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 idea. We'll tell you why in this video.

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[mostlypostie]

One good use for a range extender: many of them have a fixed ethernet port on the range extender, so if you need to "wifi enable" a device that only has an Ethernet port, these can work great! (Not all range extenders have an ethernet port). Think of this as a wireless ethernet cable, rather than a range extender.

[kamX-rzuy]

I used a cheap extender so my mother-in-law's doorbell camera could connect. As many others have commented, extenders can be a very cost effective way to extend wifi to stationary devices.

[mister]

I’m not in the basement but I am watching this on the Toilet

[catdsnny]

Bad advice. Basically you are saying dont buy a range extender and just buy a router and plug it into your network via cable. The WHOLE POINT of a range extender is that you don't have wired access in that location.

[uaeelectronics]

Use them as a bridged mode and you will be surprised.
You can wire a 2nd router to the extender and disable the radios on the extender to use them in a bridge mode.
The Dlink DAP 1860 is a champion which is one of the only 4x4 range extender that can get you speeds close to 650 Mbps+ even if the router is a bit far. Works really well with Netgear routers

[SuperSmashDolls]

Fun fact: ASUS's range extenders can actually be reconfigured to work as mesh nodes with other ASUS routers if you update them to AiMesh firmware.

[Tomixx]

as some other comments say, I too disagree. Couldnt move my parents router from the corner it was in, got a range extender and placed it in the center of the house, now everywhere they get wifi and no need to switch what the devices connect to. its just a matter of what your situation is and whether it will be useful to you.

[hamcillus]

“Don’t buy range extenders just throw out your router and buy a new one”
“Buy lots of access points you can run Ethernet to” great advice if I wanted to throw hundreds of dollars at my network I would just pay someone to run Ethernet to all my Ethernet capable devices instead.

[simonbucci]

"hey guys just drill holes through your house and use CAT cables it makes the wifi better lol"

[scotttimmsen]

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.

[DarkReturns]

Just started the vid, but a wifi extender was the cheapest way to get the wifi to extend to the bedroom. Works like a charm. Curious as to why we shouldn't buy them lol...

Edit: just finished the video and I have a few issues with your conclusions. The downsides of different access points and roaming are understandable for mobile devices, but a total non issue of you just want your computer or console online in a far room. I've also never had a signal strength issue with my extender either, it just works.
I did my research years ago when I bought it, and I also concluded that a mesh wifi system definitely would be the best way to go. Those however can cost $500 to well over $1000. My wifi extender cost me $40-$50 and completely solved the issue.
So in the end it depends on what you need your extender to do and what is your budget. If u just want your stationary device online in a room with poor reception a wifi extender is the way to go imo. Unless you just have money like that lol

[stonetheforbidden]

Agreed that extenders are pretty bad for, well, extending your wifi. However, one overlooked use is to use them as a bridge. They can be useful if you want to wire up a security camera, for example, without routing ether net all the way to your main router.

[hubert]

Well, a range extender actually worked beautifully in my case. I had big problems connecting from the router to a computer in the most far away room on the second floor - understandably, the signal had to pass the floor and a thick wall diagonally. And it was impacting my remote work. However, I put an extender in the room right above the router, and so the signal now only had to pass the floor straight on, and then on the second floor only thin divider walls between these rooms. Suddenly, no disconnections and 10x speed. Depends on your use case it seems, I wouldn't want to thread a new ethernet cable for one room for sure.

[Vlad-]

Those are a must have for me! I don't see them as "extenders" but sort of "Wifi to LAN converters/switches" As someone who loves FreeBSD (and always picks up laptops with no Wifi drivers) and old computers from the pre-Wireless era, those are life saviours. The reason is that those always have a couple of LAN ports too, so they can pick up the Wifi signal and output by the cable.

[Mikado]

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.

[zackzeed]

As other comments have already said, Mesh systems tend to be a bit pricy, and many people don't have the money to spend on those and rather go for cheaper options to extend their wifi.

[ShawnLoftinplus]

They're really good for IOT devices like sprinklers and garage openers that need internet connection but are far away from your router. The mesh systems are pretty expensive comparatively for a similar solution.

[misssrubie]

How did I know you were going to mention the mesh router? In some specific situations, a range extender is fine and even with a weak signal, you can still get the benefits needed. Like working around a structural barrier. Especially when you don’t need/want to “break the bank”. Though, I also can’t say these are bad solutions. Just not the only solutions.

[Mennenth]

Half way through; honestly this sounds like an issue that could be fixed on the phone itself, by allowing the user to set signal strength thresholds to automatically swap instead of it being hard coded to stubbornly stay connected.

Options for users to configure their device are really good. Unfortunately the market has decided "one size that works for the lowest common denominator only" is the only thing that should exist 😢

[uaeelectronics]

If you use the extenders as a bridge to avoid retransmission, it's 💯% worth it. Look for a 4x4 MU-MIMO extender. Dlink DAP 1860 and TPlink has few options.