Here's the situation:
At my place, I have an AirPort Extreme base station (the newer tall 802.11ac kind). In my living room, I have a fourth generation AppleTV and a Google/Asus Nexus Player (really, I have things in both Google Play and iTunes, so this combination isn't just arbitrary). I've noticed that, when using WiFi, the AppleTV has no issues whatsoever and gets full signal. The Nexus Player, on the other hand, shows as having two or three bars of WiFi out of four. Both devices have support for 802.11ac, and I believe the Nexus Player even has MIMO support. Previously, I chalked this up to Asus simply using a bad WiFi chipset or a poorly designed antennae system as the AppleTV, my XBox One, my Samsung SmartTV, and my army of iDevices, and my MacBook Pro all get full signal. For context, my base station is about eight feet away from my TV (and said AppleTV, Nexus Player, and XBox One).
Very recently, I acquired a Google Pixel C tablet as well as a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 tablet (I do device testing and review). I notice similarly crappy WiFi performance on those devices as well. The only commonality that I can pinpoint between them is Android. The Pixel C and the Nexus Player are running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow (and being maintained by Google, they're always given the latest updates as they are released by Google), while the Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 is probably weeks away from getting its TouchWiz-infested version of Android 6.0.1 as well (it is running the TouchWiz-infested version of 5.1.1 as of right now).
Even weirder, my dad has the same router. I went over to his place for a few things and found that at a closer distance to his router, my signal was similarly poor if not worse on those devices. Of course, my iPad mini 4 showed full bars, as did my iPhone 6s Plus and my sixth gen iPod touch.
As crazy as it souns, I'm now left with the following question: is there some thing about the way that either the 802.11ac router runs and/or the way the Android operating system handles WiFi connections that is causing this behavior? What I know of technology, WiFi, Apple routers, and Android devices (which mind you is a lot) is drawing a blank here. It's quite weird to be sure. Any knowledge or expertise in this matter would be most appreciated. Thanks!
At my place, I have an AirPort Extreme base station (the newer tall 802.11ac kind). In my living room, I have a fourth generation AppleTV and a Google/Asus Nexus Player (really, I have things in both Google Play and iTunes, so this combination isn't just arbitrary). I've noticed that, when using WiFi, the AppleTV has no issues whatsoever and gets full signal. The Nexus Player, on the other hand, shows as having two or three bars of WiFi out of four. Both devices have support for 802.11ac, and I believe the Nexus Player even has MIMO support. Previously, I chalked this up to Asus simply using a bad WiFi chipset or a poorly designed antennae system as the AppleTV, my XBox One, my Samsung SmartTV, and my army of iDevices, and my MacBook Pro all get full signal. For context, my base station is about eight feet away from my TV (and said AppleTV, Nexus Player, and XBox One).
Very recently, I acquired a Google Pixel C tablet as well as a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 tablet (I do device testing and review). I notice similarly crappy WiFi performance on those devices as well. The only commonality that I can pinpoint between them is Android. The Pixel C and the Nexus Player are running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow (and being maintained by Google, they're always given the latest updates as they are released by Google), while the Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 is probably weeks away from getting its TouchWiz-infested version of Android 6.0.1 as well (it is running the TouchWiz-infested version of 5.1.1 as of right now).
Even weirder, my dad has the same router. I went over to his place for a few things and found that at a closer distance to his router, my signal was similarly poor if not worse on those devices. Of course, my iPad mini 4 showed full bars, as did my iPhone 6s Plus and my sixth gen iPod touch.
As crazy as it souns, I'm now left with the following question: is there some thing about the way that either the 802.11ac router runs and/or the way the Android operating system handles WiFi connections that is causing this behavior? What I know of technology, WiFi, Apple routers, and Android devices (which mind you is a lot) is drawing a blank here. It's quite weird to be sure. Any knowledge or expertise in this matter would be most appreciated. Thanks!