Very few devices hop from AP to AP? Lol, a repeater broadcasts the same SSID. While it's true that different devices switch based on signal strength on various thresholds, unless you actually extend your network with different SSIDs on purpose, devices will transition seamlessly or with very minor hiccups.
The main downside of classic repeaters vs mesh is that with repeaters devices tend to hang on even with decreasing signal strength until their threshold is reached which may be an issue if you make high-speed downloads while moving around, but otherwise for your regular smart vacuum that moves around it won't make a difference.
Of course, there are other cases as well:
some Asus routers can be setup as repeaters but will in fact form a mesh. The main different in behind-the-scenes operations between mesh and repeater is that a repeater will just broadcast and that's it. A mesh will in fact pass clients around to optimize connectivity. Some Asus routers can form mesh networks themselves, even if you set them up as repeaters. I guess this is not restricted to Asus, but that's what I have at the moment.
off-the-shelf mesh setups are unreasonably expensive. Better check if your routers/standalone repeaters can't be upgraded to form a mesh. Ironically some older ones can be, as makes seems to have decided not to offer such upgrades to push mesh sales.
Coding for a few decades. That's me 👆 at 7 typing in Star Trek, in BASIC on a TRS-80. Loves Rust, Ruby, Go, Python, TypeScript, ES6Turbo Pascal (in that order).
Admittedly, I never had a multi-AP network in my home. So I'm really not totally familiar with how to set one up, or the various implementations and their tradeoffs.
That's good to know that some older gear can be "mesh'ized" even when it doesn't say so on the box. I'll keep that in mind when I recommend this to friends.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
Very few devices hop from AP to AP? Lol, a repeater broadcasts the same SSID. While it's true that different devices switch based on signal strength on various thresholds, unless you actually extend your network with different SSIDs on purpose, devices will transition seamlessly or with very minor hiccups.
The main downside of classic repeaters vs mesh is that with repeaters devices tend to hang on even with decreasing signal strength until their threshold is reached which may be an issue if you make high-speed downloads while moving around, but otherwise for your regular smart vacuum that moves around it won't make a difference.
Of course, there are other cases as well:
Thanks for the thoughtful clarification!
Admittedly, I never had a multi-AP network in my home. So I'm really not totally familiar with how to set one up, or the various implementations and their tradeoffs.
That's good to know that some older gear can be "mesh'ized" even when it doesn't say so on the box. I'll keep that in mind when I recommend this to friends.