Thank you for a detailed and carefully presented analysis of these settings. I've struggled to make sense of them in my house and your work has provided clarity on what is most likely going on. Excellent work - I'm now a subscriber.
I really appreciate you making this video. One flaw I see is that you are referencing the client's received RSSI (how loud it hears the AP). But the RSSI limit is on the AP side, so it is the Unifi side where you need to monitor if the RSSI cutoff works. The RSSI level the AP hears from the iPad will never be the same as the RSSI level the iPad hears from the AP since these are received levels from 2 different radios. I would love to see this experiment repeated where the RSSI of the client is monitored from the AP, instead of the client.
This is great! AP selection is such a bizarre thing. I have clients connecting to far weaker APs all the time. If I lock the client to a better AP, signal strength is great. Then I remove the lock and it re-connects back to the AP which it has terrible connection to. The better AP has a zillion clients, however, and the other has very few. So I was thinking it might be some kind of congestion management. After some tinkering it does seem the client chooses an affinity. Defaulting some client devices results in a different affinity. Or so it seems. Help us understand, 777 or 404 ;)
Yeah, I have similar situation in my house. Different operating systems have different strategies to choose which AP to connect to. For example iOS has a long list of decisions to make based on rssi, frequency, security, etc. The trouble shooting process may have to be case by case.
@@hz777 I think the best example are 2 UniFi chimes I finally got. They both connected to a wifi 6 mesh that is 100+ ft away from the house, outside. Despite there being a wifi 6 pro inside,
@@toddshreve you reminded me that my UniFi protect door bell keeps connecting to a far away AP, instead of the nearest one. Ok, I may have a new video coming about that:)
@@toddshreve I cannot help laughing when reading the last part of your comments:D I cannot agree more! Ubiquiti really needs to spend more on their products’ basic functions and documents, instead of on some fancy user interfaces or ridiculous hardwares…
Unfortunately there is no way to provide a combination of settings then call it a day. There are simply too many factors. A lot of fine tunings are needed on-site.
Worked on it about 3 months ago but got a stopper due to a bug in UniFi's implementation. Have been working with their multiple levels of supports since then. Still no sign of progress:(
For windows, Google roaming aggressiveness, you can find something. For Android, I am not aware of a common setting. There is a debugging setting to always scan Wi-Fi network, which may help. And if WPA_supplicant is used as in Linux, there are AP selection aphorism there as well.
@777 or 444 hey are you able to create a tutorial on how to use wireshark to analyze the data for Unifi access point? I have a PC and I am willing to compensate you for your time
I do have a video already about how to capture 802.11 frames to wireshark. If what you asked was more about analysis, please let me know it’s about which specific scenario, because different scenarios require analyzing different type of frames.
Just saw your computer was PC. When it comes to analyzing already captured 802.11 frames, wireshark on PC works in the same way as Mac. But I am not familiar about how to capture 802.11 frames in Windows. If it does not work out of box, you may want to simply install a Linux. Check my another video about how to capture 802.11 frames, where I did talk about how to do it in Linux.
Thank you for a detailed and carefully presented analysis of these settings. I've struggled to make sense of them in my house and your work has provided clarity on what is most likely going on. Excellent work - I'm now a subscriber.
I love your small humor tidbits. Nice presentation.
Very interesting and thought provoking, thank you for an excellent discussion and explanation.
I learned a lot from this video. Thank you for taking the time to create it.
Thank you for giving Super Thanks! Glad the video helps.
I really appreciate you making this video. One flaw I see is that you are referencing the client's received RSSI (how loud it hears the AP). But the RSSI limit is on the AP side, so it is the Unifi side where you need to monitor if the RSSI cutoff works. The RSSI level the AP hears from the iPad will never be the same as the RSSI level the iPad hears from the AP since these are received levels from 2 different radios. I would love to see this experiment repeated where the RSSI of the client is monitored from the AP, instead of the client.
I remember I used two devices to capture WiFi frames, one close to the roaming device, one close to the ap.
Wow great video showing EXACTLY what is happening, this is gold, thank you for sharing!
Thanks for explaining why RSSI is just useless.
1:16 the 'interference blocker' video is nowhere to find, did you erase it?
This is one GREAT video.
Very helpful, Thanks!
This is great!
AP selection is such a bizarre thing. I have clients connecting to far weaker APs all the time. If I lock the client to a better AP, signal strength is great. Then I remove the lock and it re-connects back to the AP which it has terrible connection to. The better AP has a zillion clients, however, and the other has very few. So I was thinking it might be some kind of congestion management. After some tinkering it does seem the client chooses an affinity. Defaulting some client devices results in a different affinity. Or so it seems. Help us understand, 777 or 404 ;)
Yeah, I have similar situation in my house. Different operating systems have different strategies to choose which AP to connect to. For example iOS has a long list of decisions to make based on rssi, frequency, security, etc. The trouble shooting process may have to be case by case.
@@hz777 I think the best example are 2 UniFi chimes I finally got. They both connected to a wifi 6 mesh that is 100+ ft away from the house, outside. Despite there being a wifi 6 pro inside,
@@toddshreve you reminded me that my UniFi protect door bell keeps connecting to a far away AP, instead of the nearest one. Ok, I may have a new video coming about that:)
@@toddshreve I cannot help laughing when reading the last part of your comments:D I cannot agree more! Ubiquiti really needs to spend more on their products’ basic functions and documents, instead of on some fancy user interfaces or ridiculous hardwares…
Thank you. I would love to know better strategies for roaming better
Unfortunately there is no way to provide a combination of settings then call it a day. There are simply too many factors. A lot of fine tunings are needed on-site.
Have you talked about the interference blocker in any of your videos since?
Worked on it about 3 months ago but got a stopper due to a bug in UniFi's implementation. Have been working with their multiple levels of supports since then. Still no sign of progress:(
What happened if you have overlapping AP in the middle. Would minimum RSSI makes sense?
Then the signal will be “over” overlapped, which will lead to more issues than resolving the issue, such as signal interference.
You state that apple devices initiate roaming at -75 rssi, do you know what Pixel or Windows will initiate at?
For windows, Google roaming aggressiveness, you can find something.
For Android, I am not aware of a common setting. There is a debugging setting to always scan Wi-Fi network, which may help. And if WPA_supplicant is used as in Linux, there are AP selection aphorism there as well.
Good content! If you are looking for work get in touch we are hiring.🔥
@777 or 444 hey are you able to create a tutorial on how to use wireshark to analyze the data for Unifi access point? I have a PC and I am willing to compensate you for your time
I do have a video already about how to capture 802.11 frames to wireshark. If what you asked was more about analysis, please let me know it’s about which specific scenario, because different scenarios require analyzing different type of frames.
Just saw your computer was PC.
When it comes to analyzing already captured 802.11 frames, wireshark on PC works in the same way as Mac. But I am not familiar about how to capture 802.11 frames in Windows. If it does not work out of box, you may want to simply install a Linux. Check my another video about how to capture 802.11 frames, where I did talk about how to do it in Linux.
Is there a way to run wifiman on a non-unifi gateway/router/firewall setup?
I don’t think so. Apparently the function is implemented in unifi router side.