@stego yes thats been my experience on testing as well, no clashing channels etc, fast transition enabled and it seems to work pretty well. I think as you say the big benefit here is adding more AP’s where you cannot run a cable easily.
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More questions:
–How can we tell if the North AP is talking to the middle AP or to the wired AP in the south?
–How do devices connected to a mesh AP appear to the wired router when using the local web interface on the wired router? That is, do they appear as directly connected or do all devices seem to come from the mesh AP.
–Can we learn the signal strength from each mesh AP to the mesh device it is talking to?
–Can we learn the signal strength for the client devices talking to a mesh AP?
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You may check at AP > Mesh / WDS.
The devices here are referring to the WIFI client that connects to the client Mesh AP (e.g. Northern AP in your case)? If so, they are shown as WIFI clients.
You may check at AP > Mesh / WDS.
You may check at Status > Client List
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I am trying to get my mesh network setup. I recently purchased 2 AP One AX access points to replace AP Mini AC access points (HW1). Since the AP Mini Acs still work, I decided to try to add them as meshed access points and connect them through the new AP One AX.
I have found that access points with a wired uplink are trying to join the non-wired APs - which leaves to my wifi clients connected to access points with no uplink to the router.
Here is how it should work
Balance One ← wired AP One AX ← non-wired Mini AC ← wifi client
Here is what it appears to be doing
wifi client → wired AP One AX → non-wired Mini AC → absolutely nothing
It is almost like the wired AP cannot tell that it has an uplink to the router. Are the APs using the health check function to determine connectivity? I have disabled the health check on my APs since they are all running in “switch” mode.
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. @jmjones, can you share the firmware version of your Balance One, AP One AX, and AP One AC Mini?
I am having a similar setup but it is working fine. Of course, I didn’t disable the health check. Please help to enable the health check to confirm it helps. By the way, is that any connection issue between the Balance One and wired AP?
Thanks.
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I am using the latest firmware on all devices.
Balance One Core - 8.1.1b02 build 5015
AP One AX - 3.8.1 build 4906
AP One Mini AC - 3.6.2b01 build 1920
I am still digging, but it looks like if I can get the APs to generate traffic, they stay accessible via IP. What is even weirder still is that the Balance One seems to be able to ping the IP of the AP through the LAN (System-Ping), but another device on the LAN cannot ping it. That makes remote support kind of difficult since the router is able to do things that other clients cannot. I will do the test again and do some screen grabs if time permits.
When I woke up this morning, one of the APs has lost its connectivity to the mesh. I guess I will need to use the “turn radio off if no network connection” option. I will use my other thread Wifi Mesh and Balance One AP Controller / Channel scanning - #3 by jmjones to try and keep this one from getting cluttered.
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I have recently replaced a Peplink SUS-SOHO-T Surf Soho MK3 Router with a Balance 20X for routing and wifi access point along with an AP One AX as an additional wifi access point.
Can I use this mesh feature in the new firmware to add the Surf Soho MK3 back into my home network for use as an additional wifi access point?
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I can say that this wouldn’t be a “supported” configuration, but I also expect this would work fine. Just be sure to shut off the DHCP server of the Soho when you are setting up all the mesh and SSID settings.
Curious to hear how it goes!
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Previous, working set-up:
- A Balance 380 HW6 router, FW 8.1.0 build 4942 in a HA pair.
- A LAN with quite a few wired devices, and with 3 wired AP One access points - one AP One Mini HW1, two AP One Enterprise HW1 and HW2). All running FW 3.6.2 build 1938.
- Configuration performed via IC2:
- 4 SSIDs
- 3 VLANS
- 2 SSIDs mapped to untagged (2.4 and 5GHz for one, the other 2.4GHz only), the two other SSIDs (one for IoT devices (2.4GHz) and one for devices/connections requiring GDPR compliance (2.4 and 5GHz) - each mapped to a corresponding, tagged VLAN)
- VLANs handled by the Balance 380, incl. DHCP
This works very well.
Mesh (not quite working) set-up:
Take the above configuration, activate Mesh on all the access points and
- Add a non-wired AC One Mini with FW 3.6.2 build 1938
- Configure it (and the other access points) for a mesh, 2.4GHz. The configuration is performed on the devices themselves.
Observation:
-
This works (for the most part) well on the SSIDs mapped to the untagged VLAN. (There was one instance where the non-wired access point locked up and the remedy was to reboot the non-wired access point)
-
This does not work well for the SSIDs mapped to the tagged VLANs. Devices connect to the SSID, but they are not provided with an IP address. Something getting in the way of the DHCP connection to the Balance 380?
Please advise.
Z.
PS> And with best wishes for happy holidays and an improved new year!
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@zegor_mjol, please upgrade both wired and wireless Mesh AP to the firmware below.
I tested Untagged and Tagged VLAN are working fine.
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Thanks,
I’ll upgrade the firmware and report of the problem persists.
The issue itself is annoying, in that it is intermittent. Last night the network exhibited the problem (the iPad connected to the SSID, but no IP address was supplied), this morning (same iPad, same location, no changes to the network) the iPad connected without issue. 
Cheers,
Z
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The APs are all powered all the time. The wired ones through PoE, the mesh-only by wall power. I have checked the logs, and no power outages were reported by the devices during the period of observed instability.
After the upgrade to the firmware you provided (now 12 hours ago), there system has been stable with connectivity on the VLAN SSIDs functioning well.
Z
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@zegor_mjol, can you help to open ticket for us to take a look? We need the Remote Assistance access for both wired and wireless Mesh APs. Please attention the ticket to me. Thanks.
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Will do. Do you need diagnostic reports for any or all of the APs?
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I believe the wireless Mesh AP always connects to the same wired Mesh AP, right? If so, the rest are not needed.
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It has been observed to connect with at least two different wired APs. Disabling and then re-enabling the one it was connected to just now provoked an outage for DHCP assignments across untagged as well as a tagged SSIDs - the VLAN correlation referenced earlier may be a red herring. A a reboot of the mesh AP was required to get it reconnected to the router and the world, again.
Anyway: The ticket is #20120871
Thanks for all your assistance.
Z
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I believe I’m having the same issue here while playing around with a Max Transit and a wireless AP One Mini. Seems like about 25% of the time when a device connects to the Mini, it does not receive an IP. Never an issue when connecting to the Transit’s internal AP. Only have one SSID and no VLANs.
Also, what is the expected loss of throughput with the mesh? With a gigabit fiber WAN, I typically get 200 Mbps up/down when connected directly to the Transit’s internal AP. But only getting about 70 down and 120 up through the wireless AP One Mini. Controller Mesh Status showing 240M send/receive, fwiw.