rcmr1979 wrote:
I am wanting the access points to act as a seamless transition when moving around and for a mobile device to 'connect' to the strongest one. Please can someone explain in laymans terms what type of setup i need to run them in?
You could start your journey here:
https://metis.fi/en/2018/11/roaming/
... then explore the rest of that site.
You don't state whether you are going for a wired ethernet backbone, or want to use Repeater / WDS (ie non-wired) modes. For the former, you want the same SSIDs on each AP, but on different channels. You also want the 'widest' channels (ie bandwidth, measured in MHz, for the fastest performance). You will need to perform a site-survey to determine what channels are free and what are in use by your neighbours. The site-survey will also determine the placement of the Access Points - although, wiring them up at the desired location may not be possible. (A wireless infrastructure is a different kettle of fish - and one I've not explored in anger)
Question: Are you sure you actually
need all these Access Points? Is it a particularly 'difficult' building, or do you have specific throughput requirements
:?:
(Mine was for a minimum 25Mbps, so that 4K Netflix would work. Even so, a single AP903
nearly suffices for a 2500ft² dwelling on 3 floors...
With regard to Roaming: It is the individual
client devices that decide which Access Point they are going to (attempt to) connect to. The Wireless Router or Access Point can attempt to influence this - but it cannot guarantee the results. The way this works, is by disconnecting the client at some pre-determined signal level - or by cooperating with another (compatible) Access Point and agreeing that
it would be a better choice. To stop the client simply reconnecting, a temporary Block List is used. Other fancier schemes exist (eg
802.11k
and
802.11v
) - but seemingly not on Draytek.
(My personal tip would be to avoid band-steering (where you're effectively roaming from 2.4GHz to 5GHz on the same AP))
