I have a modem/router in my room which is at the back of the house. As I was having poor reception in the front side of my home, I've got one of the cheap ADSL routers and I'm using that as another hotspot (connected via ethernet to my fiber router) and I'm using that for the WiFi at the living room. Whenever I come home from outside, I first pass through the living room momentarily to get to my room. And all my Apple devices insist on automatically connecting to the living room's hotspot, which has poor reception in my room. If it connects even once, it will not automatically connect to the much stronger hotspot unless I turn off Wifi and turn it on again manually. It sucks because when I arrive home, I almost always need to turn off Wifi on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro, which is extremely inconvenient.
Deleting the living room's password from my keychain would obviously avoid the issue, though I'd always need to re-enter the password and delete it afterwards when I use the internet at the living room, which is even more inconvenient.
I've also tried naming them the same, but it messes everything up (and apparently causes problems with routing) so I'd better keep the SSIDs separate.
How do I solve this problem?
Best Answer
If the one in the living room is connected to the main router via ethernet, just change it to access point only mode. Stop assigning addresses from this router. Set it to the same SSID as the other (stronger) router, and your devices should hand off to whichever signal is stronger at the moment. I have one router at home, plus two more in different areas, set up this way, and there are no issues. When I'm upstairs, devices connect to the access point; when downstairs, they connect directly to the main router, transparently.