WIFI Selection: It's WRONG!!!!!

Housey

Housey

Housey

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21 Feb 2006
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I have 2 WIFI points in my house due to thick walls, upstairs and downstairs. They all work fine and dandy and one is connected to the wall line, the other is simply an extension via a powerline connection. As I say they all work like a dream.

However, my iPad and iPhone ALWAYS chose the weakest one. If I am downstairs they ALWAYS connect to the weak upstairs device and vice versa. I am sure there is a pixie somewhere causing this and it is really doing my head in as it makes no sense, none!!!!

Why does it seem that my iDevices ALWAYS want to select the wrong WIFI device, whhhhyyyyyyyy :(
 
Probably just a result of you being upstairs connected to the stronger one, then moving downstairs and still being connected to it. You then manually switch yourself and then move upstairs, whilst still being connected to the access point downstairs, no?
 
I have this very same problem, to the point the signal will be so weak it won't load anything, I have to change it manually myself.
 
dav3evans said:
Probably just a result of you being upstairs connected to the stronger one, then moving downstairs and still being connected to it. You then manually switch yourself and then move upstairs, whilst still being connected to the access point downstairs, no?
Click to expand...

It's not actually. I turn it off, turn it on and BANG, mongy internets :(
 
..to add...

I am sitting in my lounge and I connected my iPad to the downstairs WIFI as yes, it was connected to the one upstairs. I use the iPad for some Clash of Clans, put it down to do other stuff. I leave it not 2 feet from said WIFI.

I come back to it for some more Clash of Clans and BANG, it's decided I MUST connect to the upstairs router again even though its right on the edge of the connection.

Bloody pixie I'm telling you!!!
 
From what I understand, the wireless standard does not allow devices to automatically swap to a stronger signal unless the signal it is currently connected to becomes non-existent. With your i-devices, by "switched off" you actually mean standby at a guess so the connection is still running in the background to pick up e-mails, use skype, whatsapp, etc.

If you were connected downstairs then moved upstairs, fully switched the device off, powered it up again, and reconnected to wifi, it would connect to the strongest signal as it should. Obviously this is not at all practical. I don't think there is a logical solution unless there is an app/some software out there that will force devices to always be connected to the strongest signal?
 
kinobestew123 said:
From what I understand, the wireless standard does not allow devices to automatically swap to a stronger signal unless the signal it is currently connected to becomes non-existent. With your i-devices, by "switched off" you actually mean standby at a guess so the connection is still running in the background to pick up e-mails, use skype, whatsapp, etc.

If you were connected downstairs then moved upstairs, fully switched the device off, powered it up again, and reconnected to wifi, it would connect to the strongest signal as it should. Obviously this is not at all practical. I don't think there is a logical solution unless there is an app/some software out there that will force devices to always be connected to the strongest signal?
Click to expand...

All that I get, so explain this then....

Housey said:
..to add...

I am sitting in my lounge and I connected my iPad to the downstairs WIFI as yes, it was connected to the one upstairs. I use the iPad for some Clash of Clans, put it down to do other stuff. I leave it not 2 feet from said WIFI.

I come back to it for some more Clash of Clans and BANG, it's decided I MUST connect to the upstairs router again even though its right on the edge of the connection.

Bloody pixie I'm telling you!!!
Click to expand...
 
Wouldn't it be better to use a WDS configuration for this kind of setup. Providing the APs support it of course
 
As others have said you need to use the same SSID and it will transfer between.

Once it's connected to one it generally hangs with it till you find another, with the same SSID it should switch happily.
 
I have this problem a lot and I think it is because when a network is not available it will switch to the other one if that is available. If you have a stronger network that drops out occasionally (even if you don't realise this has happened / it only happens for 10 seconds when you are not looking) it will switch to the other one and stay on it unless that network drops out.

I wonder why my connection is so slow sometimes and its because its swapped to our bt internet connection on its own. I have to manually swap back to the virgin connection.
 
As said above, make sure they have the same name as that will help a lot.

And also remember that it's not just signal strength that they look for. If you're near one access point and there are several other local wireless networks on the same channel then your device may well connect to the further one away as although it's a weaker signal, it's a better quality signal as there's less interference.

People generally pick wireless channels at random without looking to see what they're clashing with. The channels overlap as well so it's not as simple as putting one on channel 1 and the other one on channel 2. Use some kind of wireless sniffer app which gives a nice graphical display so you can see exactly which channels are the clearest.
 
Right, I've taken the battle to the pixie to see if I can scare it away! I have renamed the networks to be the same and I have done a quick check of other wifi networks I can see, my 2 neighbours closest and made sure my channels are different to theirs, which have now been set to 3 as my neighbours are 1 and 6. I will see how it goes and if that resolves the issue.
 
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