Connecting wifi points

[Elarsen]

I’m using a set of 3 Google Wifi gen 2 points. I have cabled the first point as a router to the fiber modem. The next point is connected wireless. From this one I have a cable to the third point. Which also is the point with the longest distance from the router. 

Both the second and the third point are in the Google Home app shown as wireless connected. Is this because the second point is wireless connected?

The connection status for all 3 points is reported in the app to be very good.

However, now and then I get the message from the app that the 3rd point should be moved to give the attached units a better connection. But does the cable connection between the 2nd and 3rd point not give the 3rd point the best signal? The units connected to the 3rd point are all located very near. With no obstruction.

Kind regards Erik Larsen

[MichaelP · Accepted solution]

Hello @Elarsen 

The mesh interconnect protocol (802.11s) doesn't run over Ethernet. So, the configuration you have (two secondaries wired to each other, but neither wired to the primary) is unsupported, and may behave in strange ways, including variability that may depend on the day of the week, phase of the moon, or whether a large truck is driving by. I would strongly recommend wiring both secondaries back to the primary unit's LAN Ethernet port (either through an Ethernet switch, or by keeping the connection between them that you have now, and connecting the nearest secondary back to the primary using the open Ethernet port on that secondary).

[Elarsen]

Hi Michael

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately the cabling option is not an easy possibility. Neither using a switch nor cabling the second unit to the router unit.

What are your thoughts on removing the cable between the 2nd and 3rd unit? Do you think that would bring stability - but maybe weaker connection? I can of course test my self. 

[MichaelP]

I'm sorry to hear you can't connect the primary to the nearest secondary. I definitely would not keep the cable between the two secondaries – it really will not be reliable.

However, if you haven't followed the optimal placement advice (primary close to the center of the home with secondaries one or two rooms away from the primary, where they will provide coverage to more distant clients), then you're unlikely to have a satisfactory experience either way.

The path selection algorithm prefers "fewest hops", so if that distant secondary can get a connection to the primary at all, then it will use that instead of bouncing through the intermediary secondary. Since there's only one 5GHz channel, this is generally better (multi-hop just uses the same channel multiple times, taking up more channel capacity). If it is so far away that it can't get a direct connection without going through the intermediate secondary, it will work, but the conditions under which that would happen are such that the end-to-end performance is going to be quite poor.