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[craigski]

Anyone looking to fine tune their WiFi roaming on iOS devices should have to a look here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203068

It describes in detail how the apple devices will select a wireless network, and if you use the Airport utility (free, and you don't need Airport APs to use it) you can fine tune the power levels on your APs. Don't assume just cranking up the radio power and/or adding more APs will give you better coverage/roaming.

[aesmith]

The way I understand it is Mesh is better at roaming because its part of the selling argument, that you get whole-home coverage.

Whole home coverage certainly helps, because a client can start negotiations with the new AP before disassociating from the old one.  However I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about "mesh" being better than Ethernet connections. None of our business customer use mesh systems inside their buildings, nor is there any recommendation in that direction in either Cisco or Meraki design documents, including those for wireless voice.

[neil]

DIY WI-FI MESH with OpenWrt

0:00 Let's build a cheap Wi-Fi mesh
0:30 Preparations
01:00 Config 1st Router
01:45 Software (wpad mesh)
04:50 Mesh Wifi settings
07:00 Turn 2nd Router into dumb AP
12:30 Config 2nd Router
13:20 Test Mesh connectivity
15:07 Turn both into Access points
17:25 Why did I chose 2.4 GHz?
19:00 Troubleshooting


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVoZppb_FR0

[Alex Atkin UK]

Whole home coverage certainly helps, because a client can start negotiations with the new AP before disassociating from the old one.  However I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about "mesh" being better than Ethernet connections. None of our business customer use mesh systems inside their buildings, nor is there any recommendation in that direction in either Cisco or Meraki design documents, including those for wireless voice.

Nobody said mesh was better than ethernet, I said mesh is better on consumer routers "with wired backhaul" than plain APs, because its actually similar to how business grade systems do it with a central management controller handling intelligent handover.

You can't compare the two because (as is often the case with consumer equipment), mesh is being bundled in with roaming, even though technically they aren't the same thing.

Consumer router mesh effectively isn't mesh at all, they are just using that word to mean something completely different.

A REAL mesh network (as I understand it) has no central hub.  Its supposed to be a bunch of APs/routers that connect to the nearest mesh point, which connects to its nearest mesh point, to create a network over a vast area by bouncing the signal off different mesh points.  Its a lot like the Internet itself where every mesh point can talk to other mesh points in range (peers) to get traffic where it needs to go, even if its many hops away.

[neil]

I bought mi router and it was the worst experience. Tplink routers are much better. You need to install an app to control the mi router.
 And its openwrt knockoff firmware has very limited control. It is better to buy tplink router or the one you prefer. And openwrt firmware is not availble for that model ax1800 mi router.

[HPsauce]

Going back to the original question, the layout is not dissimilar to my house.
(I won't bore you with my background in corporate IT and comms, but suffice it so say I'm not totally ignorant though retired some years)
Anyway my final decision (though implemented maybe a little oddly for pragmatic reasons) was two separate WiFi networks with similar names (the similarity is technically irrelevant) one for the "front" of the house the other for the "rear" (also covers patio and much of the garden).

I tried various options and that just ended up being the simplest to implement and manage.
We don't rush around from room to room expecting continuity of service, though there's enough overlap in reception to rarely get an interruption, e.g. in a Facetime call or watching F1 streaming on Sky.

So my choice would be a couple of access points with different network names. But, as they say, YMMV.