Seamless Roaming: Always Stay Connected to the Best Wi-Fi
TP_TechWriter
Gina: Hi, Darling! I’ve arrived at the hotel.
Paul: Hey dear. Is everything ok?
Gina: Just a little tired. How are the kids? Can I talk to them?
Paul: Yep. But they just went to bed. Let me see.
----Paul is walking to the second floor-----
Gina: Ok. I…
Paul: Hello?
“The line was cut off!”
If you have different networks in your home, your Wi-Fi connection needs to be re-established every time you move out of range from one network device and approach a different one. “Roaming” refers to the shift from one Wi-Fi network to another. If the roaming takes too long, you will experience lag or a dropped connection. A five-second delay will likely go unnoticed for a file download, but this level of delay will lead to a dropped video call, as Paul experienced.
If you desire more freedom to move from room to room, Seamless Roaming will help. It allows you to move throughout your home with your devices and connect to the strongest Wi-Fi automatically. Switching from one network to another is so smooth that it’s unnoticeable at all, even during streaming.
Ordinarily, the switching process between networks takes up to 5 seconds. The 802.11k and 802.11v standards speed up this procedure to 100ms, achieving seamless roaming. They both give a solution to facilitate roaming, as shown in the following comparison chart.
| Standards | Method to Speed Up Roaming |
| IEEE 802.11k | Reduces the time on scanning for available APs by allowing the 802.11k capable client to request a report about the list of available APs around. |
| IEEE 802.11v | APs direct 802.11v capable clients to roam to another AP that it deems will provide a better WLAN experience for the clients. Clients can accept and respond to the roaming suggestion. |
With Seamless technology, you can always stay connected without interruption not just in your living room, but all around your entire house. Make a video call and be able to move around the house without getting cut off any more.TP-Link OneMesh™ devices or Deco units support IEEE 802.11k/v standards. They can work together and form one unified network for Seamless Roaming. They share the same wireless network name and password and you can walk through your home with the fastest possible speeds.
Again with Seamless Roaming:
----Paul is walking to the second floor-----
Gina: Ok. I just miss them so much. Let me say Night to them.
Paul: Look. They are asleep.
Gina: Good night, kids.