WiFi signals can easily pass through walls and other obstacles due to their transparency, similar to how glass windows are transparent to visible light. A clear line of sight between a router and connected devices can transmit signals more efficiently, reducing signal degradation and enhancing the overall Wi-Fi experience. However, some walls are thicker or use reinforced concrete, which may weaken the signal on the other side. 2.4 GHz WiFi is better than 5 GHz WiFi.
Wi-Fi signals can penetrate various materials, including wood and glass, including drywall. However, they can be blocked in various ways depending on the material used to construct the building. Obstructions such as walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, furniture, appliances, and metal objects can reduce or disrupt the WiFi signal. Place your router next to a window or mirror, as these materials contain a thin layer of metal that reflects the radio waves back instead of allowing them to pass through.
Wi-Fi signals can be absorbed or reflected by certain materials, resulting in the reduction of their strength. The WiFi access point needs to be located where the signal will pass through building materials more suitable for transmission. Anything with metal, such as metal blinds, doors, furniture, buildings, and walls, can greatly lessen or completely kill the WiFi signal. RF can easily go through glass, but tints, films, and glazes might attenuate the signal.
Drywall does not reflect much signal, so it is generally not recommended to place your router next to a window or mirror. Different access points perform differently through fixed obstacles like walls and windows. To boost the WiFi signal through thick walls, use a mesh network, which connects various access points to behave as one.
📹 DON’T Buy A Wi-Fi Range Extender!
If you’re not getting a good Wi-Fi signal, you might be tempted to buy a range extender or repeater – but is almost certainly a bad …
Does WiFi 6 penetrate walls better than WiFi 5?
WiFi 6 offers better coverage and range than WiFi 5, as it uses both 2. 4GHz and 5GHz bands. The 2. 4GHz band provides better penetration through walls and longer range. WiFi 6 also improves interference management through technologies like BSS Coloring, making connections more stable in crowded environments. However, it can be expensive, and older devices that only support WiFi 5 or earlier won’t benefit from the new features.
Additionally, WiFi 6 has a relatively short range compared to wired connections, and walls and obstacles can still impact signal strength. Overall, WiFi 6 offers a more stable and efficient network option for those looking for a more robust and efficient wireless connection.
Does Wi-Fi 6 penetrate walls better?
WiFi 7 requires all devices to support it, which means changing out your WiFi router and client devices at once. However, not all manufacturers will implement all the new features, and some are optional. For example, WiFi 6 is present in many smartphones and is becoming prevalent, but it has horrible object penetration, making it not a whole-house technology unless you have a MESH setup or multiple access points.
5 GHz is better, and it can usually penetrate several drywall-clad rooms before becoming unusable. 2. 4 GHz has the best object penetration of all but is prone to interference and offers very few discrete channels.
Stable and correct implementation of WiFi 7 will take a considerable amount of time, as it depends on new hardware and firmware (software inside the router). Each manufacturer must get everything right to ensure devices communicate without problems. It took years for Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTEk, and Broadcom to get their act together on WiFi 5 in terms of combining multiple channels together to increase bandwidth in the same frequency range much less across frequencies.
In conclusion, don’t rush out and buy the latest technology and expect it to work correctly or with all your devices. WiFi 6 is just starting to get stable, making it the most desirable technology right now. As you buy new products that support WiFi 7, you will realize any benefits it may bring. WiFi 7 is not a panacea, and it is not a solution to the problem of wired Ethernet.
What blocks the Wi-Fi signal the most?
The most impactful materials for signal blocking are metal, concrete walls, plaster and metal lath, ceramic tile, windows and tinted glass, mirrors, drywall, and devices operating on the 2. 4 GHz frequency. WiFi signal reliability varies throughout a building due to the presence of obstacles such as building materials. These materials can degrade or block over-the-air radio waves, causing weaker connections in certain rooms.
To improve WiFi signal quality, it is essential to consider the materials that affect signals and implement strategies to improve the connection. By addressing these materials, you can enhance the overall quality of your wireless internet experience and improve your overall connectivity.
Do Windows affect WIFI signal?
WiFi signal blocks can be caused by various materials, including thick window glass, insulated walls with metal inside, and furniture such as sofas, glass tables, and plush chairs. These materials can interfere with the signal and can cause interference with your device’s performance. To ensure your router is functioning properly, it is essential to regularly check for any issues and take necessary precautions to prevent further interference.
Where should you not put a router?
To ensure a strong signal, choose a location away from other electronics and large metal objects. Avoid devices like microwaves, which emit strong signals in the 2. 4GHz band, and large TVs, which can cause interference. Keep your router away from bulky furniture and water-based devices, as Wi-Fi doesn’t travel well through water. Additionally, avoid placing your router near a large TV or aquarium, as they can physically block or disrupt the signal. By avoiding these factors, you can ensure a strong signal and optimal wireless connection.
Where is the best place in the house to put a WiFi router?
The placement of your router is crucial for a smooth internet experience and quick Wi-Fi speeds. A central, elevated location with few obstructions is ideal, while placing it near walls, appliances, floors, cabinets, water, mirrors, or metal can result in weak signals. A reliable internet connection is essential for streaming, working from home, and playing online games. Even tech novices can improve their Wi-Fi signal by following these guidelines.
This comprehensive guide will help you achieve the best possible connection by identifying the do’s and don’ts, ensuring seamless connectivity and eliminating dead zones and lag. By following these tips, you can enjoy seamless internet experiences and avoid the frustrations of weak Wi-Fi signals.
Where is the safest place to put a WiFi router in your home?
The placement of your router significantly impacts your Wi-Fi connection, regardless of the size of your home. To ensure optimal performance, avoid placing it near the kitchen, microwave oven, or other electronics. Keep it away from walls, pay attention to nearby windows, avoid reflective surfaces like mirrors and water, and remove obstacles blocking your router. The location of your router can affect signal strength, as more walls to travel through can weaken the signal.
For instance, if your router is placed in the back office and needs to travel through multiple walls to reach your bedroom, it may result in a weaker signal. Therefore, it’s crucial to carefully plan and choose a location that ensures optimal Wi-Fi connection.
Should I put my WiFi router near a window?
Place your router in a central location to avoid signal escaping and miss out on fast broadband. The best position for your router is in a central area where the signal cannot escape to areas not using wifi. If you need further assistance with your router placement or Hyperhubs, refer to router FAQs or learn about the difference between modem and router. Remember that your broadband is only as good as your provider, so consider our full fibre broadband to get the best experience.
Does WIFI go through windows better than walls?
Wi-Fi signals can pass through walls and other obstacles easily, but thicker or reinforced concrete walls may block some signals. Materials like drywall, plywood, wood, and glass can be easily penetrated by wireless signals, but brick, plaster, cement, metal, stone, and double-glazed glass may cause problems. Metal bodies absorb Wi-Fi signals, so wireless surveillance solutions may not guarantee connectivity between floors of buildings and thick reinforced concrete walls.
Non-porous walls may have shorter range or slower speeds. Elevators can also block Wi-Fi signals, so it’s important to ensure the elevator doesn’t come between the camera and the Wireless Access Point (WAP). Tinted glass panes can drop signal strength if placed between WAP and the camera.
Potential interference with the Wi-Fi network’s frequency range is another concern. The 802. 11 wireless standards communicate in the 2. 4, 3. 6, and 5 GHz frequency bands, and interference can slow down a network and reduce its range. Common sources of interference include wireless telephones and microwave ovens, as well as existing 802. 11 networks.
Do walls affect Wi-Fi signal?
Physical obstructions, such as walls, doors, and furniture, can cause WiFi interference. Materials like concrete, metal, and plaster can reduce the range of signals. To ensure optimal coverage, routers should be strategically placed in open areas with clear lines of sight. Distance from a router can also cause interference, especially for users like hotel guests or office workers. Being too far from a router can lead to poor WiFi signal, causing frustration. If your business occupies a large area, solutions can be recommended to ensure strong WiFi signal coverage across the site, regardless of where you access the network.
What blocks the WiFi signal the most?
The most impactful materials for signal blocking are metal, concrete walls, plaster and metal lath, ceramic tile, windows and tinted glass, mirrors, drywall, and devices operating on the 2. 4 GHz frequency. WiFi signal reliability varies throughout a building due to the presence of obstacles such as building materials. These materials can degrade or block over-the-air radio waves, causing weaker connections in certain rooms.
To improve WiFi signal quality, it is essential to consider the materials that affect signals and implement strategies to improve the connection. By addressing these materials, you can enhance the overall quality of your wireless internet experience and improve your overall connectivity.
📹 Does WiFi Have the Power to Travel Through Walls?
Wi-Fi signals can penetrate walls using radio waves in the frequency range of 2.4GHz or 5GHz. These wavelengths are small …
Bought a kit of 2, powerline, for my parents’ place a couple of days ago. Set the SSID all the same, working wonders. Yea single extenders are kinda pointless, but powerline kits are super okay. No mentions of powerline kits in this article. It’s actually the best solution out of those you presented price/performance wise.
I think there’s a place for WiFi repeaters as well. I live in a shared house and the router is almost on the other side of the house (different floors as well) and I was interested in better signal in my room only. I am not saying a WAP isn’t better but for this specific thing, also given the fact that it would have been pretty hard to move wires about from the router, this has definitely been the easiest solution for me, and it definitely fixed my issue. The signal and speed is fine for what I need.
There is something you are missing. They are not just extending a network. They are an ability to segment your network so that your router doesn’t have to process ALL the wireless signals you are routing through it. I run a network with almost 60 wireless devices going through my WiFi 6 router. Some of these are pretty high bandwidth like security cameras. This caused issues for the router differentiating and handling all the discrete signals. So I take two extenders for the network edges and used a different SSID and made those edge devices use those extenders. That consolidated around 15 of my devices so instead of the router processing almost 60 separate signals it was handling 49 or so. This was breathing room enough to stabilize the network. If I hadn’t done that I would have had to split the network into two with separate routers or forced to running some long cable runs where it was going to be hard to do. There is still a place for repeaters. You may get by with mesh routers now but they are still not as reliable as what I have going and I don’t think the throughput will be as high.
An extender has it’s place …as long as you understand it’s just a repeater as opposed to a signal booster. I had an area of my home that was “shadowed” from the gateway router by multiple walls. I was able to locate an extender in a good location and it was able to cover these two bedrooms with a stronger signal than I had previously. Would this be good enough for intense online gaming? I doubt it. But it did provide a robust enough data transfer to reliably support program streaming (Netflix, Prime, etc) along with normal internet access. Installation was easy; I didn’t need to run any cables. So I don’t agree with the “never buy” statement; assess your needs and know what an extender can and cannot do. In some cases, it might be all you need.
You didn’t mention powerline network adaptors. I always suggest these first to anyone that is having Wi-Fi range issues since this is an inexpensive option. I have set up 5 of these at various friends and relatives’ houses and I have yet to have one not fix the problem. This is also a good solution if you have an outbuilding or barn that needs internet.
Don’t underestimate the power of a Wi-Fi EXTENDER. I’m using an Extender to get 648 Mbps across 2 BHK apartment with the help of a 2nd router. 650 Mbps in the hall & in the 2nd room too. The Wi-Fi extender will rock if you know how to set up the Wi-Fi extender (Ethernet ones), as a Wireless Bridge to a 2nd router/AP, but it requires fine-tuning. I have used Wi-Fi extenders in the past and now, & I’m getting full speed of my Internet subscription across 2 BHK Apartment.
Most range extenders suck for WiFi roaming (devices moving long distances/between rooms or stories, even if the path is covered by multiple extenders) . However for fixed-location devices (desktops, Chromecasts, security cams..etc) or devices moving in a confined space where the main router has weak signal, extenders work fine . I would have a different SSID for the extender in this case for sure.
I had a range extender (mesh) and I would get 20 mbps in my room and when I upgraded to a mesh router (with wifi 6e) im getting 350mbps down basically as if im right next to the main router. The range extender was better than nothing though since I wouldnt get any wifi without it from my room but buy a mesh router if you can
0:45 Huh? The range extender will take whatever data rate it can manage and repeat that with a higher level than the source router. So you could be twice as far from your router and have the signal the same as the repeater is receiving. The picture makes it out as if the repeater will put out a weak signal. The only limitation is that the speed is only as good as the repeater receives.
A house has to be either very big or have stone walls for the wi-fi to not cover everything. In my house the wi-fi covers the entire house and the courtyard. We also use a signal repeater, since I live behind a forest the antenna couldn’t reach here, but the technician set up an antena repeater in a hill in front of my house that redirects the signal to here, which is caught by our antenna. It’s not the same thing, but I guess it’s the correct use of a kind of range extender.
There’s one advantage that wifi extenders have that wasn’t mentioned. For devices that need a hard-wired connection (like i do) wifi extenders usually have one or two… & they do it in a snap. It’s great for a location that’s too far from a router. It’s cheaper than a mesh, and requires minimal knowledge.
I think an even simpler solution in a lot of cases would be switching your router to the 2.4 GHz band (available on Wifi generations 4 and 6). I think a lot of people have their router set up to work on a 5 GHz band by default, but the 2.4 GHz band, although it supports lower bandwidths, has a much better ranges and passes through thick walls much better. And the speeds it supports are still way over the needs of a typical user. That’s what I did last week, and my unstable connection issues in my basement are basically solved now. I can watch 1080p Youtube in my bed while tucked under my blanket without a problem
Range extenders are pretty handy if you’re only planning to use them to watch articles or download files, but not so much for gaming and live article conferencing. I would get random ping spikes that caused lag in-game and sometimes disconnected me from article calls. I made the switch to a mesh system, which may not be perfect (it literally cut my speed in half), but is definitely miles better than a range extender.
Modern extenders use the same SSID by default – in Europe buying a double the performance router doesnt necessarily come with more range — The walls of 95% of buildings in Europe are made with metal-concrete / metal-cement. Metal-concrete nastily blocks/interfers with any signal. My mid price range router hits 1 bar after 2-3 walls in less than 10 meters.
Mine does the job. I get stable connection to it at the far end of my house when I don’t to my router. I know its not ideal, maybe buying a different router in the first place or relocating it would have been better, but I’m pretty sure for my specific circumstances it was the cheapest way for me to solve the problem I had without going back in time
I had a few Netgear routers that I was about to junk. I installed OpenWrt on them and turned them into access points, spending time getting them to act more intelligently and share the SSID. End result? Less waste in the landfill and no additional costs to me. It only took minutes to flash, and only a few hours to figure out because I can be an idiot sometimes during setup.
I think one of the key reasons people, including myself, have range extenders isn’t actually for use in the house. It gets plugged in occasionally during the warmer months to give access to WiFi in the garden. In that instant, speed doesn’t matter. Since it’s for music, YouTube, or other social media. Not for downloading games, or uploading articles, or anything intensive. It’s a slight pain, sure, switching to and from when you walk to the house from the garden, but it’s a hell of a lot better than no connection. Plus, not everyone is balling. A cheap extender for a use case like mine, is perfect compared to untold hundreds on a new setup. I’m sorry, but in this case your advice needs a serious rethink. I’m not saying I know more than you guys, I don’t, but I don’t think you explored every angle
Extenders are actually incredibly handy if you use them to connect lots of low bandwidth IoT devices. I have lots of smart plugs/switches and like IoT devices and it would bog down my router if they were all connected. The bandwidth for them is so low it doesn’t effect their speed, but not having them on my main network vastly increases the speed on the devices I actually care about
Well this is just misinformation. The extenders does exactly what it’s suppose to do. It commects to a WiFi and then acts as a separeted wifi access point that repeats the original signal. I think this guy thinks a repeater is suppose to act like an antenna for the main wifi which is just not the case. And yeah you have to set it up the first time but then why would you ever want to flip between the 2 wifis? Just stick to the one you’re closer to. And this goes without saying you dont get one of these to put it in your house. You use one of these to repeat a signal thags over 50m away from you.
I think a good topic missed here would be the use of powerline adapters or MoCA adapters to connect a router to other parts of the home, yes while not as good as a mesh router system, I think they offer good use cases for people who want the consistency of Ethernet without actually wiring Ethernet through the walls, where some people may be relying on WiFi when they want Ethernet as another valid use case.
One last thing I wish the presenter should have mentioned with the mesh network is that each node works best being hard wired rather than having them all connected to each other with wifi. I realize that requires having ethernet lines run to each point you would have the nodes and a lot of people do not have that option. However, it’s an option I would suggest if possible. Fortunately I was able to run several lines throughout the house to both hard wire televisions, streaming media players, and desktop computers along with having all three of my mesh network nodes individually connected to ethernet lines. Solid wifi all throughout the house, front yard, side yards, and full bars wifi indicators all the way to the end of the back yard.
I personally really like the ASUS mesh routers. Specifically the RT-AX92u model. You can get it in a two pack and the wireless range on them has been fantastic. You can run them in either wireless backhaul (has 2 5g bands) or you can run it Ethernet backhaul. I have even convinced my job to let me put them into the coaches that I work on instead of the damn Cisco meraki router that I hate using..
my grandmother swears that repeaters are magic. i stole her repeater just to turn it into a receiver to connect one of my non-wifi pc’s to ethernet. (don’t know if they mentioned it in the article, too lazy to confirm). But the repeaters (some) have an ethernet port underneath, which is used to connect a pc. If you connect the repeater to wifi and its ethernet port to your pc, it gives internet from the connected wifi.
Isn’t there a distinct and important difference between a “repeater” and an “extender,” with the latter requiring a wired connection to your router, thereby avoiding the issues regarding WiFi signal strength, SSIDs, etc., entirely? A mesh router might be the ideal solution for personal use at home, but when it’s ~10x the cost and you’re just looking for a cheap, working solution for your parents’ place, a WiFi extender seems like a decent option, no?
If you need multiple access points but can’t get cables everywhere there’s also a solution: CPL access points. And CPL networks in general. These will use your mains power cables to transmit data, and even if it’s limited it can change your life by adding ethernet ports and access points without any work on your cabling. I use a CPL network at home and I do stream on twitch with that configuration.
There are other options outside of range extenders. Ethernet/access points being at the top of the pile and mesh being a simple setup. Also consider MoCA adapters which use your coax lines that you may have throughout the house and powerline network adapters(ethernet and wifi AP types) are decent as well if you don’t have trash electrical lines.
What’s funny is, they work for the EXACT situation I’m in. I’m having to move back to my parents for a few months, and my mom hates excessive cables running around everywhere and doesn’t wanna get an electrician so I can have wifi up in the room I’m staying in because our house is old with shitty wiring and bad connection spots. A range extender is fine for use for me in this situation
Two things. One, TP-Link extenders work as TP-Link OneMesh extenders for $30 each, which is great, and two, I only have one of them and it’s for an internet phone for work. Instead of running an Ethernet line, TP-Link’s $30 OneMesh extender has an Ethernet port on the side, and can double as a wifi to ethernet bridge.
Valid points. I offer this use-case: 1. Rented property (you can’t pass wires through walls, nor can you screw things into them). 2. Your walls are thick enough to massively reduce the signal. In this use case, I’ve found using extenders to be a very effective solution to deal with physical barriers (depending on where your plug sockets are).
“a little more” for mesh. Every mesh device I’ve looked up is pretty much another router. Also, I haven’t found a mesh router that is safe from the weather so if you have a lot of property, you’re kinda limited. Also, since the price of the mesh devices is so expensive, you’re kind of just putting money out for someone to steal.
The WiFi in my room generally works fine with my phone, tablet Xbox, etc, but my laptop seems to have a shitty network adapter and therefore often seems to have trouble staying connected. I’m not gonna buy an entirely new WiFi setup for one device, are there perhaps maybe some more targeted solutions? And yes, I have tried listing my laptop as a priority device on my router, using preferred bands, etc. The issue is hardware.
In some niche cases, an extender is exactly what you want. For example a lower end article doorbell or smart security camera that’s at a spot of low WiFi signal. These devices don’t always work well with mesh networks. But a strategically placed WiFi extender can solve all your connectivity problems for these devices. But again, this is a niche case. And if you can get a PoE doorbell then please do!
I got one of those mesh WI-FI systems. 3 main units (living room, kitchen, side room upstairs) and I could buy more from the same company. The only limitation is that the base one I have only has 2 Ethernet ports on it (one in one out) but it’s worked so far. Plus the app is actually pretty good and tells me when a new device joins the network.
I’m an on-site IT consultant for homes and small businesses. I can’t tell you how many of those range extenders I’ve had to put out to pasture that the clients bought. There was a point in time where there was not much else available except those but now there are so many meshing options. Funny thing though. Apple has been doing wireless mesh networking with their routers since 2008-09. I’ve installed more of those routers than anything else – and they stopped making them in 2013.
I have a wifi range extender or repeater. It works for my setup. I have a security camera out in the garden behind a small house. The security camera connects to the repeater that connects to the router. They use different SSID’s. It’s a really affordable solution that is also easy to setup. I don’t want to buy 100 meters of cable and trying to get it to look decent running through the house through the garden and into the second house. Mesh network is kind of overkill. It’s too expensive. Actually around 10 times more expensive and about three times the cost of the camera itself. Basically repeaters can be the best choice. It depends on how you are going to use it. Don’t just say “Wife extenders are bad mmmkay.” I expect more from a tech website. This is not Walmart
All the points are valid, but for example if you are not living alone, but there are let’s say 2 rooms where you constantly use your devices, you can just connect to the extender and not bother about going between the devices. But yes if you just want to cover more of your house while moving between rooms, it’s a horrible choice. It only extends it by a small amount and it doesn’t strengthen the signal that much and it’s a hassle to keep switching
I can’t say I entirely agree with this one… My home setup is based around the Asus Zen architecture and both main routers spread across the “main” living spaces have given us very few problems with connectivity indoors and out… And the extender up in my bedroom has kept my phone and laptop from frequently dropping off the network/ flipping between the weaker signals below. I know my setup is technically mesh… But the initial introduction and title are misleading to those who don’t read the fine print.
I think, for most use cases with extenders, separate SSID is probably better, then you at least can choose the AP you want to connect to. I had a case where with two buildings, the main AP and repeater found each other, while my devices mostly dropped out from the far SSID. If they didn’t, could manually switch. It was more a case of using the hardware I had, switching an unused router-AP to repeater mode, and it was just a temporary arrangementet. I have Mesh on my to do list there, but as it is mostly temporary just a few weeks, whenever it is interesting, I think I’ll leave if way down on the to do list.
We went from one TP Link AC1750 router with a range extender to two TP Link AX55 routers (one as router, one in AP mode on the opposite side of the house connected via CAT6 cable) and it made a massive difference. We have zero dead spots now and everything is blazing fast. Before we would hardly have wifi signal outside our front door, now we have a good usable signal 200ft away from the house.
As a professional WiFi installer, hardwiring a mesh system is by far the best situation. I do a ton of short term rental and residential and have found so many extenders that do weird stuff. They randomly reset, disconnect and reboot. If the customer doesn’t want to spend money, I will do my best to move them to a best case spot. But still I get calls at random about them still doing their weird stuff. Updates can help, but its a shot in the dark. Good luck everyone.
If you want to use an extender because your router is in a bad location, and you can get a good extender, and you can’t relocate your router/wire in an access point: Place your good extender in a central location where it can properly enhance your signal and give it a purposely different name from your router. Then, simply forget your router name and connect your devices to your extender only. Assuming the extenders’ connection from the router is strong and it has decent capabilities, you should be all set.
Ethernet is the better way it just is a pain to set up Step 1 Buy router Step 2 Buy CAT-6 Cable Step 3 Buy Male And Female RJ45 terminations Step 4 (If your PC does not have an Ethernet jack) Buy a USB to Ethernet adapter) Step 5 Buy Wall RJ45 Jacks Step 6 Route CAT-6 Cable through your house Step 7 Wire up the Cables in a RJ45 T-568 Step 8 Crimp on MALE housing on both ends of the RJ45 CONNECTOR (Unless you are wiring to a wall RJ45 Jack Wire it up to what you buy says) Step 9 Plug into Router Step 10 Plug your PC into your wall RJ45 jack (Or into your adapter) Step 11 Enjoy
Is the WiFi implementation for roaming between your router and a mesh extender, or for roaming between access points, all that different from that for switching between nodes on a mesh network? At home I have two different routers on the same SSID with one of them configured as an AP, and I’m wondering whether and why mesh nodes would be better for roaming.
I think is useful in specific situations for example my consoles don’t have a goo WiFi antenna like my smartphones has so I use a extender for them while keep using the usual router for my phone, therefore I don’t need to change anything and since my consoles are staying in one place there’s no other problem, so yeah it has its uses just don’t let them sell it you as a device that can solve absolutely all of your connection problems.
i don’t get it. i AM trying to extend the signal in another part of the house with one static PC that’s not going to move anywhere and another building that also has set devices that won’t leave that building. i probably don’t care that much what connection my phone is on. if that’s the case, are range extenders fine?
This is not good advice. I’ve been struggling with my WiFi connection in my bedroom, one floor above my router for months. I’ve had zoom calls drop, I’ve experienced a lot of packet loss on my Xbox in my room, so not a good experience. I’ve done tests for signal strength and it’s been poor at around 52%, so the next step was to look at improving it with a WiFi extender. I watched this article and it made me doubt if it would work. I bought a good Netgear one anyway and set it up and it completely fixed my issues, even though I’ve plugged it in only a couple metres away from my desk within the same room. My signal strength has gone up to 90% and now I don’t experience any packet loss on my Xbox or dropped Zoom calls. So my advice is, if anyone is struggling with their WiFi strength, buy a good extender and try it out. If it doesn’t fix exactly what you needed, just return it. So there’s no harm in trying it.
This article completely glosses over that you can use these WiFi range extenders in an AP mode. You can pick up used range extenders for INSANELY cheap. I bought 3 WIFI 6 range extenders for $6 each off ebay. I then wired them in as access points to my main router and I now have a single SSID wifi network with 3 access points covering my entire house, all controllable through a single app.
@Techquickie! Help! I travel a lot for work. I use mobile phone hotspot for everything.. 5G with unlimited data. I can’t justify home internet connection when I’m only home 6 months of the year (it’s an Aussie thing… Hard to explain) but when I’m home. I want all my devices connected to one router so they are always connected, and when I get home and need to be internet connected. Just turn on my mobile phone hotspot and have the router deal with all the connected devices. Like a mesh commected to a router? Then devices connected to router network? Is there are way!
I’ve been using powerline adaptors for years as my “range extender” of choice. I’ve recommend them to unknown numbers of friends and family, who’ve all been happy with the solution they provided. They’ve never let me down so far, and their speeds have only increased over time as the Wi-Fi standards have been upgraded. A relatively cheap way to fix a common problem.
Couldn’t you just forget the original network on your device so the extender is the only one saved? My router is in a far corner of my long rectangular house while my extended is centralized so I just deleted my main network from my phone so it doesn’t access it automatically and I stay connected to the extender which reaches all point of my house.
I have a doubt, I have a 100 mbps speed ( 50 mbps download & 50 mbps upload ) ISP Connection, now if i update my existing dual band router to mesh wifi system will i get the original speed 100 mbps in mesh wifi system or the speed will reduce to half like in happens in case of range extenders / wifi repeaters, big doubt, please reply
I tried those wifi extenders years ago, and got fed up with them. They’d work for a while, but they always seemed to either stop working or the signal would be too inconsistent. I tried the ones that are power line thru the wall outlets, and I tried the ones you just plug into a wall socket and it’s supposed to extend the signal, they both sucked. And then I saw the mesh wifi network system. My home is fairly large 3 floors. So I spent a few hundred bucks on the Eero Mesh System. And guess what? After years of having dead spots in my home, where I was getting no internet or barely enough signal to watch articles from youtube, and streaming was basically a no go. This mesh system is a God send! I am able to download, upload, stream with no problems. The speed and signal is great and I am now a believer. 3 Years later this was the best investment i’ve made in recent memory when it comes to tech. If anybody knows how annoying it is to have internet, but your wifi is terrible. When you have a big home it can be a nightmare. It’s amazing! And I don’t B.S. when it comes to tech. As I said I struggled for years with how bad my wifi signal was in my house, and wasting money on wifi extenders was the last straw.
Yes Anthony, I agree with you. And I love your articles. However, you left off a class of problems that can be solved by the range extender. Fix devices in a known location that don’t move. I used a range extender to add in payment terminals at an animal hospital because they were too far from the Wi-Fi router. Those devices stay in the front office and don’t go roaming. For this specific purpose, the ranging sender was a very inexpensive and good solution. And it’s been working every day for 2 years.
This article should be named “DON’T Buy a Wi-Fi Range Extender if you don’t know what you’re doing!” I got an Archer AX11000 with 3 additional range extenders all configured using OneMesh, and it’s awesome. I have many dozen smart switches all over my house, plus I use the Ethernet plugs to wire up some devices on each floor of my house, and it works amazingly well. Turnings the extenders off overloads my router, too many devices, and it doesn’t only slow down, it ends up being so overloaded that I have to constantly reboot it. Extenders FTW, if you know what you’re doing!
I would still recommend Wi-Fi radio extended for some situations even on a separate SSID, this, for example I just need a low speed access in my garden and garage. In comparison usually most devices I have in the house benefit with the higher speeds. Remember just because there is a solution that can supply faster and more reliable connections, doesn’t mean that it is required for all. As I will have my preferred network set to my router and my phone will only switch when it loses signal.
1:20 true XD I love Extenders though! In our house, the router covers the right side, extender covers the left. The extender is strong enough that those on the left side never need to switch to the router. And everyone that’s on the right side always stays on the router. Simply “Forget this network” to the one you don’t use so you don’t connected to the furthest one by mistake.
Thanks but no thanks. I needed the wifi range extender to get from our house to inside the metal shed without running an extra long Ethernet cable across the yard. Paired it with a second and had a cable running from that to inside the barn. Very specific issue that no one else probably had but I felt like I needed to give my two cents.
I wish I could downvote this article twice. For background, I majored in networked communications and have worked 20+ years in IT management. I have personally used WiFi range extenders in my home network situations to great success, so I find this article incredibly short sighted and frustrating. Essentially what it just recommended to people who have weak wireless routers is to not have weak wireless routers. How does that solve the problem for anyone? If they had the possibility of not having a weak wireless router they would not have this problem. WiFi range extenders are not for people who have the ability to run cables or completely swap oit their routers! They are for people who do not have access to the router in the first place. The people that buy them are often in situations where they are renting a room or sharing a space… Situations where cabling and replacement of the primary router is not an option. Also the analogy of getting a poor signal and resending it is terrible! The range extender is ideally placed in a location half way between the endpoint and the source router, or as close as they are able to access, thereby getting a much stronger signal than the endpoint. Not to mention they often have far higher gain in their antenna power, allowing them to receive and transmit to endpoints farther away than most normal wifi devices. There are a number of use case scenarios where they absolutely make perfect sense to solve the issues in home networking environments where better solutions are unavailable.
In the Netherlands you get a Modem and Router in one device and often its placed in a horrible area of the house as it must be connected to a specific cable to get the internet. In my home its like on the other side of the house far away from the living room, but with closet and a bathroom before it get signal to the living room and those walls prevent a proper signal. While just the doorway to the livingroom has a good signal, I fixed the issue just having an extender next to the doorway and enable living room having a much better stronger and faster signal and connect internet tv or netflix with a much better signal, without having to mess around with any ugly cables to connect the modem to a router in a better placement.
If you want to use your laptop in your room, the extender is the best solution. No one likes cables, I don’t want another AP wired up to the main router. If I wanted cables, I would connect my laptop/pc directly via ethernet, so I don’t see the point. Wifi range extender are exactly what they’re advertising, not more not less
I think this article misses a big point: price. You can get an extender for $20 and even if not perfect, it will take your offline room, online. AP solutions cost in the hundrets of dollars. Also: there are very good and fairly inexpensive Powerline Wifi kits that work great. Considering this article was consulted with a specialist, it is disappointing.
Our neighbor is a character – the guy’s 87 and probably a millionaire but he’s so tight with money he squeaks. He’s helped my wife and I with various things (the guys plows our driveway in winter!) and he was tired of paying for cable because it’s something he rarely uses. The guy’s house is easily 600 yards away and his nephew bought him one of these extender doo-dads. I found this article, back when he said he was getting one, and I figured it wouldn’t help his weak signal from my router. The minute he plugged the thing in the old guy could connect to our WIFi and he said the signal and speed were excellent. Got another friend who knows zero about tech and about 18-months ago I went to his house to fix a computer problem. He had one plugged into the wall – I had never seen one and didn’t know what the hell it was. He told me they could not get Wifi upstairs but with this thing it worked fine, upstairs. I reset my router, yesterday, and the old guy across the street had a config problem with his range extender – so I ordered one from Amazon just to tinker. I ordered a TP-Link AC1750 – and the thing was 51 bucks with tax. 60-percent of reviews are 5-star and another 20-percent are 4-star. Mostly people were only unhappy with the documentation. I had seen this article awhile back and I am anxious to screw around with this thing – in our two story house – to see if if it boosts speeds, etc. People tend to leave reviews more often when they’re pissed about how something works – the thing I ordered had 80-percent four and five star reviews, so, I would think the thing is useful.
You don’t seem to fathom the vast number of user cases. I live in my van while I rent my apartment with Airbnb, and I want to receive my signal on the third floor. A Range extender costs the same as 75Gb phone data with a 28 day expiry period. I could use it forever and have unlimited internet in my van. You should get your head around the premise of a topic before you begin debating a single example that applies in only some cases. You might as well debate that the sky is blue because the world isn’t flat, then spend the article making fun of flat Earthers. Rule one in debating – see all angles without completely blinkering yourself.
I’m a year late here, but CSMA/CA plays a role in this that isn’t mentioned in the article or most of the comments. The CA portion is collision avoidance. Basically, devices wait their turn to communicate, so the more devices you have, the more traffic jams you have to wait through. Introducing an extender, especially a slower one, adds additional slower traffic to your intersections, and makes things even less organized. Think about pulling up to a 4-way stop and how aggravating that can be. Now add pedestrians on all the sidewalks that also want to cross. Now you’re waiting even longer for even more stuff to happen so you can hopefully get through without hitting something. Since the extender is also not part of the main network, it can introduce what’s known as a “hidden node” problem. Since the extender is now listening to communication from the main network, and trying to manage devices on its extended network, the two sections of the network aren’t really part of each others’ conversations, so you sometimes get additional slowness introduced by having to wait while everyone sorts things out and makes sure they’re responding to all the requests. Separate access points and meshes don’t run into these issues as often, because they each handle their own traffic themselves, and communicate back to a switch/router or they work TOGETHER to keep things more organized because they’re all monitoring the same “conversation.”
This article is dumb, I got a range extender and it was perfect. I needed to get the signal around a large brick fireplace in my moms house and it made the signal downstairs like 10x better without any of the downsides you mentioned for like $20 vs spending like $400+ on a new router that could go through the wall.
having set up wifi for 150+ employees on multiple floors, i cringe hearing you should increase the antennas or strength. it’s counter intuitive, but usually the biggest problem is too much radio traffic. Therefore decreasing the strength of each device, choosing a less busy website as well as having multiple, but low powered devices spread across the area is usually a much better solution.
I disagree. Wi-Fi range extenders are great if you have a specific purpose for it. In my case my router is on one side of the house and my gaming room is downstairs on the opposite end of the home. The signal is weak in the game room where all my consoles are, and I kept losing connections. After I got the extender, the signal was boosted and my consoles and streaming laptop has a solid signal and hasn’t lost connection since. So long as the device is stationary, I can’t recommend a Wi-Fi extender enough! It doesn’t even have to be those expensive ones!
This is really one-sided, and mainly says, “range extenders are bad because they don’t deal with roaming well.” There are lots of devices like TVs and media streaming devices that don’t roam, but their onboard wifi isn’t great, or they could benefit from being hardwired to a AP/extender in media bridge mode. My HTPC and Roku Ultra went from several seconds of buffering to nearly instant playback of content, not to mention FF and RW are now much more responsive. For a lot of people, unless their home is large enough, mesh is expensive overkill.
I bought a WiFi repeater specifically so that it can connect my wireless VR headset (got a Quest but getting a Pico 4 to give Facebook a big middle finger – at least TikTok/Bytedance doesn’t require an account to use the Pico 4) to my gaming PC (the main house modem is a couple of rooms away through several thick walls). Also, powerline adapters might be better for some rather than just getting more WiFi (if you’re living in a unit make sure you’re putting it on the same circuit otherwise it won’t work).
BS. Only requires a low level of knowledge. Purchased a Macard RE 1200 for 25 cents ($0.25) at a garage sale this morning. Read the manual and watched setup instructions on YouTube. Prior owner too lazy to read manual. Signal in the barn was too weak and would not connect my laptop or iPad. Hung the extender out the house window. Barn about 900 feet away. Works great. I and the horses can watch the news now. The big toilet guy probably correct on not best for phone use if user does not like to change signals walking around the house.Takes one second to switch wifi source on laptop or iPad.
Has anyone tried to install a cable between the router and antenna and run the antenna in to another room? This is probably a silly question but I’m curious. My router has 6 antennas and does not provide good signal through the wall it’s next to. One half or the other half of the house can have Wi-Fi but the wall causes a giant dead zone.
I was hoping a repeater would be more helpful, but it looks like it won’t be. I purchased a TP Link Mesh system a couple years ago. I was disappointed to learn the hard way that they have to be daisy chained together to have all the nodes hardwired. That makes it more complicated. Are all Mesh systems like that? I don’t want to reprogram everything in my house again, but one of these days I’m hoping Mesh systems can all connect to the modem individually.
i might not smart as linus group but here some reason wifi extender better: 1.it cheap it just cheap. i mean really cheap. you play your card right and you found less than 10USD. wait it maybe 7USD wifi extender brand new not old new and work like charm. good luck finding router less than 10usd that does work and not just useless junk box. and brand new 2.for people that cant change off the self router(maybe a shared router or maybe you not own it ). and doesn’t want to buy expensive mesh router using wifi extender and a lan cable(my setup) does really bump the speed from unusable 1mbps(if luck) and almost 0.1mbps up to max isp speed. and stable. yes if you use lan for pc it kinda downgrade from ethernet to wifi but atleast you room have it own wifi signal now. and your smartphone or leptop can use internet at max speed. 3.for people that does want to have seperate ssid(like me) well. while wifi extender can be rename and most of them can(unless you buy it from 2010 era or it just wish product) if you prefer to have seperate ssid because maybe it for your devices only or like article said. your devices like to stuck to weaker signal instead jump to nearest one. you can and without extra cash with wifi extender. and actually saying devices have manually change wifi while move around kinda invalid. in fact i hope my devices do that. the thing is almost all my phone always switch to the stronger signal(as long as im already connected for first time). and yeah imagine playing online game the got high ping because you just walking around.
Nah bruh. I literally had the worst connection with my wifi (landlord wouldn’t do nothing about it) bought a extender and boom problem solved. I get if pushed to the extreme they are worthless but for some gaming my extender does it’s job just fine. Thank you for the pointers but at the moment my extender is fine.
You want a zero hand off mesh system like Deco. 3 units in the box you set them up from your phone in like 3 minutes and then you turn off the wifi on your router. Job done. I have been installing Deco’s for years!! They are awesome. Go for the Deco P9 kit if you can afford them. They are hybrid units that bounce off each other plus they have powerline built in for the best you can get bang for the buck performance. You can walk from 1 end of the house to the other and never lose connection, so if you are on a WiFi call and you are walking around you will not lose connection. Thats the beauty of mesh systems with zero hand off.