On the other end, I've got a Nintendo Switch which stubbornly sticks to the first AP / band (I'm running a few APs with the same SSID/PSK) combination it grabbed onto during network setup. Even if I move completely out of range of the AP/band it grabbed onto it'll refuse to acknowledge other APs/bands until you run network setup again.
Everything else I deal with tends to be much closer to the former than the latter, thankfully. I don't use non-standard stuff like UniFi band steering, as it is known to cause issues due to non-standard behaviour.
I think the Switch is the wrong console if you want to play online. It's made for playing offline/mobile and playing with friends on split screen. And it's awesome for that.
The key to a happy Switch life is a large micro sd card. Fortunately even 1tb are affordable now.
My situation is so many nearby unique Wi-Fi networks, >160 detectable by my router alone. Lends itself to interference issues if not done perfectly.
This is normally a feature offered by enterprise or pro-consumer equipment.
I solved it by just disabling 2,4 ghz and adding enough repeaters/APs so I have coverage everywhere.
Everyone also recommends the eero wifi mesh. But I'm hesitant. There's probably a hack to turn a jetson nano or rpi4 into a repeater ;)
Because there's really more to it than just raw bandwidth.
Either with the new protocol itself or with the new hardware that supports the protocol, you'll get other improvements besides raw bandwitdh. A WiFi 6 AP in this case should in theory provide you better security (WPA3, PMF¹), antenna design², power savings³, lower latency and lower interference⁴.
There are other improvements as well that might now be included with new AP's, but as they're not mandatory to implement it depends on the AP. Just like PMF was an optional feature with previous WiFi.
--
1 - Protected Management Frames (802.11w) simplified protection against deauth attacks. Could also mean it is enabled for WiFi 5 devices, previously a very enterprise/high-end only feature.
2 - The higher requirements of WiFi 6 will most likely mean that WiFi 5 clients will also reap some benefits. Lower packet loss, better range, actual MU-MIMO and better beamforming even individually might be a large step-up for some.
3 - Target Wake Time - scheduling better when targets wake up
4 - BSS coloring
Unless you live in a large concrete bunker, having 1 or 2 well-placed access points with wired connections is all you really have to invest in for most personal living scenarios.
Also, wifi is not just last hop to the internet. Don't you have services in your local network, like NAS?
If you have a nice wifi 5 AP, let's say Unifi nanoHD, you get better speeds with the older Macbooks (I had slightly gigabite, with 80 MHz wide channel and three streams). With the new Macbooks, you need wifi 6 AP to achieve similar performance (MCS 11, OFDM, 80 MHz wide channel, two streams); otherwise, with Wifi 5 (MSC 9) and two streams, you get theoretical 866 Mbps max.
My 2013 Thinkpad with factory WiFi card reaches 700Mbps with an higher-quality AP from approximately the same era.
Look at how they've been behaving over time with Nest.
Also, this setup works across & steers clients between my multiple access points!
It's amazing being able to ssh in and see a map of what signals each AP sees. DAWN periodically asks clients to help map, so even if the AP's are on different bands, you can still compare what the signal would be if the node moved.
We'ee finally living in a pretty good time for open source wifi. A pity how only a couple chips have support (select MediaTek and Qualcomm) but wow things have gotten much better.
There are ways to influence the client, which is basically what Ubiquiti is doing (and the client can ignore), and the last resort is to always kick the client once the signal is below some threshold.
Or did you mean that the GP should upgrade both their WAP AND all of the their connecting equipment?
The workaround is to give a spare 2.4 router the same SSID as your real router. turn off your real router. Connect the printer to the 2.4 router so it can be configured. Then put the spare router back in storage and turn your main router on again. The printer will then connect to the 2.4 signal of the main router.
Really disappointed in Canon not being able to handle multiple SSIDs, and eero for disabling the feature of having different SSIDs for different frequencies.