Help - not switching to better wifi?

unkel

I've 2 wifi networks in my house. One on the ground floor and one in the attic

Problem is that if I'm connected to the one on the ground floor and then go into the attic, the phone does not automatically (or not quickly anyway) switch wifi connection to the stronger one in the attic

Their is very little reception of the wifi on the ground floor when I'm in the attic and vice versa

Phone: Lumia 925, Windows Phone 8.1 developer review, all the latest upgrades installed

Any suggestions, solutions?

Jakey Rolling

unkel wrote: »

I've 2 wifi networks in my house. One on the ground floor and one in the attic

Problem is that if I'm connected to the one on the ground floor and then go into the attic, the phone does not automatically (or not quickly anyway) switch wifi connection to the stronger one in the attic

Their is very little reception of the wifi on the ground floor when I'm in the attic and vice versa

Phone: Lumia 925, Windows Phone 8.1 developer review, all the latest upgrades installed

Any suggestions, solutions?

I have the same problem with all the devices in our house - laptops running Windows, Linux and Android phones. Basically none of these handle wifi roaming properly. There are apps for Android that attempt to improve this. For now I just switch manually when need be.

Anyhow, give yourself the best chance by making sure your 2 access points have exact same SSID and security settings, but different well separated channels eg. 1 and 6.

Alanstrainor

+1 to the above...I have the same problem with my devices in the house. Except there are 3 WiFi access points, which confused matters even more. But this is true for all my devices, Galaxy S4, tablets etc.

EDIT: Getting a couple of these bad boys....they're incredible...and entirely overkill for a house, but still!

Ubiquiti Unifi

joujoujou

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

[...] Basically none of these handle wifi roaming properly. [...]

And that's 100% normal. There's no such thing like properly working handovers/roamings in terms of wi-fi networks. There were plans, dreams, attempts etc. In fact, there's no clear and widely approved specification for that and no real demand either.

I'm also the one who had to get used to that.

unkel

A little bit more specific: I have a UPC horizon box that I use as the main (wifi) router and I have a wired wifi repeater in the attic. I used 2 different SSIDs with the same security settings and passwords.

On your advice giving both the same SSID today (but different fixed channels), things have gone worse by quite a bit. There seem to be conflicts and I blame them on the cheap wifi repeater which is difficult and flaky to set up.

I guess I'll have to get used to an imperfect wifi world (for now) - thanks for your suggestions

joujoujou

Get inSSIDer, launch it an check how many access points are around you - and try other channels maybe.

unkel

joujoujou wrote: »

Get inSSIDer, launch it an check how many access points are around you - and try other channels maybe.

I live at the very edge of a commuter town (no further houses for a mile south of me) in an estate with semi-detached houses, all with front and rear gardens pretty much all occupied by families

So not too many access points around here

theothernt

Just to second what's already been said, Wifi devices are not very good at roaming (handover) regardless of how many Wifi routers, what channels are used, etc.

If multiple devices are in range, it picks the strongest signal and sticks to that until it disappears. Then it will try and re-connect to the strongest signal in that location.