@R1D2 

Well as I indicated my concern is that my Google Home Mini in the basement (the one that is indicated to -68 dB) completely lost the signal in the middle of the afternoon while listening music on Spotify. Maybe this is something due to a problem with Google itself or another system outtage, but at the first glance I suspected a poor wifi signal and this is when I discovered that the signal is actually pretty weak. But maybe I am on the wrong track...

Hi @SimonC,

For what it's worth, I also have a Google home mini and several Alexa smart speakers.  My experience has been that these little devices often get pretty poor 5.8GHz reception.  In my case, these devices are usually sitting on a large dresser or countertop (my Mini is sitting right about my SS dishwasher right next to the outside wall of my house) so it's difficult for 5.8GHz to "get there."

I've moved most/all of them and many other smart home devices (Kasa outlets, etc.) to the 2.4GHz band for this reason.  Some/many of these devices only support 2.4GHz anyway.  They get much better reception on 2.4GHz and this frees up the 5.8GHz for PC's, tablets, Nest cams and things, that are actually streaming larger amounts of data.

Cannot speak to the stability of Spotify on Google Mini, I tend to prefer Amazon Music.

Anywhoo,

Jonathan

@JSchnee21 

Good point! And anyway, a Google Home device is a pretty much low bandwidth device, even while listening to Spotify, SiriusXM or whatever. But how do you "steer" a Google Home devices to the 2.4 Ghz band only? I don't see this option into my Google Home app, nor in the Omada Controller? Obviously one option should be to split into two SSIDs for 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 Ghz, but I already did that in the past with my old wi-fi router and it's a bit annoying especially for devices that are in continous movement into the house, such as my laptops and tablets, so I am not that much into this sollution. 

I now realize something for having worked with Cisco-Meraki Wi-Fi system 2 years ago before switching to TP-Link Omada (at my work) and it's that the Omada Controler offer VERY LIMITED features. I mean when you click on a wireless device, you don't have any options that can be set for it, except for the bandwidth throttleing... in oppositive to a Cisco-Meraki system, where you click on a wireless device in the manager and you have dozens (... and dozens) of options to precisely fine-tune a specific device into the Wi-Fi, such as band steering (what I want to do), throttleing, renaming device (as well), schedule device, parental control (yes, even on a corporate system) and much much much more options...

I guess that this is the reason why TP-Link Omada systems are like 90% cheaper than Cisco-Meraki APs... 

@R1D2 

Obviously. Thanks! 

Hi @SimonC.,

Yeah, I don't use band steering for that reason.  I prefer to have control myself of which band devices are on.

But you can have multple SSID's -- I have three for example:

myssid_24GHz (~18 devices)

myssid_58GHz (~27 devices)

myssid_dual (~1 device, my iPhone XSM, I've used this for testing to hopefully improve my outdoor range -- but ultimately decided to get an outdoor EAP instead)

Spread across two AP's

Office (~29)

Bedroom (~17)

Re: Cisco.  Indeed.  Omada has far more choices and control capabilities than most home solutions, other than perhaps Ubiquiti.  But, it's certainly not in the same league as Cisco.  But it's only 1/2 to 1/4 of the price and much "simpler" to work with.

I find that Omada strikes a good balance for me -- features, performance, value.  Many of of the SOHO Mesh solutions (e.g. Deco, Orbi, etc.) have so few config options it's appalling.  

Remember that the TP-Link "Business" sweetspot is really small to midsized businesses (office parks, cafe's, hotels, etc.) outside of the US market.  These aren't generally Fortune 500 companies.  The US network market has been dominated by Cisco which makes a business out of being 1) Over priced, 2) feature rich, and 3 configuration obtuse. (-:

Most of TP-Link's business customers cannot afford the Cisco equipment, don't have the expertise to confgure and manage it, and may not be able to get to secure the export licenses for their encyption software, etc.

MetaGeek inSSIDER is having a great sale.  I just signed up for a year of "Plus" level service for $50.  And I got a USB RF frequency scanner for only $60.

With plus level service you get some high level packet capture/inspection capabaity (though no where near what you would get with a packet sniffer) and it uses two Wifi adapters in parallel to do the network scans and packet inspection.  I already had a compatable extra USB network adapter for the packet scanning.

Check out the screen shot.  Very cool to see real time utilization (running speed test on my iPhone) with lots of client detail (negotiated rates, retry rates, beamforming capability) all in one place.

-Jonathan

Ooops, look like I mispoke.  It's not an RF scanner I purchased but rather another packet capture adapter.  Looks like the Edimax 3x3 USB which I was going to buy anyway (though it's $17 cheaper at Amazon).

RF scanning is still $1000.  Darn.  Maybe "work" will need to buy one.

-Jonathan