Mesh Wi-Fi steering automatically steers smartphones, tablets, or other wireless devices to the wireless access point with the best Wi-Fi reception and also to the most suitable frequency band. As a result, Mesh Wi-Fi steering not only optimizes the Wi-Fi connection of individual devices, but also the load on all wireless access points in the FRITZ! Mesh.

Mesh Master steers wireless devices to the best Wi-Fi network

As the Mesh Master, the FRITZ!Box continuously analyzes all of the Wi-Fi connections in the Mesh. As soon as the Mesh Master determines that a wireless device could establish a better Wi-Fi connection via a different wireless access point, it prompts the device to switch to a different Wi-Fi network. In this case, the Mesh Master also takes the connection types of the individual Mesh Repeaters and the speed of the different connection paths into account.

Unlike Wi-Fi roaming, with Mesh Wi-Fi steering the decision to switch to a different Wi-Fi network is influenced by the Mesh Master that sends a request to the wireless device to switch. However, the decision to switch is always made by the wireless device itself.

Requirements for Mesh Wi-Fi steering

In the factory settings, the FRITZ!Box is configured so that as the Mesh Master it can steer wireless devices to the other Wi-Fi network or a different wireless access point. This is not possible if different names were given to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks or the other FRITZ! products were not correctly integrated into the Mesh. In this case you must optimize the Wi-Fi network of the FRITZ!Box.

In order for the wireless devices to be steered by the Mesh Master, the devices must support the wireless standards 802.11k and 802.11v:

• The Mesh Master can seamlessly steer wireless devices that support the wireless standards 802.11k and 802.11v to a different Wi-Fi network or to a different wireless access point.
• The Mesh Master can only steer older wireless devices that do not support the wireless standards 802.11k and 802.11v to a different Wi-Fi network by briefly clearing the Wi-Fi connection. The Mesh Master cannot steer these devices to a different wireless access point.

Note:The FRITZ!Box displays wireless devices that support the standards 802.11k and 802.11v under "Wi-Fi > Wi-Fi Network > Known Wireless Devices" ("Wireless > Radio Network > Known Wireless LAN Devices") with the properties "11k" und "11v".