WiFi Channel for Photon (original)

[BobG]

Is there any way to know which WiFi channel a Photon is connected on? Better yet, is there any way to tell a Photon which channel to connect to?

Story: I have a system installed at a non-profit makerspace. The system has a number of Argon and Photon (original) devices connected to it. The makerspace is a large facility, so the IT people have installed several APs. All APs broadcast the same SSID. I have two identical Photon devices literally mounted side by side. One of them reports (via the Console) a strong WiFi signal (-53 dBm) and the other reports a good WiFi signal (-67 dBm). Strong vs Good notwithstanding, the Photon with the weaker signal keeps disconnecting from the network while the Photon with the stronger signal is rock solid.

I have a WiFi analyser app that tells me that there are three APs within range of the Photons. One AP (channel 11) shows a signal strength in the range of -55 dBm in the vacinity of the Photons and two more APs (channels 1 and 6) show signal strengths in the range of -70 dBm at this same location. So I conclude that one Photon is connected to channel 11 and the other is connected to either channel 1 or 6.

I would like to know (from the Photons) which channel they are actually connected to and, more importantly, I'd like to force them both to connect to the stronger AP (channel 11). Is there some procedure to do this? I don't see anything in the Console that goes beyond reporting signal strength.

[rickkas7]

There is no way to steer the Photon 1 to a specific channel or base station. It should pick a strong one, though it may sometimes pick the one that was used most recently.

There isn't an easy way to find the current channel. The only way to do it is determine the BSSID of the currently connected base station, then call WiFi.scan() to get the list of available APs. The WiFiAccessPoint structure contains bssid, channel, and rssi, among other things.