Wifi Extender Needed

[KitsonRis]

The wifi signal in my new office is a bit pants, furthest point away from the router and thick stone walls do not help. Need to get a wifi extender, although the ones on Amazon are a bit confusing

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CKXGTYYG/?tag=cliospnet01-21

All the negative reviews say they are confusing to set up but the positive ones relate to something toally different (have a feeling it is an extension lead or some wall paper?) and reviews for other ones similar to this are the same which is putting me off.

Any suggestions of what other people use?

 

[Matt Cup]

I’ve got a couple of ORBI’s. They do the job well.

 

[Oggy997]

I have the orbi rbk953, it's not quite an extender, but it's amazing in terms of speed and coverage.

 

[Racky]

Why don't you try one of those powerline extenders ? Something like this. You put one in the power socket next to the router, and link it with the router with an ethernet cable, and then, in the office, you put the other part of it in a socket, and that acts like a wifi router. The thing is that from what I remember, both devices need to be plugged in the actual wall socket, and not in an extention lead

 

[Oggy997]

They work on extension leads in some case, too, I use them for my cctv.

 

[Cub.]

Powerline works wonders for my outside office.

WiFi extender wouldn’t cut the mustard.

 

[Marc.]

I have several Powerline adapters in the house (3-storey house with the WiFi in the cupboard under the stairs). The BT discs are useless in comparison.

 

[GiT]

TpLink RE220. 19 quid and great connection.

 

[KitsonRis]

Powerline works wonders for my outside office.

WiFi extender wouldn’t cut the mustard.

Because of the distance it needs to cover or other factors?
For me I could plug the extender directly above the router on the landing as the router is n the lounge below then it’s about 10m max down the upstairs hallway (line of sight down the hall) to my office.

And it just goes through the power cables in the house?

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

Eero.

 

[Cub.]

Because of the distance it needs to cover or other factors?
For me I could plug the extender directly above the router on the landing as the router is n the lounge below then it’s about 10m max down the upstairs hallway (line of sight down the hall) to my office.

And it just goes through the power cables in the house?

Yeah, runs along the power cables, then creates a wifi zone at whichever plug you put it into.

I tried a few things on mine, it wasn’t so much distance, more the amount of walls between it and the main router.

Since getting the powerline from TPLink, it’s been spot on. Also allows you to hardline Ethernet into the powerline aswell.

 

[KitsonRis]

Yeah, runs along the power cables, then creates a wifi zone at whichever plug you put it into.

I tried a few things on mine, it wasn’t so much distance, more the amount of walls between it and the main router.

Since getting the powerline from TPLink, it’s been spot on. Also allows you to hardline Ethernet into the powerline aswell.

Bought a TP Link AV600 Powerline, hopefully turning up Tuesday. Will see if this place's old (and probably backwards) electrics will handle it!!

I should also add I can only get 3MB internet where I have moved to, not had to work from home yet or if a Teams call will actually work, but streaming iPlayer/Amazon Prime/Disney+ in the lounge 6ft away from the router seems to be ok, although when I downloaded a film on Prime last night so I could watch it offline to sit in the office at my desk and make Lego (yes I am sad) it took an hour fml. I knew rual North Wales was basically in the past but I didn't realise this much in the past.

 

[rctempire]

Bought a TP Link AV600 Powerline, hopefully turning up Tuesday. Will see if this place's old (and probably backwards) electrics will handle it!!

I should also add I can only get 3MB internet where I have moved to, not had to work from home yet or if a Teams call will actually work, but streaming iPlayer/Amazon Prime/Disney+ in the lounge 6ft away from the router seems to be ok, although when I downloaded a film on Prime last night so I could watch it offline to sit in the office at my desk and make Lego (yes I am sad) it took an hour fml. I knew rual North Wales was basically in the past but I didn't realise this much in the past.

Not fancy going satellite Broadband (plenty avalaible and cheaper than you think now days) or 4G broadband (if signal is decent enough)

 

[Andy_con]

Run a cat5 cable, problem solved 😂

 

[rctempire]

Run a cat5 cable, problem solved 😂

Shh dont tell them at 3MB it wont make much of a difference.

 

[Andy_con]

Shh dont tell them at 3MB it wont make much of a difference.

You can't take a weak signal and then make it strong 😂

Cat5 for the win

 

[KitsonRis]

Not fancy going satellite Broadband (plenty avlaible and cheaper than you think now days) or 4G broadband (if signal is decent enough)

I looked at it but wasn’t wanting to pay the price for it at the time. Although my stance might change!
Extender arrived the other day, need to fit it over the weekend.

 

[rctempire]

I looked at it but wasn’t wanting to pay the price for it at the time. Although my stance might change!
Extender arrived the other day, need to fit it over the weekend.

Some communities have Point 2 Point style broadband via satellite/extended wireless. Id look if they do have that too. Community based ISPS really are designed for rural outfits.

 

[Cl10]

I’m using a 5g router and getting 300+Mbps. I use a prepay SIM and it’s about £20 a month. Even with ‘just’ 4g you can get up to 120Mbps if you have a good signal. Some rural 5g, which I think uses a different frequency, has better range so it’s worth checking out the local coverage - if it’s only ok outdoors you would likely need an external aerial.

I used to have a BT router with four discs to cover the house but the Nokia 5g router does it all itself!

 

[Andy_con]

Joking aside.

When I built my workshop I went to a lot of effort to run a cat5 cable from the router in the house to the workshop. Well worth the effort.
I'm on BT 150mb fibre, I now get 150mb in the workshop.

 

[Oggy997]

I've got a 1.2gbps link speed from all the shitter in my house & the garden.

I'm too tight to pay for more than 80mb downstream though

 

[SharkyUK]

I'm using Orbi 960 Quad Band WiFi 6E mesh with one router and 3 satellites. Awesome. Full 1Gbps over WiFi across the whole house. My old WiFi router and extender didn't cover the distances and the powerline kits were crap over the length of the house, too. Highly recommend the Orbi 960 but, erm, a bit pricey. 😳

 

[Oggy997]

Yeah, I'm on the 953, great bits if kit

 

[Andy_con]

after reading this thread it got me thinking my setup is pretty old now.

ive got BT fibre 150 in my house with i think the smart hub 2, there is then a cat5 cable into my workshop where i have a cheap TP-link router. think its about 300mb.

id love some kind of mesh setup, just been on BT's web site and i note they dont sell the discs anymore. they have moved onto these things -

https://store.ee.co.uk/products/tp-link-deco-x20-ax1800-3-pack-deco-x20-3-pack--H3X2.html?src=20

do they mirror the existing smart hub, or do they create there own mesh network? struggling to find exactly how they work.

 

[Oggy997]

They just sit there and pretend to be a mesh network, but don't actually do anything.
Think of them as a USB mouse wiggler

 

[Andy_con]

They just sit there and pretend to be a mesh network, but don't actually do anything.
Think of them as a USB mouse wiggler

such a helpful answer

 

[R3k1355]

What gains are you hoping to get over your current setup? It may not be cutting edge, but it sounds perfectly capable.

 

[Andy_con]

What gains are you hoping to get over your current setup? It may not be cutting edge, but it sounds perfectly capable.

my current TP-link router is single band, not mesh and not great with lots of things connected to it.

so im hoping to gain speed

 

[R3k1355]

You'll probably do better getting a more modern router in there. Mesh is easy to install, but each one of those hops you have to use in the network adds latency.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Starlink

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www.starlink.com

 

[Touring_Rob]

Mesh does the speed so if you can run a cable to a wifi box and use it as an access point then it would be better i believe although I don't know if that would make any difference to 3mb/s.

 

[Oggy997]

Too much harmonic resonance interfering with the wifis

 

[Andy_con]

You'll probably do better getting a more modern router in there. Mesh is easy to install, but each one of those hops you have to use in the network adds latency.

exactly what im saying.

but the question is, will a mesh take the form of my current BT hub or will it create a new network.

so will a mesh use my bt hub username (network name) and password or will it create a separate username and password?

 

[Oggy997]

You can configure the same details if you want

 

[Andy_con]

You can configure the same details if you want

100% ???

for me thats a deal breaker.

 

[Touring_Rob]

Mesh does the speed so if you can run a cable to a wifi box and use it as an access point then it would be better i believe although I don't know if that would make any difference to 3mb/s.

Sorry, that was supposed to be, Mesh and range extenders half speed, while an access point does not.

 

[Touring_Rob]

100% ???

for me thats a deal breaker.

Usually makes a new wifi network.

I have TPlink mesh setup and disabled the wifi on my BT hub. The TP Link app is 1000% better and lets me do things like make a guest network in 10s or disable youtube on certain devices.

Its a whole new network but you decide what the network is called and what the password. Why is it a deal breaker if the network names are different?

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

My Eero mesh system is mega.

Not particularly expensive but it gives full coverage throughout the whole house with high enough speeds to keep up with my kids who have PlayStations, phones TV’s and iPads all going at the sane time.

 

[dann2707]

My Eero mesh system is mega.

Not particularly expensive but it gives full coverage throughout the whole house with high enough speeds to keep up with my kids who have PlayStations, phones TV’s and iPads all going at the sane time.

Does that work with any router mate?

I changed provider recently, they gave me a new router but the new one doesn't cover the kitchen which is a pain in the arse

 

[Oggy997]

It only matters if you're looking to remove the existing router completely, even then it can often be ran in a bridge mode, so performs no traffic routing, but just for authentication with your ISP.

For example:
Or virgin, you need their router in place, so you run it in bridge mode, to your mesh router, which broadcasts to mesh satellites to create a single mesh network.
On say talk talk, you would disable dhcp and wireless (this is what bridge mode does) and connect to a mesh router.

On a ftth provider, you usually need to keep their 'router' - it doesn't actually route traffic, then via that to the mesh router / satellite etc.
In the event you can get the PPPoE settings from your provider, you can put these into most mesh routers to replace the first device provided by the isp

Other providers I think the ones who use vdsl2 need specific mesh routers to work "in place" of the isp provided one.