Nest Wifi Access point

[kycubb]

One of my Nest Wifi access points was too far away from the Nest Wifi router and had a weak connection.

I added a new Nest Wifi Access point which I located closer to the Nest Wifi Router and is in line of site, roughly 35 ft., of the weak Nest Wifi Point.  

The new Nest Wifi point gets Great Connection with the Nest Wifi Router but the one that had the weak connection still has a weak connection. 

I was under the impression that the Nest Wifi access points piggy backed off of each other so by adding a new one with great connectivity would give the old one Great connectivity.  This is not the case.  

Is there a setting somewhere to make the access points piggy back on one another?  

[MichaelP]

Hello @kycubb 

The units will talk directly to each other. But, when it comes to selecting a path through that mesh interconnect, the policy is to optimize for "fewest hops". This is usually optimal, since they only have one 5GHz radio, so going through an intermediate would require retransmitting the data back out on the same channel again, which would use more of that channel's capacity. The result is, if that distant mesh point can get through directly to the primary/router unit, it will continue to do that even if another unit is in between. But, if a client on one unit wants to talk to a client on another unit, that traffic will go directly between them rather than going all the way back to the primary/router and back out.

This is why the optimal placement advice is to have the primary/router unit be as close to the center of the home as possible with mesh/secondary point units one or two rooms away from the primary in any direction. Close enough that they can get a strong 5GHz connection to the primary for themselves. From there, they can provide 2.4GHz and 5GHz coverage to more distant WiFi client devices.

[kycubb]

MichaelP, 

Thanks for the explanation.  I was attempting to get an access point closer to a couple of Nest Cameras I have installed.  They sometimes lose the Wifi connection.  Doesn't look like i helped my situation at all with the additional access point.  My Router is very close to the Center of the house already. 

It sounds like the access points will always choose the direct connection with the Router even it is the weaker signal.  I was hoping there was a setting to make an individual access point work via point to point access since that would be a stronger signal. 

This is disappointing to say the least.   

[MichaelP]

They will choose the path with the fewest hops. As I said earlier, this typically provides the best performance, since going through an intermediate would require sending the data twice over the same channel. There might be some conditions under which a multi-hop path would be better, but it turns out to be difficult to determine when that would be the case (e.g., you know that new point is placed in between, but the points themselves can't be sure of that – maybe both points are equally distant from the primary, so going through the other one would be significantly worse; in short, the technology for this gets really complicated, so Google/Nest WiFi uses a simple policy that works well in the majority of cases).

[Jeff]

Hi, kycubb.
I just wanted to jump in real fast to see if you saw MichaelP's reply and to see if you still needed some help on this or if you were able to get it sorted out. If you are still needing some help, just let us know and we'll be happy to continue helping.
Thanks,
- Jeff

[Jeff]

Hey, kycubb.

I'm just checking in once more to see if you still needed some input on this.

Thanks,

- Jeff

[EdwardT]

Hi kycubb,

Just checking in to make sure that you've seen our response. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours.
 

Thanks,

Edward