TP Link homeplugs + wifi extender - wifi question

cannco253

Hi
I recently got some TP-Link homeplugs with wifi extender (TL-WPA4226KIT and TL-WPA4220) and have them set up with one in the front room connected to sky box/blu ray and one in the kitchen. Eircom router is upstairs.

The sky box and blu ray player are connected using ethernet and work well. The homeplug in the kitchen isn't connected usually to anything via ethernet.

I cloned the existing wifi set using the wifi clone button and everything is working.
The problem I have is sometimes when I go from upstairs to downstairs (or other way) the wifi hangs, and I need to disable/enable the wifi on the device (phone/tablet) to get it to reconnect again...not really a big problem but wondering if this is something someone else has seen and knows how to resolve? Do I need to rename the 2 downstairs plugs with a different network name? It looks like the device tries to maintain the connection to the plug when you move away from it, instead of just using the next wifi extender.

thanks
cannco

Alun

First of all, you need to make 100% certain that the two networks have the same SSID, same security type (WPA, WPA2 etc.) and the same passphrase/password. The cloning feature may or may not have done this all correctly.

Secondly, and very important, make sure they're on different channels, use channels 1, 6 or 11 depending on what shows up as being the best channel in each of the two locations. Use one of the many apps for your phone to establish this.

Having said all that, there are well known and documented problems with the way some mobile devices handle roaming between WiFi networks, but there are fixes available which can help, for example for Android ...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heleron.wifiroamingfix

ED E

Its usually very non-aggressive roaming at the OS level (probably to save battery).

This is why I usually advise to configure different SSIDs so you can manually "poke" it onto the right one if needs be.