One Way Access Point Switching

[Matt010101]

A few weeks ago we upgraded to full fibre with the Gigefast+ hub and one of their WiFi max pods to make a mesh network The pod is connected to the hub via a cat 6 cable, and when devices are connected to the pod it works very well, getting up to 600Mbps download speeds. However some newer devices (iPhones and windows laptops)  that move around the house have trouble switching access points, but only in one direction. If you initiate the connection on the pod then move towards the hub it switches with no issue. However if you initiate it on the hub it won't switch to the pod. Even if you start on the pod, then switch to the router, it won't swap back again. It won't even connect by disabling WiFi on the devices, you have to fully forget and reconnect to the WiFi. It's driving me spare!

Any ideas what might be going on?  Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks

[Chrisee]

@Matt010101 there is no way to manually control which WiFi source a device will connect to. Normally it will connect to the strongest signal which if its an extrnder may not be the fastest. With mesh networks you sacrifice some outright speed for stability. However given very few  activities need bandwidth above 100Mb/s it isnt normally a significant issue. 

Honestly stressing about WiFi is completly pointless unless it impacts on your normal use of the system.

[Matt010101]

Hi Chrisee,

Thanks for your reply. I understand the issue of delayed or even lack of switching access points with mesh networks, but ours won't even connect when I'm entirely out of reach of the original hub and my phone has flipped to mobile data. If I refresh the available wifi networs then it comes up at full signal due to the proximity of the pod, but when I try to connect it comes up with the notice "unable to join [wifi name]", so I literally have wifi that I can't use in half the house. 

Matt

[JimM1]

@Matt010101 Have you tried moving the pod closer to the sky Hub, pretty sure the sky pods do not support wired backhaul connection!

[Matt010101]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

The stationary devices (smart lights and speakers etc) all connect to it happily, and when I do get a connection on my phone or laptop it's speed testing at over 600mps, way over the speed I would expect from its location if it was trying to simply extend the wifi. If I'm in the room with the pod but it's unplugged then I can connect to the main hub bust get speeds of about 40-50mps. When it's plugged in and connected then it appears in the My Sky app as a wired connection with the other items connected to it. I just don't understand why the access point hand-off only works one way: pod to hub, not hub to pod. 

[JimM1]

@Matt010101 You will need to try and get more info on the pods, but think they act as wireless mesh wifi extenders and they are not AP mode devices, may be wrong, true test would be ethernet connected on the pod, so 1Gb/s device link, and next to the pod you would expect max speed that the pod can deliver over wireless, but you would have to switch the wi-fi off 5Ghz band as speed test, temp on the hub to be sure that it is transmitting down the Ethernet connection!

There is not much on the Forum about the pod devices, have never used them but have a vague memory some one tried, but the Ethernet ports on the Pods only bridge to the wireless connection side! They do setup a hidden wireless backhaul so you could analyze the wireless signals!