Confused WiFi

[BigIan279]

I have a house that is made from rebar and concrete and as a consequence does not let a wifi signal travel very far between rooms. This means that I have had to install four wifi routers all on the same network in order to get good wifi wherever I am in the house. It works great. The problem has recently developed on my S7 Edge is that when I move around the house, for example, from using the network in my upstairs bedroom to my ground floor office my phone no longer automatically connects to my network on the office router - which is about 3 feet away. I also have a couple of wifi printers my office which give off a pretty strong signal, but my phone does not see any of these, and when I look under settings- wifi it sees the network but says it'll "connect when signal improves". If I switch wifi off and on again it sees my network straight away plus all the other devices and networks and connects and all is good. Why is it not automatically re connecting to the strongest network signal?
TIA

 

[svim]

It sounds like your S7 is just hanging on to the first connection because the signal coming from that first access point is still strong enough that your phone isn't releasing it to find a newer one.

It would help to know some details about your home LAN setup. Do you have an ISP supplied modem/router as your primary wireless router or do you have your own wireless router? Also, are your four satellite routers connected to your primary router using Ethernet cables, or do you have them bridged via WiFi, or a mix of the two?
Since there appears to be an issue with your S7 switching from one access point to another I'm guessing you have separate SSID networks in place, yes or no?
Ideally you should have your primary router set as the sole gateway on your home LAN, with all the other satellite routers just acting as wireless network switches. (All routing functions disabled.) If all your satellite routers are fed from Ethernet cables, the cables need to be plugged into one of their open LAN ports, not the WAN port. On your primary router there's just the one SSID network so all your devices and things are working off the same LAN. The tricky part will be channel selection, avoid any auto-select options for the channels and set fixed ones. With a 2.4 GHz only you're limited to only three channels - 1, 6, and 11 - so if you add in 5 GHz that will give you a lot more options. Try using the WiFi Analyzer app and do a walk-through of your home to get a coverage map of all your wireless routers so you can set them up accordingly. Once done, you should have WiFi coverage where you can walk around very little if any interruptions as your phone switches from one router's coverage to another. (As you'll be on the same SSID it's just a matter of your phone seeing a channel change, not a network change.)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

 

[BigIan279]

Thanks svim,
The primary router and two others is/are ISP supplied, the other two (yes I miss counted I have 5 in all) are not. It is connected via a Cat 6 patch panel to outlets in the rest of the house where the other routers are located.There is no wifi bridging. I don't know about the SSID stuff as I never set my system up - sorry.
Anyway - I have the same issue when I return home after using a wifi network outside the house ie Starbucks or shopping mall etc. My phone does see my network but shows little or no signal strength, it does not however see my neighbours (of which there are 5 of varying strengths) or my 2 wifi printers. It finds them all without problem if I force a wifi scan but it is not doing it automatically, so I think there is something wrong with the phone.

 

[svim]

You do have quite an elaborate network foundation, but to be honest until it's configured properly don't expect to use it without little quirks popping up on a regular basis. One example is, by maintaining multiple networks in your home, items like your wireless printers will only be seen only on the specific network they're paired up with. This excludes computers or other mobile devices connected to your other networks.

Regarding your S7 Edge releasing old WiFi networks, take a look at your Settings >> Wi-Fi and in its menu is there an 'Advanced' option? Some of the functionality to auto-connecting to various WiFi networks make things more convenient but could also be part of the issue you're encountering. I tend to just toggle my WiFi off and on throughout any day depending on where I am so I don't experience the same problem you're having. Someone else will likely have better advice. Other relevant posts refer to using utilities like Tasker that you can set to automate things like enabling WiFi based on your location.