So got the AP903 and spaced out AP800 and 903 in the loft and all connected back to 2862 via ethernet cable all same SSID and password and now full house coverage.

To address my friends issue, I'm reading and feel if AP's are configured for roaming and I set rssi in each AP to kick off phone to connect to strongest signal as I walk around the house to see if seamless connections occur then this is what he needs......or am I missing some advantage of mesh......say mesh nodes connected back to root via TP power links ...then does mesh do the roaming and rssi automatically making sure his phone or laptop is connected to the strongest wifi signal?

When I have time I will try my setup with roaming and rssi....I believe I should use both for best results?

Or have I misunderstood altogether?

Thanks again for advice.....still googling.

Well as I said above it's the client devices that essentially make the roaming decisions - the Draytek "roaming assist" is supposed to do exactly that, but how well it succeeds in any given situation seems to be pretty much trial and error. I don't think the presence or absence of a mesh makes any difference to the roaming, although since the idea of the mesh appears to be that if one node goes down another takes over "seamlessly" that could lead one to think that it might.....

Not set up roaming yet (not possible with AP800 anyway) but for some reason my Lenovo Yoga (W11 Pro) prefers to connect to the weaker/slower speed AP903 in the loft even though my 2862 is about 2m from me. Had to set strict RSSI on AP903 to kick Yoga off so it would connect to the 2862.

At a loss as to why?

But now Yoga connects to 2862 stronger signal/faster speed when downstairs.

Plan to take AP903 and long cat 5 cable to try AP in AP mode connected via cat 5 and Repeater mode not connected by cat 5 cable to see if this gives him better wifi coverage than what he has. I'm not familar with what he has but its Vodafone full fibre kit with 3 wifi extenders of some sort. He gets drop outs and poor coverage. Could be router.

What I have is 2862 connected to AP800 via cat 5, then another cat5 from AP800 to AP903.

I've tried them all with same ssid (2.4 and 5GHz AP800 only has 2.4GHz) and password, swappped AP903 and AP800 around and Laptop downstairs frequently logs onto very weak AP903 signal hence very slow internet access.

Not sure why? Any ideas?

Next going to try cable from 2862 to a switch, then cables from switch to each AP so as to not use AP as a switch.

At the moment I've had to set each SSID to a different name and only automatically connect to 2862 with my laptop.

I'm using roaming and RSSI and adjusted laptop to connect to medium signal strength....it was on weak.
So at a loss why my laptop insists on connecting to very weak AP903 signal.....even after reboot.

Any clues?

Might have found something?

PC network card mode was set to WPA3/WPA2 Personal and so was AP903. 2862 does not have WPA3 option.

So is it WPA3 takes priority even if signal is very weak irrespective of roaming/rssi settings?

So set them all to WPA2 Personal but still on different ssid's at the moment.

Will give it a try later.

Still hoping for some advice as I'm guessing

I tried setting the security to WPA3/WPA2 personal on my setup but found that none of my devices wanted to connect at all - and these included iPhone 13 and 14. So I just stuck with WPA2 personal, didn't bother to investigate further as to whether it was a Draytek issue or not, as I have a lot of IOT devices which wouldn't want WPA3 in any event.