Creating wifi SSIDs with AP7

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    Firewalla

    1. Yes, you can select any band or multiple bands

    2. No, you can't select which broadcast the bands. Only one mesh can be installed together.

    3. Same as (2), they are a mesh, you can't remove SSID from AP

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    Eibensl

    @Firewalla:  appreciate the response.  Question 3 updated...meant to ask about channel selection.

    3. For SSIDs being broadcast by each AP7 (desktop or ceiling), will we be able to specify, per AP, which channel each band will use?

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    Firewalla

    You can't specify per AP, at least for the first release, AP are all meshed and they share the same set ssid. But if enough people want more control, then pretty much anything is possible

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    Eibensl

    Thank you, again, for the information.  Comments below are more for the ceiling mounted version of the AP.  Yes, I would like manual control of:

    1) The SSIDs broadcast by each AP:  To get good 2.4, 5, and 6GHz coverage throughout my home, I currently use 6 APs.  Three of the APs broadcast 2.4GHz, 4 broadcast 5GHz, but all 6 are needed for the 6GHz band.  Being able to restrict which APs broadcast each band, I am able to reduce interference within my home caused by my own equipment...if all 6 APs broadcast 2.4GHz, they would stomp over each other, unless I could tweak the power for each radio per AP...that would help, but I've found that having the ability to reduce the number of APs broadcasting on each band is the better solution.

    2) The channels used per band per AP.  I manually set the channels used by each AP per band as I've found that allowing the APs to select the channels automatically most often results in multiple APs that are within range of each other being placed on the same channel for a given band, and they interfere with each other (I'm currently using TP-Link Omada APs).  It's good to have some band overlap between two adjacent APs, but better if they use different channels. 

     

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    Firewalla

    You can also try to change the txpower, that usually works a bit better.

    Unless you know exactly what you are doing, changing channels may not always be optimal. Firewalla AP7 does have a manual mode ... If you want to try it

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    Richard Sun

    I did something similar in my home by using three AP's each configured with different 3 SSID's per AP (one for each band), each SSID using different channels to reduce the interference.  I found this setup to be much more "stable" and "faster" than having them all do a mesh network across the three bands.  Does the roadmap consider being able to set it up this way?  Basically, for most of my IOT devices, they are "stationary" like my ring cameras and such, so having the fastest/stable access to the closest AP was more affable.  It can be a little bit cumbersome for the devices that move around, but given that's only a few mobile phones and laptops, when you think about, how many devices IOT really move around in your house (my robot vacuum does this, but just having it use a specific SSID works well enough, but not always a "speedy" connection).

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    Eibensl

    @Richard: with my current APs, they are all ethernet backhaul, so not mesh. The APs manage handing a client over from one AP to the next seamlessly, based on signal strength / 802.11k/v standard, which I don't think would be as seamless if different SSIDs were to be used. 

    Mesh only comes into play if one of the APs loses ethernet backhaul... at that point, that AP would connect wirelessly to the nearest AP in range, creating a mesh.  

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