wi fi extenders

JEN22

Do you have to use an ethernet cable with these or can you just randomly plug them into sockets with no leads

arciere

It depends on the unit. A WiFi 'extender' normally 'repeats' the signal that comes form another access point. This is normally the less reliable and advisable solution when trying to extend the wireless coverage (several reasons why).
If you can connect the access point to the main router/switch using an ethernet cable, that should be your preferred option.
If that can't be done, because the router is too far away or a cable can't be easily run, powerline adaptors can be an alternative (not as reliable as a cable connection, but still much better than 'repeaters').
In any case, before buying additional equipment, make sure that your existing WiFi unit(s) are located in a good position.
Also, be aware that you don't simply 'randomly plug them into sockets', some of them are quite tricky to set up, sometimes you just select the network you want to repeat and type the password, others you need to provide many more details (the MAC address of the unit that needs to be 'repeated', an IP address, what WiFi channel it should use, etc.)

Linton

Normally extenders pick up the main router wifi and effectively duplicate it at a higher power. Some can also be connected to the main router by ethernet and broadcast wifi, and some can pick up wifi from the router and drive an ethernet connection to a device.


My experience is that extenders are more reliable than powerline.

arciere

Linton wrote: »

Normally extenders pick up the main router wifi and effectively duplicate it at a higher power. Some can also be connected to the main router by ethernet and broadcast wifi, and some can pick up wifi from the router and drive an ethernet connection to a device.


My experience is that extenders are more reliable than powerline.

That's not correct. WiFi extenders or repeaters take the WiFi signal that they can detect where they are and replicate it to increase the coverage area. There are several reasons why this is far from ideal:
- The signal they repeat is the signal they are able to capture. You install a repeater halfway between the original access point and your end device. Say you get 40% of signal. That's 40% of what the repeater gets from its location, which may be another 40% of the original signal. So even if you see 40% on your laptop, you are actually getting much less.
- If the main wireless access point stops working for whatever reason, your repeater won't work.
- If you make any changes to your WiFi settings (SSID, change router or access point, etc), you need to reconfigure the repeater.

Undervalued

Linton wrote: »

Normally extenders pick up the main router wifi and effectively duplicate it at a higher power. Some can also be connected to the main router by ethernet and broadcast wifi, and some can pick up wifi from the router and drive an ethernet connection to a device.

Higher power yes but often at a significantly reduced speed.

That can be the problem. When I had one I found that devices would tend to latch on to the extender because of the higher power even when they would have worked happily from the main router.

To get the best out of it (and by that I mean make the best of a bad job!) I found the most important thing was to make sure the extender was receiving a strong signal from the main (e.g. 4 out of 5 on its indicator). Any less and the data speed was miserable. So the extender had to be fairly close to the main router which sort of defeated the purpose somewhat!

arciere

Undervalued wrote: »

So the extender had to be fairly close to the main router which sort of defeated the purpose somewhat!

Exactly that.

In regards to 'higher power', that's also not entirely true.
A decent wireless access point is far more 'powerful' than any repeater because it has normally got a bigger antenna as well.
Higher power alone does not guarantee any better performance because wireless is a two-way communication. If you have a powerful radio, you can reach farther devices, but if those devices are unable to send their signals back to you (access point), because their radio is not as powerful as yours, that makes the whole system useless.

System

Coincidentally I happened to watch something on Youtube this morning. Screwfix do a wifi range extender which is built into a double mains socket so all you do is replace a double wall socket with this one, connect to it via Wifi, open your browser to log on and set it up and you're good to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eE6sWaMEKs

arciere wrote: »

Exactly that.

In regards to 'higher power', that's also not entirely true.
A decent wireless access point is far more 'powerful' than any repeater because it has normally got a bigger antenna as well.

That doesn't make them more powerful and in fact it can become a hinderance once it gets towards a full wavelength long.

At 2.4GHz an efficient antenna has to be just 6cm long, at 5GHz, just 1.35cm long. Those things you see on some routers and on Ebay etc which are 10cm long or more are almost entirely plastic with nothing in the majority of their length.

tempus_fugit

Tarambor wrote: »

Coincidentally I happened to watch something on Youtube this morning. Screwfix do a wifi range extender which is built into a double mains socket so all you do is replace a double wall socket with this one, connect to it via Wifi, open your browser to log on and set it up and you're good to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eE6sWaMEKs

Couldn't watch that for more than about ten seconds. Very grating.

System

tempus_fugit wrote: »

Couldn't watch that for more than about ten seconds. Very grating.

Your loss. It shows the process involved in fitting one and setting it up. Sure its an over enthusiastic kid making the video setting one up but that kid happens to have managed to make a living and even buy his own house doing networking installs and in particular wireless networking operating installs operating over distances of miles.

arciere

Tarambor wrote: »

Your loss. It shows the process involved in fitting one and setting it up. Sure its an over enthusiastic kid making the video setting one up but that kid happens to have managed to make a living and even buy his own house doing networking installs and in particular wireless networking operating installs operating over distances of miles.

Still, a WiFi extender should be your last option, it's much less reliable than alternatives.

Linton

arciere wrote: »

That's not correct. WiFi extenders or repeaters take the WiFi signal that they can detect where they are and replicate it to increase the coverage area. There are several reasons why this is far from ideal:
- The signal they repeat is the signal they are able to capture. You install a repeater halfway between the original access point and your end device. Say you get 40% of signal. That's 40% of what the repeater gets from its location, which may be another 40% of the original signal. So even if you see 40% on your laptop, you are actually getting much less.
- If the main wireless access point stops working for whatever reason, your repeater won't work.
- If you make any changes to your WiFi settings (SSID, change router or access point, etc), you need to reconfigure the repeater.

Your statements may be correct. Ideal obviously is hardwired ethernet. However in its absence my real-life experience is that the extenders do the job much better than Powerline. The reduction in speed is minimal - perhaps 1-2 Mb/sec out of 50-60. The ping figure is the same. In my case I am purely concerned with access to broadband, so if the main router is down it does not matter what happens to the wifi.


Why would you want to change the SSID, the router etc any more often than once every few years? To reconfigure the access points is a minute's work at most. Hardly a deal-breaker.