You can stick to 802.11r only by lowering the transmission power and have all the APs on the same channel, in my tests it ended up switching much faster than K/V. (~75ms)
On iOS, equal channel with correct ESS will switch liberally. On Android 14+ with Broadcom chip it will start conservative, then switch liberally after the first poor signal switch-over event, up until disconnection.
Android (Pixel/Moto) will never switch (even with K/V) on large network activity, only VoIP/video call. It depends on vendor implementation. [0] I use "dp.logcatapp" log reader while roaming, "com.android.location.fused" can be used to show score and current load.
Samsung is known to push protocol support early: 802.11r in 2013, 802.11w 2015, some models do not use Android's default connectivity manager.
To add, WPA3 with 802.11r is known to have issues on Apple hardware before 2021 on all iOS versions, many Android devices, especially smart TVs don't support it, will not connect or are unreliable (protected beacon frame), can be searched in buried report results at OpenWrt forum mega threads and Ubiquity. WPA2+FT and forced MFP with a long password is a safe alternative. 802.11r use PMK push on WPA3 compared to WPA2, which was known to be problematic on older hardware.
802.11K/V is more suitable for campus and load balancing, tuning it based on RSSI and station metrics is very difficult, enterprise hardware rely on network traffic and air time.
[0] https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/wifi-network-se...
To be fair, I don't require my 85" TV to roam, as it's not as portable as my iPhone.
Until it gets stuck on a far away AP because it was the first AP to come online the last time the network rebooted.
Not sure if roaming is actually the fix for this problem. For whatever reason my Ring cameras just love connecting to the worst and most far away AP in my house.
Not sure how widely available this feature is, but the unifi controller software for the popular Ubiquiti APs lets you bind individual client devices to specific APs such that they can only connect to the ones you choose.
I had to solve a similar issue for some crap IoT lights that would join the incorrect AP after a power cut every time.
> https://community.ui.com/questions/Lock-Client-to-Specific-A...
This, of course, breaks clients that try to connect to the loudest RSSI when the loudest RSSI that they hear is not the one that is chosen.
Yet to encounter this side effect. So far every crappy wifi device I've tried has obliged.
for static clients that works well, though you can usually set a min rssi and get the same benefit without so much clicking.
That works for fixed devices like a TV, but also tends to shrink the effective coverage area of the wireless network as a whole.
That can mean that the portable wifi speaker-widget (which itself doesn't need much bandwidth) might go from working fine on the back deck or well-enough about anywhere else in the yard, to not working at all outside.
> That works for fixed devices like a TV, but also has the effect of shrinking the effective coverage area of the wireless network as a whole.
Which is normally a good thing to push the clients to roam to a better AP, OR you walked out of the building and want you phone to disconnect. But yes, does impact overall coverage area size.
That only works if there's a better AP to roam to. It's often very easy to add more APs indoors; but hanging them outside is a whole different animal.
Meanwhile: As a practical matter, shrinking coverage means "Hey, honey! I fixed the TV!" gets met with a response like "Oh, so that's why I can't listen to Audible on the veranda anymore!" :)
Experimentally probe: say you "fixed" something when you haven't touched anything and see what responses you get.
Obviously only if your honey is the type that enjoys being experimented upon (So long as it isn't mean, I like thoughtful attention like that, but some might not).
I find it funny that the one device in my household which will not roam between APs is the Nintendo Switch.
Glad it works for you.
I need my TV to rapidly switch APs in very heavy load wide area networks with thousands of devices while I'm cruising through the venue with my motorized couch and entertainment system.
Now I want to actually build that for GPN24 next week. Wouldn't use AndroidTV for that though.
My favorite is the WiFi television/sign on an elevator.
Good luck watching the office when your cat pushed your upstairs AP off the balcony. Your tv won't auto switch to the downstairs AP which is now closer than the one that's suddenly in the driveway.
Yeah, I tried the same channel thing, but I can't change the power, really - the flat is wrapped around two elevator shafts :)
The elevators are probably causing rapid blind spots (shadows) while the user is moving around, 802.11k is indeed useful in this case for cutting down scan time, since iOS will still scan with filtered channels.
It's an interesting setup, looking forward to an update.
You're not getting it. The lift shafts are lined, this is an armored concrete building in Europe.
> You can stick to 802.11r only by lowering the transmission power and have all the APs on the same channel
Fast roaming has not, does not, and never will require APs be on the same channel. Only the SSID and password needs to match.
Setting them to the same channel will cause the APs to interfere (when they can't "hear" each other) or block each other from transmitting, or both. You set APs near each other so they are on non-overlapping bands. Always.
This is basic WiFi networking 101
> Samsung is known to push protocol support early: 802.11r in 2013
802.11r was released in 2008 and rolled into 802.11-2012.
Also, the iPhone 5S (2013) has 802.11r support.
> Fast roaming has not, does not, and never will require APs be on the same channel. Only the SSID and password needs to match.
There were no mentions of requirements for 802.11r in the comment. You removed "much faster than K/V." from the quote. "only" was referring to 802.11r exclusively. You can have the same results with different channels with K/V, provided that the clients support it as the rest of the comment mentions.
802.11r-only on different channels is ineffective for some devices, because its insignificant, you will be shaving 100ms from a 700ms delay on scan/association, equal channel transitions (no handshake yet) are around 20ms from my testing, ending up in less than 100ms total transition. And even then, its only needed for short buffer streaming like VoIP and VoWiFi. WPA3 roundtrips without FT are even longer ~300ms which can affect video/voice calls, not to be confused with VoIP, it's not really needed for the average user back when WPA2 was standard.
Android and iOS will first scan on the same frequency, then rotate through the channels, the transition time is significantly faster with equal channels on most hardware unfortunately, this is where 802.11k helps, especially in iOS. They also cache scan results provided that the farthest AP is detected, this rarely happens since the scan time is so short, scanning while connected causes large amount of jitter on station optimized WiFi SoCs, affecting VoIP on mediocre connections, so its done as quick as possible, often missing many beacons. [0]
The suggestion doesn't bash on 802.11k/v, it's just a compatibility alternative, considering that very few clients support it, let alone off the shelf consumer AP support.
> Setting them to the same channel will cause the APs to interfere (when they can't "hear" each other) or block each other from transmitting, or both. You set APs near each other so they are on non-overlapping bands. Always.
> This is basic WiFi networking 101
This is only true under large air time traffic and in large scale indoor setups. Not satellite APs that are far. Qualcomm, Mediatek and many systems implement their own spatial reuse technology. WiFi 6+ introduces BSS coloring for channel width overlaps to further improve speeds on mixed traffic, not to mention the generally low penetration / TX power of 5Ghz+.
>> Samsung is known to push protocol support early: 802.11r in 2013
> 802.11r was released in 2008 and rolled into 802.11-2012.
> Also, the iPhone 5S (2013) has 802.11r support.
The Samsung line in the comment was referring to Androids, many Android didn't support these until 2020, some non-flagship still don't (disabled), Samsung was notable to include it early, there are three paragraphs underneath referring to old phones and smart TVs, both Androids. It is not enabled by default on many off the shelf APs for these reasons.
[0] https://support.apple.com/en-sa/guide/deployment/dep98f116c0...
Apple has some minimal recommendations as well:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102766
On my Unifi setup at home with multiple APs I had to disable 802.11r to get things to roam fast. I have Android and Linux laptop, wife has iPhone and MacBook.
With 802.11r on, things would disconnect for 60+ seconds before reconnecting. It was a constant frustration of "arrrrrrrggghhhh fucking connect damnit I'm standing a meter in front of the AP can't you fucking see it fuck fuck fuck just connect, it's right THERE, connect NOW, arghhh" and then it would completely disconnect (no wifi found) and then reconnect a minute later.
With 802.11r off things just roam smoothly. I guess the people who inventned the tech didn't test it thoroughly enough.