Cores (& Photons?) with multiple AP same SSID networks

Troubleshooting
1

Can I ask - in my home I have three APs all using the same SSID. I am suffering from fairly frequent disconnects from my Particle devices and extremely frequent disconnects/hangs from one Core in particular (the one running as an MQTT client).
Would I be well advised to dedicate an AP to Particle devices with its own SSID?

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Iā€™m not sure, but if the BSSID is also saved when providing the WiFi credentials, you could try powering down the two concurring APs and only use the one you intend to have the device connect to.
Then clear the credentials and reapply with only that one AP visible and see.

If this wonā€™t work, using a separate SSID may be advisable.

3

@netpex Funny you should mention this as I was recently asked by my customer why no one else on the community forum had posted about this very problem!

I am using photons and not cores anymore. The products these are built into get used in schools and universities. It is very common in a school to have multiple remotely managed APs with the same SSID. This is a technique used to ensure WiFi signal coverage in a large building with the APs operating on different channels to avoid interference. What I see is exactly the issue you describe that the device can disconnect with high frequency. It could be that as the wifi signal strength varies (which is normal +/- 5dB) you may get a situation where the AP the device was connected to now has a poorer signal than an adjacent AP operating on a different channel. I could suggest you ditch the core, use a photon and implement 0.8.0-rc.10 with the diagnostics - then you will get some idea of what is going on with the disconnections. Understanding the codes in the diagnostics history reports is a ā€˜dark artā€™ at the moment with Particle being reticent to explain the various codes.

This is such a problem I have a project to build a wifi sniffer/logger to use on sites where we are experiencing issues to work out what is happening. Typically the schools do not have the technical knowledge as the system was installed by a contractor and is remotely managed.

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That's not quite true tho'. There have been discussions in that direction before
e.g. (amongst others) Connect to specific BSSID

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@ScruffR Thank you for pointing out that thread - clearly my searches were not targeted enough! I will go and digest the conclusions therein.

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6

Interestingly Iā€™ve replaced my WiFi router at home with a newer one and Iā€™ve been monitoring my event feed over the last 24 hours and I havenā€™t had ONE SINGLE disconnect/reconnect and all of the handshakes for my Cores have YESTERDAYā€™S DATE on them!! Something unimaginable to me before replacing my router.

Now, I donā€™t know if this made a difference or notā€¦but I turned off a far away AP to force the Cores to connect to the closer (and switched on!) AP. Only when those Cores were happily connected to the close AP did I go upstairs and switch back on the distant AP and let the distant Cores reconnect to that one.

So Iā€™m not really sure if itā€™s the new router thatā€™s made all the difference or my ā€œforcingā€ my Cores to connect to the AP I want them connected to.

Either way, Iā€™m beyond happy for now. No Photons needed! (Donā€™t like this having to buy new tech thing just because something new has come out. I want to use what I originally bought for what it was advertised to doā€¦No disrespect to you at all intended @armor)