Any feedback with BE85 / BE95 WiFi Roaming experience with MacBook Air and MacBook Pro M1, M2, M3 ?
Hello,
Macbook, MacOS are well known because of the difficulty to roam unless the RSSI is -75dbm.
Can you please post your experience with BE85 Mesh and how easy is for the Macbook Air or Pro M1, M2 or M3 roam even if the RSSI is not -75dbm?
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Hey @Ir0Man1,
I have not seen anything overly specific on the forum for this topic. Do you happen to have any resources you could point me to with this info? That way, I can work with our teams to see if we can ease your concerns from a technical standpoint.
There are so many technologies involved with mesh networking and roaming that the device's behavior may not be the same as if it were roaming between conventional Access Points.
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Hi Riley,
Here is the link for multiple Apple devices, iOS and MacOS.
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/wi-fi-roaming-support-dep98f116c0f/web
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Hey @Ir0Man1,
Based on everything I see, roaming behavior is highly dependent on the environment and how well your signal will reach throughout your home, especially since your device will always have the final say in whether it wants to look for another network or roam to another node. If you are looking to improve roaming behaviors, you would likely be able to fix a large number of them by carefully planning out your node placement.
Deco Networks offer all of the features needed to provide the best roaming experience possible - however, it could still be limited by what your device thinks is the best network based on its given conditions. There is a bit more information in Apple's Enterprise Support documents about the order under which your device will prioritize networks.
Check out this Link: About Wireless Roaming for Enterprise
This Page also provides a few recommendations about how to design a network to minimize this behavior, such as
The three features k/v/r are all meant to provide additional information to the client device and quickly facilitate any network changes if the device decides to do so.
802.11v does allow the Deco network to recommend that a device initiate the roaming process (since it has all the information about what node or band would provide the best connection when the device is moving); however, this still relies on your device to follow the recommendation, but it may accelerate the process by encouraging your device to roam before that -75db threshold is reached.
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Saying that the latest Wi-Fi 7 Decos have implemented the latest versions of these technologies and have a few extra technologies, such as Beamforming, that can help to provide a seamless experience. On top of that, I have seen users generally report that their coverage and speeds across their home has improved dramatically - as compared to some of our previous flagship models.
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@Ir0Man1 I have both M1 and Intel MacBook Pros, and they seem to roam just fine on my 3-station Deco BE85 system. I'm conneting to the MLO network, even though the Macs don't support MLO yet. Firmware 1.0.17 Build 20240312, remote stations linked via Ethernet, not WiFi.
2019 Intel MacBook Pro 16":
2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14":
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Hey @CharonPDX,
Thanks for the information!
It is nice to know that the roaming appears to be relatively seamless and that the features of the MLO network do not have any effect on your devices' roaming capability.
Is there a reason that you are using the MLO network over the Main Network
While your devices can use the MLO network, we generally recommend keeping them limited to the main network, as this will result in your network not having to manage the processes used to calculate connections for MLO. However, your overall client performance should remain consistent, or the device could be established with a High-Priority in your QoS settings to make sure it can make use of your entire bandwidth if needed.
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