Is it possible to have consumer grade access points do seamless

can you even put tomato on those?

I guess no one here is knowledgeable about networking

>>50785131
I don't get it, which routers *can't* do this?

Just have only one act as DHCP server and wire them up to be in the same network.

I'm doing this on a mix of TP-Link routers with OpenWRT and a bunch of modem/routers from an ISP. Works perfectly, just set them all to the same SSID and connect them to the same LAN.

There's no reason I can think of that would make it not work for you.

>>50785790
I'm trying to have the access points handle the roaming, not the client.

Normally, you need a high end enterprise cisco AP controller to do this. On consumer stuff, it's handled on the client side, which is really crappy because a lot of clients are poorly engineered and won't connect to another network, even if the network they're currently connected to has extremely poor service. The problem is a lot of clients won't scan for a better minute for several minutes, instead of checking every few seconds. If you set up a controller, like I have set up on my corporate network, it takes the client totally out of the equation by automatically switching it as it approaches a closer AP.

>>50785799
OpenWRT has an option for that? That's great to know. Thank you!

I have those same routers on a 3 story house, it works perfectly just giving them the same SSID an putting them in AP mode. As long as your clients are newer than 4 years old, they'll connect to a closer network seamlessly as soon as a better AP is in range.

I'm also using the AP optimum (cablevision) provides, the AC model. It works very well. It's a little annoying that the optimum makes you have a guest network, but it's hard to complain when you get an AC1700 router for free.

>>50785925
> I'm trying to have the access points handle the roaming, not the client.
Lel. Yea, no. They'd have to share encryption state details and pretend they're the same device and more.

Terrible solution with way too many risks and a dozen extra points of failure that will be hard to diagnose.

> On consumer stuff, it's handled on the client side, which is really crappy because a lot of clients are poorly engineered and won't connect to another network
> The problem is a lot of clients won't scan for a better minute for several minutes, instead of checking every few seconds.
Install Linux or Windows, set them up to do it.

>>50785986
>Lel. Yea, no. They'd have to share encryption state details and pretend they're the same device and more.

Do you really know what you're talking about? Because I've got this set up on my corporate network with 15 APs, and over 200 clients. It works seamlessly and very, very few problems. Once you've got that controller in there, it makes everything just werk.

>Install Linux or Windows, set them up to do it.
Now you really are just talking out of your butt. Most of the clients are android phones or iOS devices that come and go, and five windows laptops.

I can't just install a different OS on someone elses phone, especially when I'm just entertaining them for the weekend or something.

Do these AC routers really give gigabit speeds?

I need gigabit wifi on my home network because I've got a simpana/plex server on my home network, and it'd be nice for the laptops to backup at a decent speed and have all the laptops be able to watch a different movie at a same time.

Do AC routers really deliver the promised 1900mbps?

>>50786067
> Do you really know what you're talking about? Because I've got this set up on my corporate network with 15 APs, and over 200 clients. It works seamlessly and very, very few problems. Once you've got that controller in there, it makes everything just werk.
Clearly, you are an expert in paying Cisco to make your setup work. Feel free to do it again.

> Once you've got that controller in there, it makes everything just werk.
Until it doesn't and a good part of the network collapses. Don't really care to discuss Cisco proprietary shit though - if you want it, get it.

> Now you really are just talking out of your butt. Most of the clients are android phones or iOS devices that come and go, and five windows laptops.
Or you are the one talking out of your ass, since zero out of certainly more than 40 Android / IOS devices in the mesh network here in our house had issues.

>>50786254
> I need gigabit wifi on my home network because I've got a simpana/plex server on my home network
Really? Do you really stream at more than 20Mbps, or have enough clients that you have these requirements?

> Do these AC routers really give gigabit speeds?
150-250Mbps average sustained throughput are more realistic.

>>50786254
>Do AC routers really deliver the promised 1900mbps?
In theory maybe.. but a lot of that is lost in wifi transmission overhead and simply due to noise

You are maybe getting 1/3 of the advertised speed for "real" data transfer speeds

>>50786371
What I'm getting from this is you don't have any useful information to add, just criticizing for no real reason. Almost every wireless protocol has roaming NOT done on the client end, I'm not sure why you think it's so technically unfeasible. Cell towers do it for you, seamlessly. The only reason wifi doesn't do it is it wasn't included in the initial protocol, not because it's hard to do. The next version of wifi really should included handover.

>Until it doesn't and a good part of the network collapses
Lmao. Why exactly would that happen? Do you know how these controllers function? All they are is a nice quality of life thing - instead of having to sign into each AP individually to apply settings, once they're connected to the network the controller applies the settings for you. If the controller goes down, the rest of the network doesn't, the AP's just switch back to being self managed, and keep the settings. The only other thing that would happen is roaming switches to being handled on the client end.

How exactly does this add "dozens of points of failure"? How are there "way too many risks"? Having roaming and handover handled centrally is objectively better, a lot of clients, especially older clients, are garbage at handling roaming.

>Don't really care to discuss Cisco proprietary shit though
Hence why I made this topic, so that someone could point me in the direction of an open source possibility. There's no reason why some other firmware like openwrt wouldn't be able to handle the roaming centrally like the cisco controller.

>Or you are the one talking out of your ass, since zero out of certainly more than 40 Android / IOS devices in the mesh network here in our house had issues

I had that setup previously, and everytime someone went upstairs or downstairs it wouldn't switch networks. My experience is different than yours.

Please explain why this is all such a bad idea, without resorting to ad hominem

>>50786441
i have a lot of clients

>>50786722
I'm totally willing to concede that what I want to do is a bad idea, if you can actually explain to me why it's a bad idea without outright insulting me, and give me correct information.

All the AP's have the same settings, with the same encryption type, same SSID, same password. Why should roaming be handled on the client end?

>>50786722
> What I'm getting from this is you don't have any useful information to add, just criticizing for no real reason.
No, your half-understanding and wishful thinking gets in the way.

> Cell towers do it for you, seamlessly
Fuck no. The client cooperates on both soft and hard handovers.

Hell, it does if you use 802.11r or 802.11k or whatever else you might want to use.

>>50786806

Systems Engineer here

Who the fuck cares what some idiot on /g/ says. If it works, then it works, why do you think that a solution that wastes more of your time is a better solution? Here you are trying to defend your idea on a damned imageboard, you could be researching your shit.

Just look for anything that supports 802.11r. That's exactly what it sounds like you're trying to do, and there's a part of the 802.1 standard. That's probably what Cisco is doing as well. If you want to dick around with the preconfiguration you pay Cisco to do so you don't have to focus on knowing every individual part of every networked device and their communications stacks, then go ahead and do it on your own.

>>50786955
Thank you!