Network WiFi Puzzle

Posted by: musica on 22 January 2016

I have one room in my house in which the WiFi signal from my router is very weak or non existent. This makes using my iPad in that room unreliable. I have overcome this by reconfiguring an old sky router to act as a wifi access point. This is Ethernet fed from my main router. This works ok but my iPad will not lock onto this acess point unless it loses the wifi signal from the main router completely. I can overcome this by switching off the wifi on the iPad and then switching it back on again. It then locks onto the access point. I then have to carry out this procedure when I Go back into other parts of the house to lock onto the main router. Is there anything I can do to get the iPad to automatically lock onto the strongest wifi signal. Thanks

philip

Posted on: 22 January 2016 by David Hendon

You should use the same SSID and password for both wifi access points. Your iPad should switch readily to the stronger signal then I think.

best

David

Posted on: 22 January 2016 by musica

Thanks David for your reply. I am using the same SSID and password so unfortunately this does not solve the problem

philip

 

Posted on: 22 January 2016 by garyi

In which case the easy answer is to use a different ssid and manually pick that when you need. 

If you can get the main wifi point higher up this usually helps, because wifi travels better through ceilings which are hardly every concrete rather than walls which often are.

 

could you get it upstairs?

Posted on: 23 January 2016 by Huge

1  Get a metal box, put the iPad in there for a short time, when you take it out it'll reconnect to the strongest signal.

2  Switch the WiFi off and back on again (e.g. switch to Aeroplane mode and back again) again it'll reconnect to the strongest signal.

Posted on: 24 January 2016 by Simon-in-Suffolk

In your iPad setting wifi settings, set the device to auto connect to a registered wifi access point.. then it will automatically connect to the strongest signal if it has the registration/security details for that access point in its settings.

Unless your wireless access points are DESIGNED and configured to work together to extend an SSID then I recommend you ensure the SSIDs are DIFFERENT for the two access points... or issues are likely to occur.

Simon

Posted on: 24 January 2016 by musica

Thank you Simon. I had wondered if having the same SSID for router and access point might be the problem. I will reconfigure the access point SSID and see what happens.

philip