[goodbirb]

99% of what he did is not needed. Only 2 things are needed: enable fast roaming (FT), and change DTIM from the openwrt default of 2, to 3. That's all. No need to install usteer, extra hostapd fields. Nothing.

By lucky chance, while he set up usteer, he modified DTIM to 3 thus fixing the fast transition roaming, which doesn't work well on default openwrt because of DTIM. Especially Apple devices really hate DTIM=2 (they need the extra off-time given by DTIM to properly scan the other channels).

[supertrope]

With UniFi access points I found 802.11r to be unnecessary. I lowered transmit power so each room only has one AP providing a -67 dBm signal or stronger. 802.11k is enabled by default and is especially important if you use DFS channels. You can enable 802.11v with the BSS transition setting. I verified with Wireshark that my iPhone requests a 802.11k neighbor report, the current AP responds with a neighbor report containing a single candidate AP, and my iPhone roams to the next AP. Internet phone calls do not drop when walking between rooms. That is the only application that requires seamless roaming.

[goodbirb]

802.11r is pretty important, it's what allows the phone to skip the slow 4-way handshake when transitioning to new BSS.

[rcarmo]

Actually, no. DTIM was always 3, if you'd bothered to read the original post - https://taoofmac.com/space/reviews/2025/09/14/1630

I do know what Apple devices "like" (it's kind of my thing, hence the domain name).