New Style Wifi Repeater-Extender

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Rickles

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#318525 26-Jan-2025 16:37

For some years I've happily used an extender of the 'cheap' variety ... just plugs into wall power socket.

Friend is replacing his and found newer models look like a USB stick with a couple of antenna attached.

Has anyone used or assessed these newer repeater/extenders?

Jase2985

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#3336029 26-Jan-2025 18:42

don't use repeaters/extenders. Get a mesh system at the minimum or dedicated access points.

They are cheap as chips these days

richms

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#3336038 26-Jan-2025 19:13

Just means that they have less to put in it and don't have to worry about regional variants. Same crap without a power supply.

Just another way to make wireless and LAN performance tank and problems with cross device communications as you roam around between the repeater and the main network. Worse are people that try to cascade them and end up with a network that turns their fiber connection into something resembling broken DSL for speed and jitter.

Richard rich.ms

Mehrts

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#3336150 27-Jan-2025 10:47

Wifi extenders/repeaters that don't use mesh technology (dedicated wireless/wired backhaul) are probably the main reason for poor performing wifi setups in existence.

Sure they look like the signal strength is boosted, great! However what you don't see is the bottlenecked traffic throughput, not great.

If you know their downfalls and are happy to live with them, then they're ok. But there are much better options out there that are pretty cheap these days.

The ultimate option for extending wifi range is to use hard-wired access points placed strategically throughout the environment for best reception from client devices. The next best thing is a mesh system that uses a different radio frequency for background traffic paths than the wifi signal itself.

wellygary

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#3336152 27-Jan-2025 11:02

Another vote for "just don't"

- while they might get you out of a coverage hole, your overall network performance suffers,

BarTender

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#3336157 27-Jan-2025 11:24

Even the fabled @sbiddle knows WiFi repeaters are rubbish.