@Coatimundi I would normally agree with you except for the following points ...
1) I have a large Apple ecosystem in my house and I had none of these issues when all devices were on iOS 13. By the time I noticed the issue all devices except an old iPhone 7 were on iOS 14 and all except that old iPhone 7 that was on iOS 13 were experiencing this issue. I used that old iPhone for a couple of days and it didn’t drop WiFi in my house one single time. I then upgraded it to iOS 14.X and within 2 minutes of sitting idle on my desk it had dropped WiFi. Just like all my other iPhones and iPads it wouldn’t automatically reconnect without me manually connecting to the WiFi network. It has continued that behavior ever since.
2) I was using an aging Apple AirPort Extreme setup (3 units) and wondered if something was wrong with it so I bought an eero pro 6 setup and no difference. And if the sequence of events matters, I did this before testing that old iOS 13 device.
3) None of my Mac mini’s or MacBooks have this issue. I can walk around the house with the MacBooks and they seamlessly move between the mesh routers with no WiFi drops. My two youngest use Amazon Fire tablets (I’d rather they use iPads but Apple limits family sharing to 6 people), and those devices have never once dropped WiFi. I also have four HomePods in the house and none of those have ever dropped WiFi either. Oddly enough the four Apple TV’s upstairs that use WiFi wouldn’t stay connected to WiFi immediately after upgrading to iOS 14 but then the WiFi dropping stopped at some point but I’m not sure when. A month or so later I think.
4) My father in law has an iPhone still on iOS 13 and I get notified that he’s connected to my WiFi network the second they pull into the driveway. My iPhone almost never automatically connects to my WiFi without me manually connecting it.
5) Read this thread. Some of the issues are different but many of them are this same exact issue.
All of this points to iOS 14. I would LOVE for it to be something else but I can’t imagine that all of this is a coincidence. Apple made a lot of changes to WiFi in iOS 14 and somewhere in there they introduced a power saving change or something else that has manifested itself in this way at my house.
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Core OS
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