Best Wi-Fi extender?

[MrSquished]

Looking for something for my mom who lives with my sister. It's a sort of mother daughter house and my mom is one level below my sister's family, so the wifi can dip in and out. Her what's App calls get disconnected often, she gets hiccups during tv streaming. Doing my usual research online but anytime have experience?

 

[lxskllr]

If you have an old router that can use 3rd party firmware, you should be able to do it with that.

 

[soulcougher73]

I use a mesh system in my house. Seems to work well.

https://www.amazon.com/Tenda-Nova-Whole-Home-System/dp/B07GNG6F5J

 

[sdifox]

Any reason you cannot drop a line?

 

[snoopy7548]

Pics of sister?

 

[Fritzo]

Have yet to find an extender that doesn't need to be rebooted every few days.

Been recommending mesh networks for the last several years. They just plain work and are very reliable. Google Wifi and Eero have been the best so far.

 

[JM Aggie08]

We have 3 of these throughout our house. You can centrally manage them through their Omada controller software -- push firmware updates, change configurations; it's super robust. They're excellent for devices that roam -- I'm in an area closer to another AP no more than 30 secs and I get switched over to it. I run the Omada software on my personal server, but you can purchase their cloud key device to run it as well. Highly recommend.

 

[ponyo]

I think you're better off going with mesh network. I use Google wifi and have recommended that to all my friends who live in 10,000+ sq ft mansions. They all love it because it's super easy to setup and just works.

 

[MrSquished]

I'll look into a mesh network solution, thanks. House is 3,200 sq feet, so it's not huge.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'll look into a mesh network solution, thanks. House is 3,200 sq feet, so it's not huge.

google WiFi is a semi mesh system and it is super easy to setup and has an app you can install to see if there are any problems. Been using mine for around a year and its been flawless. I have one and it covers 1200 sq foot house plus a bit into the yard. Basement has full coverage too, we have a ranch so I can’t comment on second floor coverage. You can have up to 3 of them linked up.

 

[Fritzo]

google WiFi is a semi mesh system and it is super easy to setup and has an app you can install to see if there are any problems. Been using mine for around a year and its been flawless. I have one and it covers 1200 sq foot house plus a bit into the yard. Basement has full coverage too, we have a ranch so I can’t comment on second floor coverage. You can have up to 3 of them linked up.

It actually supports up to 5 access points. You can technically add more but they only support 5.

 

[BudAshes]

It actually supports up to 5 access points. You can technically add more but they only support 5.

All the mesh setups are pretty good these days. I've used Eero, google, orbi and (for enterprise) ruckus. They are all easy to setup and work quite well. I have it setup across my mom's entire property using Eero (1.33 acres)and it works at 150+ Mb/s everywhere with maybe 15 minutes of setup. As mentioned before wireless extenders are outdated tech and tend to be unreliable.

 

[quikah]

I have an Eero + 1 beacon, ~1800 sqft 2 level house, no issues in the past 2 years. I tried using a pair of Asus routers before that and never quite got them working correctly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you have an old router that can use 3rd party firmware, you should be able to do it with that.

That's what I would do personally, and have done. The Asus RT-N12/D1 routers (and maybe their RT-300 B1 routers, which seem like they may be an updated model with the same hardware, unknown to me if they still take 3rd-party firmware), will run FreshTomato or AdvancedTomato. AdvancedTomato is a slightly older Tomato core build, but has a more advanced HTML 5 UI on top of it. Hopefully, perhaps, AdvancedTomato will build off of the FreshTomato builds.

Both of those 3rd-party firmwares can be set up as Repeaters, and even the stock AsusWRT factory firmware will, I think, do that as well, on these particular models (just not as well).

 

[Homerboy]

never had much real luck with extenders. Get good AP and it should take care of it. Something like a Ubiquiti Unifi AP-AC Long Range access point for $100. I installed one in my house and I can get a (weak) signal down the block.

 

[Kaido]

Have yet to find an extender that doesn't need to be rebooted every few days.

Been recommending mesh networks for the last several years. They just plain work and are very reliable. Google Wifi and Eero have been the best so far.

Same. I've installed a lot of Wifi Extenders over the years & they're all crap. I have an Orbi system & love it, but it's pricey. I recommend mesh networks these days. I usually setup TPlinks systems. $109 is enough to cover a mansion:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Deco-Whole-System-Plug/dp/B07RLHLXLC/

 

[Fritzo]

Same. I've installed a lot of Wifi Extenders over the years & they're all crap. I have an Orbi system & love it, but it's pricey. I recommend mesh networks these days. I usually setup TPlinks systems. $109 is enough to cover a mansion:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Deco-Whole-System-Plug/dp/B07RLHLXLC/

They all seem to work the same (admittedly I've had setup issues with Orbi-not linking APs. I think they changed their setup process since they first came out though). I have a 2500 3 floor home with a brick buttress in the middle, and 4 Google Nests give me enough coverage to get 4 bars at the end of my 2/3 acre backyard. Great for listening to music while cutting the grass. The software is self-updating as well, so that's nice.

One thing I do NOT like about Google's system is it's not accessible from a PC. You have to use the mobile able to configure and administer it.