@pjmarsh wrote:
@aesmith, one issue with that is the handover between access points. A decent managed wifi system will hand over between access points to give each device the best signal they can. With a bunch of separate access points with the same SSID a device will hang on the the same access point for as long as it can, or until the device searches again for the network (such as when you turn wifi off and on again on the device or such like).
"Mesh" does not mean controller based, or vice versa. I've installed loads of controller based systems, Cisco and Meraki and have always used Ethernet connections to the APs. One of my colleagues used mesh connections temporarily because a particular customer didn't initially have cabling to the correct places. But it's very much a second choice, even with enterprise grade APs with separate radio for the mesh connections it still occupies more RF spectrum.
Regarding roaming, whether mesh, stand alone or controller based, roaming is initiated by the client not the AP or the controller. All they can do is bias it. A correctly performing client listens to beacons and probe responses from other APs on the same SSID and initiates roaming when a better signal becomes available. That applies both to controller based and stand alone APs. Customers typically have moved to controller based systems for management purposes, not because their autonomous AP deployments weren't satisfactory.
The behaviour you describe would be characteristic of a system with different SSIDs preconfigured on the client. Typically, and unlike same SSID roaming, it won't move to a different SSID unless it loses the current one altogether. But again that's a client driven process, it's not impossible that a client with multiple SSIDs saved might be configured to jump when a different SSID has a better signal.
Personally I suspect that the prevalence of the term "Mesh" in the residential/amateur market is pure marketing, I don't suppose there's even any consistency in what they mean by the term.
