Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “DON’T Buy A Wi-Fi Range Extender!”.
So you’ve got a crappy Wi-Fi connection and it seems like an easy way to fix. The problem is to buy an inexpensive, Wi-Fi Range Extender. It seems to make sense right I mean the words range extender are in the name, so it seems like the perfect solution for watching YouTube videos, while sitting on the toilet in the basement, but wait. There are much better solutions for strengthening your Wi-Fi signal than range extenders, which generally kind of suck we’ll tell you why you shouldn’t buy them right after we thank our friend, Joel crane expert on all things Wi-Fi for helping us out with this episode. So the way Wi-Fi extender works is fairly straightforward. All it does is catch the signal from your existing router and then re-transmit it to far away devices right away.
You can probably see the first issue since it is picking up a signal. That’S already a little bit weak depending on where exactly you place the range extender it likely isn’t going to increase your speeds too much, but even if you have a relatively high quality extender and place it in an area where it’ll catch a reasonably strong signal. From your your router, there are some other serious downsides.
Some extenders will broadcast on a separate, SSID or network name. If this is the case, you have to manually switch your phone or laptop back and forth between the two networks. As you move around your house, your device won’t latch on to the stronger signal automatically. Unless you more or less completely lose the other signal.
You can configure it if you’re really a nerd and you have a really good router. But if that’s the case, you’re, probably not buying a range extender, other extenders allow you to change the SSID to be the exact same as your main Network. In this case, you might think your devices would just figure out if the signal from one router or the other is stronger and connect accordingly. However, there is a pretty major shortcoming in the Wi-Fi standard in general, once a device connects to a specific access point. It often very stubbornly will try to stay connected to that AP, even if there’s a stronger one available. So if you’re connected to your router at first and then walk away and get closer to your range extender, there’s a good chance.
Your device will just stay connected to the weaker router signal, defeating the whole purpose of the extender in the first place. Not to mention that pairing, a Wi-Fi Range Extender with a router that uses a different generation of Wi-Fi or has different number of antennas just makes the problem worse, which is a shame because it’s an easy mistake to make if you’re not closely, comparing the product specs. Okay, okay, I get it range, extenders are bad and I shouldn’t buy them. But what should you do about your terrible signal, we’ll give you some much better ideas after we thank nordsec for sponsoring today’s video, with more of our information being passed around the web.
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One straightforward way to fix your signal was to Simply get a more powerful router. More antennas and spatial streams is typically a good sign, but you’ll also want to read reviews and see just how far other folks have had their signals reach, while still being usable with the devices. Another good idea is to stop using the built-in Wireless on your off-the-shelf. Router and instead get a separate wireless access point. This is basically a little more than an antenna with a small amount of internal logic that connects to your main router via Ethernet cable, although they take a little bit more technical know-how to set up.
There are many prosumer models that have much better range than the typical consumer grade wireless router and you can even set up several of them around your house, so be aware that your devices may still not quite roam as intended. But if you don’t want to mess around with access points, a more consumer friendly option is to get a mesh router. These are expandable kits that you use by placing nodes around your house wherever you might need the most signal. Unlike repeaters, these nodes are specifically designed to work together by providing better roaming for your devices, so they’ll switch more intelligently and nicer. Mesh kits will even place the back haul or the traffic that flows between the nodes on an entirely different frequency. Freeing up bandwidth for your phones and computers so like with many things in life, you’ll have to pay a little more to get the quality.
You want like that. Two dollar up charge for guacamole worth it Olay, thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos, comment with video suggestions and don’t forget to subscribe and follow. .