Can I force a device to connect to to a specific BT Home Hub disc?

[ablocat]

My laptop seems to connect to the disc furthest away from where I am in the house no matter where I go - if I'm upstairs it connects to the lounge one, if I'm in the lounge it connects to the upstairs one.  It impacts performance as zoom calls and my connection to a virtual desktop are laggy when connected to the "wrong" one.  I have to disconnect and reconnect my laptop several times until it decides to connect to the closest disc.  I'd like to be able to choose which disc to connect my laptop to - is that possible?

[gg30340]

No. The only way that would be possible would be if the discs had different names and you could manually select the named disc that you want.

[ablocat]

Thanks.  Any idea why it connects to a disc that is further away and doesn't have as good connectivity?

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

It is the device that decides which disc to connect to. Some devices are poor at releasing a signal in order to pick up another signal and as far as I am aware there is nothing you can do about it other than what you are already doing.

That is why some users, my self included recommend giving wireless access points different names so that you can clearly see what one the device is connected to and manually select a better access point if required. 

[ablocat]

Thank you this is really helpful.  So I have already labelled my discs (I assume this is what you mean by wireless access points?) and labelled my laptop but the only way to get my laptop to connect to the disc i want is to disconnect and reconnect several times until it decides to connect to the closest one.  But you're saying that's my laptop's issue rather than the disc?

[rbz5416]

I'm guessing that "labelling" is just a friendly name to help you identify a disc. In order to connect to a specific disc you would need to be able to give it a different SSID, which I don't believe you can do as it's a mesh system.

Have a look at the advanced properties for your WiFi adapter for a Roaming Aggressiveness option. If present, setting this to a higher value than it's currently set to might provoke the card to switch more readily. This is an Intel guide but it shows you were to look:

WiFi Roaming

[gg30340]

While a disc acts in the same way as a wireless access point they are not the same thing.

You can change the SSid (name) on a WAP which in effect makes a separate network. Your device would drop one network and reconnect to the WAP.

You can not do that with a Mesh system because it defeats how a Mesh system works. ie a seamless network without the device dropping and reconnecting as it moves around the Mesh.

You may be able to rename a disc but it is not changing the SSid which needs to be the same for all discs to allow the mesh to work.