But what is a WiFi extender, and how does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about WiFi extenders, and the best WiFi extenders you can buy now. Here’s a closer look at each of the models we tested.If your WiFi signal isn’t strong enough to reach every corner of your home or office, you can fix this problem by installing a WiFi extender. But if you’re looking to increase coverage throughout your home, a mesh router is the better option, especially if you need a high-speed signal for tasks like gaming or HD video streaming. If your goal is to get WiFi in that one dead zone in your home so you can browse the web and check email, a WiFi range extender can be useful. Just keep in mind that it’s not necessarily the kind of signal you need to watch Netflix.
“But by placing an extender halfway between the router and the deck, suddenly there’s a signal.” “Whenever I would sit outside on my deck, I would get no signal,” says Richard Fisco, who oversees electronics testing for Consumer Reports.
In the end, the extenders succeeded in expanding the reach of the WiFi signal in the two test environments. See the results on the product cards below. We repeated the measurements a minimum of four times, taking an average of the four runs to get the tested throughput for each extender. (None of the extenders or routers used in the testing support the new WiFi 6 standard.) Using the website, we measured the signal strength-or throughput-of the routers at various distances, first using the 2.4GHz 802.11n (WiFi 4 standard) frequency band and then the 5GHz 802.11ac (WiFi 5) frequency band. If you place it too close to the router, you may not be able to push the signal to the desired location. If you place the extender much farther from the router, you risk losing more signal speed than necessary. They generally recommend plugging the unit into an outlet about halfway between the router and the area you hope to reach with the extended signal. To position the extenders properly, we followed the directions included with each model. Once the connection is complete, you can use the extender app to adjust the device settings to suit your needs. You simply push the WPS button on the router and minutes later on the extender, and the device gets linked to the WiFi network without making you type in a username and password. If your router supports WPS, too, we recommend going that route. In some cases, the apps even failed to set up the extender.Īll six models also support Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), which allows you to link the device to your router with the push of a button. The first thing we learned is that the mobile apps designed to guide you through the setup process aren't as easy to use as the manufacturers would have you believe.Īll of the models except for one (the Linksys RE6300) supported this app-based setup, but our testers were often tripped up by the unclear directions. The larger place needed help getting a WiFi signal to the home office above the garage. The smaller house has an outdoor deck area with spotty WiFi. One house measures about 2,000 square feet and the other nearly 2,200 square feet. To answer that question, we put a half dozen models to work in two modest-sized homes owned by Consumer Reports testers.
They often come in packs of three, too, which allows you to move the units around your home, creating widespread coverage. And that’s in an ideal world, where the WiFi signal from the router hasn’t been degraded by obstacles such as thick walls and large appliances.īy contrast, mesh routers use two different frequency bands, which limits the speed loss to roughly 10 percent.
So, for example, if you’re standing right next to your WiFi router (where the signal is strongest) and get 50 megabits per second (fast enough to stream two 4K Netflix videos at once), the speed in your extended network will be about 25 megabits per second. That extra step can reduce the speed of your WiFi signal by about half. “So now the data that originally would have come directly from the access point to your connected device is going through an intermediate step,” Athreya says. That’s in part because an extender relies on the same frequency band as the router itself. The extender can then pick up the WiFi signal from your router and push it deeper into your home.īut you’re likely to notice a significant drop in throughput speeds in the “extended” network, says Kannan Athreya, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State University. To get the best results, you have to plug the extender into a power outlet midway between your router and the dead-zone area. While it’s tempting to think of a WiFi range extender as a device that can beam fast, reliable WiFi throughout your home, it’s more like a spot fix for the dead zone in your bedroom or attic-turned-home office.
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