topic Re: OWE Transition mode without a second SSID? in Wireless

OWE Transition mode without a second SSID?

will-reynolds-smith — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:35:02 GMT

At present, if you'd like to implement OWE Transition mode for a specific SSID in Meraki dashboard, you must configure it alongside a second SSID which is open with no encryption. I'm curious if there are plans to introduce an OWE Transition mode which can use the one SSID to accommodate both supported and unsupported clients. We are keen to implement OWE but need to maintain support for legacy clients, however we already have three SSID's broadcasting across our large site and are reluctant to add a fourth.

Re: OWE Transition mode without a second SSID?

Rich R — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:15:06 GMT

@will-reynolds-smith take a look at https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/technical-reference/wpa3-deployment-guide.pdf

2 SSIDs is a requirement for transition mode. We found transition mode caused too many problems anyway so abandoned it. The approach we've taken (and I know others too) is to have a "compatibility" SSID on 2.4GHz for the "old" clients and full OWE SSID on 5GHz and 6GHz.
So YourSSID - 5/6 GHz
and YourSSID-compatibility - 2.4 GHz
All modern clients can use the OWE SSID and anybody who can't must use the other one.
We concluded this was the least problematic way to accommodate the same requirements.
Trying to mix them just isn't possible.

Re: OWE Transition mode without a second SSID?

Nolan H. — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:16:36 GMT

@Rich R Can you clarify what issues you ran into with the transition mode? Also was this for Cisco (WLC) or Meraki (dashboard)? I know Meraki firmware version 32.x has supposedly made this better but never tested outside of a lab (where it works just fine).