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Optimizing wireless roaming between eeros

Hi,

I have a question about optimizing the signal strength overlap between eeros in my house.

I have three eeros spread across my 2-story house. Two in the first floor, where one of them is the main eero connected to cable modem, and one eero in the upper floor. Although they are spread across floors, they are roughly equidistant, point-to-point.

I measured RSSI signal strength from each eero using my macbook pro (El Capitan) and, it appears to me that the ideal signal strength 'overlap' between the three eeros in my house is somewhere in the range of -58 to -60dBm. -- Basically, if I roam around in the house, by the time the signal from the eero my computer is attached to decreases to around -60dBm, there is another eero nearby with a better signal strength.

However, apparently the roam trigger threshold (minimum signal level a client requires to maintain the current connection) for my computing devices (mac/phone/tablets/windows) is on an average -72dBm. I also confirmed this on OEM websites, including Apple's.

So what happens in my house is, and I suspect happens in most houses, that a computing device, like a mac or iPhone, when attached to a eero, does not roam and 'switch' to another nearby eero because the ~ -72dBm threshold has not been hit.

So the question is -- is there a way to decrease (optimize) the radio signal strength that is transmitted by each eero, so that the signal strength over a given distance is decreased. Ideally this should be 'customizable variable' for the user, if possible.

Is that something that's doable by Eero?

 

Thanks,

DB

3 replies

    • Matthew_Gross
    • 8 yrs ago
    • Official response
    • Reported - view

    Thanks for joining in the community discussion, db362 !

    I would be happy to explain this as it was explained to me. The problem with decreasing the signal strength lies in the fact that you cannot reduce power without reducing all power. Power is what gives you signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and SNR is what you need to stay in high bandwidth modulations. Losing that means that you'd essentially be crippling your network to get better roaming.

    • db362
    • 8 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Many of the leading competitors provide this feature - Cisco, Netgear etc.


    The idea is to attenuate signal strength (and SNR, assuming noise is constant) when needed based on user specific environment -- for example, a coffee shop, a small branch office or a small house -- where you don't want the signal to travel too far away, but still stay strong within the boundaries.

    It seems to me this is a necessary control that should be standard for all wifi equipments, not just for security purposes but also for better customer experience, especially roaming issues that I pointed out.

    It's unfortunate that Eero doesn't support it.

    It should have been clearly mentioned and highlighted on product specs -- so potential customers can be aware of the limitations of this product.

    • FuzzyG
    • 8 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    The thing is conceptually that seems like a logical great idea, in practice it's nowhere near that simple. I've played with signal strength in a separate network that I created, and It didn't have the effect that I expected it to.

    On a separate note, Eero has been working with Apple to see what can be done by both sides to address this issue.

Content aside

  • 8 yrs agoLast active
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