For those using WiFi with a Naim network player and experiencing music and/or App interruptions, try doing some WiFi scanning tests, for Apple, use the free “Apple Airport Utility”.
Place the Apple scanner on the Naim streamer and measure the WiFi signal coming from your router or WAP.
If the db level is greater than 65dB, the WiFi signal is starting to become weak and depending on how many concurrent devices are using the same WiFi ssid, the bandwidth is being compromised -
time to find ways to improve the WiFi strength and remove other devices using this ssid.
This scanning will also reveal if your neighbor is using ssid 2.4GHz channels which are overlapping with your channel selection. Time to google the 1-6-11 channel best practices.
Or time to find a way to get an Ethernet cable to the Naim network player.
Hi @Dugby, I think your approach is good for old technology such as the old Apple Airport products, but more recent wlan products use more advanced methods to modulate the signals - and the signal strength will be adjusted down. The key thing to look at is the signal quality, or relative strength (RSSI) not specifically signal strength (RSS)… a poor quality signal albeit with high strength will usually lead to a poor plan performance.
Also most wlan access points can now be setup to optimise its channels based on your environment and interference - and you can usually set to run once a day in the middle of the night etc. If you have many wifi networks in your area its best to go for small channel widths - so often best to go for 20MHz on 2.4GHz and 40MHz on 5GHz… this will help with signal quality.
Let your access points scan once you have set your channel width size.
For wifi optimisation I would try and aim to use as few SSIDs as possible. Possibly use two if you have many old devices as well as new, one for old devices on Wifi 4 or older, and one for 802.11 ac and 802.11 ax (Wifi 5 and Wifi 6 respectively). This way you should get best performances. Wifi 6 also has the option for the 6GHz band. Also remember wifi 5 has a limitation of only running on 5GHz, later and some earlier protocols offer more flexibility.
If you have many wifi networks in your area its best to go for small channel widths - so often best to go for 20MHz on 2.4GHz and 40MHz on 5GHz… this will help with signal quality.
Try and uses wifi access points with a large MIMO number (the number of simultaneous radio streams).
Finally if you can use overlapping ethernet connected WLAN access points - and set them to load share - which many products will do by default. This usually works really really well for media applications.
The Apple Airport Utility is handy if you only have an iphone or ipad to measure wifi signal strength. There are better options if you have an Android or Windows device.
Or use your WLC (wireless lan controller) to provide the info on the two way connection… which is typically not constrained by OS and driver limitations of a device or client.
Many vendors will suggest, to allow your Wifi channel optimisation to run every night.
Firstly I have seen far too many examples where automated channel optimisation does not work as well as the marketing brochure claims. ( I have consulted on excess of 500 routers - enterprise and domestic, over the years, physically installed about 100+)
Another issue with this is if you have adjacent neighbours’ routers running their optimisation after yours, you and your neighbours routers will be in a dog-chasing-it’s tail every day.
Better option is to set your 2.4GHz ssid manually to either channel 1 or 11, and let your neighbours optimised wifi channel to try and fit in between.
A google search of “ssid channels 1-6-11” will explain why these three specific channels are significant.
I have only ever set channels manually when we know have special local issues to deal within an area. Typically your AP will use non overlapping channels (which I think is what you are inferring) hence the three primary channels that are used on the 2.4 GHz ISM band, unless there is something specific to manage… but you will likely invite more interference if you choose an overlapping channel… but sometimes it’s the lesser of evils.
So on most buildings my teams survey and fit out, we go on 24 hour optimization, and changes reported via management telemetry ( a regularly changing channel can indicate an issue that might need to be dealt with) … also we sequence for primary and secondary APs for a specific area.
Obviously domestic setups are rather straightforward compared to professional / industrial setups.
BTW the channel numbers are not SSID channels… they are the radio channels, and the channel width is controlled by your radio spectrum bandwidth, SSIDs are the WLAN network service names which sit above the radio channels. You would typically use multiple SSIDs sharing a channel for a radio AP… hence why it is usually sensible not to exceed 4 to 6 SSIDs on an AP if not to noticeably degrade performance. These days you can use certificate attributes or other identity methods to tunnel into a correct VLAN rather than rely on a multitude of separate performance robbing SSIDs… technology has moved on as I am sure you are very aware.
Also set my 2.4 AP power much lower than my 5. Just high enough for IoT devices (cameras) to work ok. All the key mobile devices then connect at 5 all round the house and get much better throughput.
I also operate three Access Points, utilising channels 1, 6 and 11 on each of the 2.4GHz SSIDs.
On the three 5GHz channels I have set 40, 44 and 48 respectively.
This is where scanning your neighbour’s SSIDs and knowing which of their channel selection is physically located, so that you can place your AP with a non overlapping channel near theirs (if required).
Can identify which SSIDs that don’t belong to you by the mac address that the APP reveals.
For 5 I utilised 1 AP at 36 (80) (I understand that takes the space from ch 36 to 48) and one at 149 (80). The other AP runs on a DFS channel for now. I put the 36 on the AP as far away from the neighbours setup as possible based on an environmental channel scan.
On quality wifi controlled products in instruct the APs to do regular RF surveys and adapt if needed.
On my home setups, they become static fairly static.
I do like to optimise the 5 GHz channels for wider bandwidths where I can for greater performance… again quality APs can do this.. there are many optimisations to be done.. it’s usually more than just looking at what is also using the channels, but what protocols are using the channels as well.
However the best performance is having a mesh of Ethernet connected APs offering an ESSID. This way less power is required for send and receive.. gains can be reduced ( again this happens automatically ) and your network becomes less sensitive to interference…and you produce less RFI.
One of the poorest things you can do for performance and interference resilience is have a single AP blasting out over a wide receive area.
It’s interesting, in a nerdy way, to see the different networks.. I can see a fair chunk of my small village, but also the car wifi systems which seem to be numerous… and are dynamic… and will de stabalize channel mappings unless you go for meshed low power APs
Hi @Dugby
I’m on latest version of iOS but can’t find the AirPort Utility app you mention on my iPhone. Has it been removed or did you mean the AirPort Utility app that you have to download from the App Store. The support page for the app (App Store version) indicated that you need to connect your device to an AirPort Base Station.
The Airport Utility is the app found in the Apple App store. It’s old but works very well in scanning current WiFi routers so long as you correctly enable it as follows-
It has a very well “undocumented” feature hidden in iPhone “Settings / Apps / Airport Utility” —
Enable Wi-Fi Scanner
Once this is enabled, you can scan the surrounding WIFi ssids
I have the app running very well on iOS 18.4 on an iphone 14Pro and also a iPad Mini 5
Yep. The ubiquiti environment scan shows me all the local wifi signals, their strengths and the nearest ap. So many cars! I found that the auto optimise created a very unstable result for me especially when other devices started auto responding to my setup. Manual now works and is super stable. The big win was having enough bandwidth to move my server over to wifi.