WiFi devices not correctly connecting to closest/best pods with Deco X60
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I have a 3 storey home, basement, main and upper. I purchased a 3-pack of the Deco X60's and have them placed as such
Basement - center of basement in family room
Main - in office, towards front of house, this one is connected directly to ISP router. Currently is getting 921.3 Mbps download and 915.5 upload
Top - spare bedroom center of house
My house has approximately 1000-1100 sq feet per floor with no brick/steel walls.
Prior to the Deco I used my ISP (Bell in Canada) router to connect everything. It sits in the same office on the main floor.
Prior to Deco deployment I would walk to the basement with my Samsung S21 and run a speedtest at the farthest most point and I get 30-100mbs. Now I will get less, because the phone NEVER connects to the basement pod still remains connected to main.
Today, I come downstairs sitting in my office and my phone is connected to the basement, where I have yet to travel today. I am getting 150mbs but 2 feet away from the main router.
I am finding the the few test devices (as I wouldn't move them all over yet) that I have connected are having a hard time removing itself from one satellite and moving to another, therefore creating horrible connection speeds.
The devices I have connected so far are:
2x iphone 11's
2x ipads generation 7
1x Iphone Max XR
1x Samsung S21
For testing purposes the ONLY default setting I have changed is turning fast roaming on.
I am using my Samsung S21 as my main test devices as I walk around testing things. In some cases I walk to a point that it doesn't pick up any pod, then it shows my Linked Deco as "unsupported Firmware" or something like that, i am on the wifi network but my speeds are like 50 Mbps.
Typically, when connectd to the MAIN pod in the office I can get upwards to 800Mps sitting right next to it.
Any idea what i can do to help have these devices truly connect to the best pods, after 24 hours with this product I am unfortunately getting a little frustrated :(
Any and all help welcomed.
Everything in that configuration seem to be in order.
With TP-Link Deco mesh, there are two things to know: they use band steering to steer not very active devices to 2.4GHz, also Deco 2.4GHz signal could be strong which unfortunately makes mobile devices less inclined to roam to the nearest Deco unit.
I would recommend, as the first step, to disable 2.4GHz on Main Network, like in my screenshot. I have two storey house with basement, Deco unit on each floor and in the basement. When I turned off 2.4GHz for Main Network in my house, my smartphones and tablets started to roam to nearest nodes more aggresively. Also, speedtest results improved.
I am definitely getting better results now than I had before Deco mesh, with just Rogers Hitron CODA WiFi router.
If that does not help enough, you may need to review if you could place X60s more optimally, to at least force device roaming to nearest unit where it matters mostly. For that, you may have to install WiFi Analyzer app on your smartphone to see what signal strength you are getting from Deco nodes in different places of your house.
Here is an example of good location of my three nodes, with WiFi signal readings taken not far from one of them:
I have three nodes, but in that place where I am standing just one offers strong 5 GHz signal. Two others are quite weak, meaning mobile device has only one node to reliably connect to, and it does connect to that node. I am using Android 9 smartphone.
Here is another example, also three Deco nodes, but broadcasting on 2.4GHz:
As you can see, mobile device would connect to any of three nodes and stay connected, without roaming to the nearest node: signal is strong from all three. I took these readings standing in the basement, Node 3 is on the second floor- so if I walked from the second floor down the basement, why would device bother to reconnect? It'll be still connected to Node 3, to my disappointment.
Also, notably, the node with strongest signal, Node 1, is not nearest - it is on the floor just above me. The second node on that list, Node 2, is on the same floor as I am, which is in the basement, and in direct line of sight.
You would not know that without WiFi analyzer - if I turn off/on WiFi on my smartphone, and let Deco offer 2.4GHz band, I'll see smartphone reconnect to the Deco on the floor above instead of one I am looking at, less than 5m away on the same floor I am.
@Alexandre. Here you go.
Everything in that configuration seem to be in order.
With TP-Link Deco mesh, there are two things to know: they use band steering to steer not very active devices to 2.4GHz, also Deco 2.4GHz signal could be strong which unfortunately makes mobile devices less inclined to roam to the nearest Deco unit.
I would recommend, as the first step, to disable 2.4GHz on Main Network, like in my screenshot. I have two storey house with basement, Deco unit on each floor and in the basement. When I turned off 2.4GHz for Main Network in my house, my smartphones and tablets started to roam to nearest nodes more aggresively. Also, speedtest results improved.
I am definitely getting better results now than I had before Deco mesh, with just Rogers Hitron CODA WiFi router.
If that does not help enough, you may need to review if you could place X60s more optimally, to at least force device roaming to nearest unit where it matters mostly. For that, you may have to install WiFi Analyzer app on your smartphone to see what signal strength you are getting from Deco nodes in different places of your house.
Here is an example of good location of my three nodes, with WiFi signal readings taken not far from one of them:
I have three nodes, but in that place where I am standing just one offers strong 5 GHz signal. Two others are quite weak, meaning mobile device has only one node to reliably connect to, and it does connect to that node. I am using Android 9 smartphone.
Here is another example, also three Deco nodes, but broadcasting on 2.4GHz:
As you can see, mobile device would connect to any of three nodes and stay connected, without roaming to the nearest node: signal is strong from all three. I took these readings standing in the basement, Node 3 is on the second floor- so if I walked from the second floor down the basement, why would device bother to reconnect? It'll be still connected to Node 3, to my disappointment.
Also, notably, the node with strongest signal, Node 1, is not nearest - it is on the floor just above me. The second node on that list, Node 2, is on the same floor as I am, which is in the basement, and in direct line of sight.
You would not know that without WiFi analyzer - if I turn off/on WiFi on my smartphone, and let Deco offer 2.4GHz band, I'll see smartphone reconnect to the Deco on the floor above instead of one I am looking at, less than 5m away on the same floor I am.
@Alexandre.
Everything looks fine as far I can see: strong signal, WiFi6, etc. Yet, speedtest gives awfully low results. Is it on Samsung connected to Main Deco or to Satellite Deco?
I am on Rogers gigabit cable Internet. When I sit in front of my Main Deco M9 with my Android 9 smartphone, I am getting 500-600Mbps download speed on 5GHz.
Two more things I would suggest you try, if you don't want to give up on Decos yet:
1. Turn off 2.4GHz band on Main Network. It is still on according to WiFi analyzer screenshots.
2. Switch Deco mesh to Access Point mode, just to see if its router mode you run Decos now does traffic throttling by some reason. In Access Point mode all traffic filtering settings are disabled, and you are getting max speed.
After done that, connect your smarpthone to the Main Deco (you can confirm it in WiFi analyzer), stay about 2 meters away from Main Deco with unobstructed view to it, and run speedtest again.
My speedtest result just now, Main Deco:
