to link the two AP's up.

Really impressed with the 903's so far. I've not been able to tweak yet due to kids having kittens when the UniFi system was constantly up and down. I'm leaving it alone so they can recover their social media addiction 😂.

They are both asleep now so may have a deeper look at what's what.

One thing I have noticed is that when I am roaming with my Samsung S8 phone the node AP is preferred by this client and it goes to 2.4Ghz where it will stay until I turn phone WiFi off and on which will make it connect to 5Ghz root AP.

When I change settings like band steering do I set this on both AP's or just root AP?

Any other advise/tips/help would be greatly appreciated.

chrisgtl wrote:
My Mesh is wireless which I know isn't ideal. I am trying to work out how to route Ethernet cables under the floorboards to link the two AP's up.

Try some Speed tests via the two AP's and ascertain how just how good/bad it is. You could consider connecting the two AP903's via 'Power line' adaptors, but they'd probably have to be top-of-the-range (expensive) versions to out-perform the Mesh Wifi link. Nothing beats a length of cable

and he wrote:
One thing I have noticed is that when I am roaming with my Samsung S8 phone the node AP is preferred by this client and it goes to 2.4Ghz where it will stay until I turn phone WiFi off and on which will make it connect to 5Ghz root AP.

When I change settings like band steering do I set this on both AP's or just root AP?

My other-half spends a lot of time turning the Wifi Off and On on her S8 ... I largely ignore the problem, 'cos my Huawei is fine

On a serious note, the two AP's are supposed to be configured (almost exactly) the same. The "Mesh >> Basic Configuration Sync" and "Mesh Advanced Configuration Sync" are supposed to facilitate this - though I find it more reliable to make the changes on each node (because not every parameter is in the list to be transferred).

You might need to have a twiddle with the settings for the Band Steering (and Roaming) to get it all to switch, at the points you would like it to. (Install Draytek's SYSLOG Daemon and point the AP903s at it - you can then see some of what's going on on each AP903 and the conversation between them, regarding Roaming).

I've made some big changes to my network recently - routing CAT6 cable between the switch and two 903 AP's.

Once I hardwired both the 903's into the PoE switch (Zyxel GS1920-8HPv2) and selected hardwired backbone the 903 GUI informed me I should be using AP mode due to insecurities using Mesh.

What insecurities are these? Should I be using mesh or AP mode when using multiple AP's hardwired into the switch?

Having a play around; I did follow the GUI message and selected AP as the mode for both AP's. Since doing this all my clients connect to the AP furthest away (weakest signal).

Mesh mode every time, as far as I'm concerned. (I've not encountered any such GUI message and can't imagine what it's talking about....)

Since the raison d'etre of the AP903 is that it is a mesh device, it would seem very odd for it to warn against using it as such :? I too have not seen such warnings, using both wired and wireless nodes in my mesh.

You two seem to be well versed in the VigorAP's in Mesh. Do you see problems with clients dropping to the 2.4GHz band for absolutely no reason? I seem to get much better performance from my two 903 AP's when I set them up in AP mode as apposed to Mesh mode.

Running iperf3 from my laptop to my hardwired computer results in either 300Mbit/s or 90Mbit/s depending if the laptop has dropped the 5Ghz band (even though I have Band Steering enabled on both AP's).

This all just seems so random. I am sat here about 5 feet away from the AP, not moving, laptop plugged in without any power saving enabled. I am looking at the WiFi status screen on Windows 10 and can see it flicking between 877Mbps and 144Mbps which also synchronises with the iperf3 results.

I really don't understand why the laptop would drop to 2.4GHz when I am literally sat on top of the AP.

I wish I could just drop 2.4Ghz completely but my printer and Sonos speaker does not support 5Ghz. AAArrgggggg........