io5 setting to automatically the stronger of two networks?

thingemajib · 2 Jan 2013 at 20:56

We have a quite a long house with the router at one end. Naturally when in the living room at the other end the signal is flakey at best. We've tried a number of routers in the past to no avail, and had just invested in a wireless powerline kit (TP-link TL-WPA281kit). This solves the connection issue, but we now have two SSID's.

My issue here is that my parents ipad will only automatically switch networks if it completely drops the one its connected to, ie if we're sitting in the living room it will hang on to the routers wifi for dear life, still giving painfully slow internet, instead of switching to the full strength signal coming from the powerline. Obviously I can still switch manually between networks, but i can tell that it will be a huge issue for my technophobe mother, who won't want to deal with the extra hassle (FYI telling her just to deal with it won't go down well

so long story short, can I make an ipad automatically switch to a stronger network?

Edit: title is supposed to read ios, not io5...

^187 · 2 Jan 2013 at 21:30

Can help you really, but FYI its 'iOS' :> You got it wrong on both counts, but someone will be along to help you no doubt

Morfik · 2 Jan 2013 at 21:48

I notice the same issue, it tends to "prefer" the previously selected network. So if you selected the extension one it would hang on to that on 1 bar whilst in the living room. The logic for switching networks just isn't perfect, unfortunately don't think there's anyway around it in iOS.

Only options I see, neither of which are appropriate in your case are a) build a Wireless Mesh network, which is meant to be expensive or b) try Jailbreaking but I'm not sure if there is a tweak that works as I've not done this for years.

Unluckyalf · 2 Jan 2013 at 22:39

Could you not just drop the power output of your routers wireless so that it doesn't quite reach the living room? That way the wireless overlap would be somewhere in the middle of the house and not all at one end?

Skyboat · 2 Jan 2013 at 23:06

Can you not give both APs the same SSID?

shine · 3 Jan 2013 at 07:23

Skyboat said:
Can you not give both APs the same SSID?

This, set them up identically and it will switch seamlessly. I do this at my place and all my devices switch to the strongest AP.

thingemajib · 3 Jan 2013 at 15:03

Skyboat said:
Can you not give both APs the same SSID?

good call, ill give it a shot and report back

thingemajib · 4 Jan 2013 at 02:58

seems to have done the trick, thanks!

Just hope it doesn't give them grief down the line...