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. Starting with FRITZ!OS 7.20, 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".