Learn me: Wi-Fi repeaters/range extenders

So I learned yesterday that if I hold my Samsung Galaxy tab 4 at a certain angle, it can pick up the Wi-Fi down in the car port. But it's only at a very specific angle, and my laptop can't find thesignal down there at all. My phone finding it depends on the wind, seriously. It's about 90 feet, a 12 inch block wall, and the walls of the carport from router to where I need to use it.

There are a huge range of repeaters as extenders available, and while I know what I think I want, I don't know if it will actually work right.

I want a dual channel, but one of the ones that just plugs into an outlet and is setup remotely. I think just putting it outside the block wall of the house would work, but if it could find the Wi-Fi from an outlet in the carport, that would work too.

Honestly, not concerned about security of the connection as much as I am strength of signal, even the cheap junk ones can pass more bandwidth through them than comcant provides I just need the range.

Netgear has a decent one, that's AC compatible, decently priced, and since I have a netgear router, should setup easily enough. It just doesn't have directional antennas, which isn't a deal breaker but would be nice. This one

I'm not against putting a weatherproof receiver on the car port roof and running it to another router, but that means buying multiple things and taking up multiple outlets.

I don't need to game down there, but YouTube, Pandora, and general web browsing while working on projects.

My phone works sure, I could just get a bigger data plan for my tablet, but laptop usage would be best. For screen size, and when the time comes tuning and logging.

The first rule of repeaters/range extenders is not to use them if you can run a wire from your current router to where you want to get wifi instead. A multi-AP roaming wireless network is much faster and more reliable.

If you must use a repeater, I recommend using a router that can run DD-WRT or preferably OpenWRT and setting it up yourself. It's much more flexible and fixable than the dedicated repeater boxes you can buy off the shelf.

If you have power, you can use power line network adapters to get an Ethernet port out in the carport. Then it is a matter of getting a router/access point in the carport.

In reply to Wxdude10:

I had considered this, but I didn't think it still existed. I was in love with the idea in the late 90s early 00s, but haven't heard anything about it since then.

I decided not to run a wire because "why would I need this?" when I did the electric run. It would also have meant going across the entire house through the stairs, some never used duct work, and a block wall just to get outside.

Solution found

Power line with an access point on the "far" side. Might actually get a couple receivers to help the signal in the house as well.

I could still be pushing it because there are 2 sub panels between the outlets, but I think as long as I don't use a power strip it will be alright. Maybe this link works

Easy (and probably cheapest) way: Run a wire and put a switch or router out there.

Lesser of the complicated ways: Two Ubiquiti Loco M5's or M2's with a Ubiquiti Airgateway at the remote station. M5
M2
AP

You'll also need power injectors as they are POE.

More complicated but cheaper way: Find a used router that will support DDWRT. I usually pay five bucks for them as thrift stores. Flash it and set it up as a repeater. You might have to add a Yagi antennae.

I've got a repeater/extender similar to the one you linked on the opposite side of the house from where the router is (and up a half floor, our house is a quad-level split) because the signal on that side of the house is lousy and there's no good way to centralize the router. I would have preferred a hard-line repeater/extender, but SWMBO hates having wires running all over the place and there was no way to run a line to there without tearing up walls and it wasn't worth that much effort.

The extender works great- the main purpose behind it was making it so SWMBO could sit on the back deck and work on her laptop when it's nice outside, and it's met that requirement very nicely. Honestly I think that the range on it is better than that of the main router, so half the time I just have my devices hooking up to the _ext network instead of the main one so it's not flipping between them when I get to the edge of the base network's range.

I recently bought an Amplifi HD and it works great. It comes with two 'mesh points' which are essentially range extenders. I bought a 3rd one for the garage. I now get nice strong wifi signals throughout the entire house with the router itself on the 3rd floor in a corner room, so not ideally located. Previous routers barely would get a signal down to the garage 2 floors down and not out to the dock, but now I get good signal in both places.

I read about Ubiquiti here and Amplifi is the same folks, just more of a product oriented towards home use. Anyway, just figured I'd post here in case someone else is looking for a new router.

T.J. wrote: I recently bought an Amplifi HD and it works great. It comes with two 'mesh points' which are essentially range extenders. I bought a 3rd one for the garage. I now get nice strong wifi signals throughout the entire house with the router itself on the 3rd floor in a corner room, so not ideally located. Previous routers barely would get a signal down to the garage 2 floors down and not out to the dock, but now I get good signal in both places. I read about Ubiquiti here and Amplifi is the same folks, just more of a product oriented towards home use. Anyway, just figured I'd post here in case someone else is looking for a new router.

It's pricey, but what I'm reading I really like.

The house I'm buying isn't particularly large at just under 2000 sq ft, but it's on a corner lot and kind of an odd shape, so I'm worried about my current nearly 3 year old router being on one end of the house and being able to get a good signal everywhere.

I Just bought 2 of these, to shoot internet 300ft.

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Nanobeam-Wireless-Bridge-NBE-M5-16/dp/B00K8OCW1S/

0 drop in internet speed. latency went up a smidge, but 40ms, so still good.

My wife and daughter were eating up all my cell data because the wifi was weak on the back half or our house (where bedrooms are).

Bought this to solve it. Works beautifully and setup was minutes. Now I have rollover data each month!

In reply to z31maniac:

Yeah, not the cheapest way to go. They designed the interface to be apple like in a lot of ways, but if you want to tinker, it seems most of the typical settings are available. I think my mother-in-law might be able to open the box and get it set up and have it working. I work from home and generally don't like being the IT department. I just want the internet to work and so far I am really happy with it.

My in-laws have a log home with all wood interior. It's pretty dense as far as Wifi is concerned. I've been playing with stronger antennas and a repeater, but I just can't get a good signal in their main room. Nothing but frustration so far, unfortunately. It's become obvious that the signal can't go through more than two walls without dropping almost out of sight, so I'd need to put a repeater in pretty much every second room.

This winter, I'm running a cable under the floor to a wired router in the main part of the house. This is because I'm tired of being the IT department and having to fix the repeater every time I go over there.

I've been rolling my own with cast off G N and AC routers and DD-WRT for 15 bucks a piece. The EM signature is probably why airlines have been diverted away from my house.

I've been running These Ethernet over Power plugs for about three years with no problems.

I have three of them on my network, one by the router and modem at the far end of the house, one downstairs by the solar panels' monitor connection and the final one is out in the garage with a free-to-me Netgear router-turned-access point.

I get great coverage all around most of property, and there's no discernable drop of speed for internet things out at the garage connection.

Edit: Didn't see you linked to something similar with integrated WAP. Looks cool. I'd be worried that my outlet wasn't in a good spot for connectivity, but for the price it's probably worth rolling the dice :) Unless you have a wireless router laying around like I did.

Cheap Extender I found this one cheap, I just need a temporary fix while I wait for me electrician to run a Ethernet cord up to the attic. Will this work? is there something cheaper?

My 2nd question does/will this effect the others internet. My daughters near the wireless and she has a zoom meeting and I am using the extender in the attic on a zoom meeting.

In reply to trigun7469 :

You're probably not going to find any that much cheaper than that. Presumably it would work for what you want. It shouldn't really affect the performance of others on the internet unless you're all using MASSIVE amounts of bandwidth- it wouldn't be much different than if you were both sitting next to the main wireless. If you have troubles doing that, then yes- you're likely to still have them. But assuming you've got a remotely decent connection it should be fine.

Since this is back up to the top, can we also discuss the Mesh WiFi systems? My router is far enough away from the shop that reliable WiFi is not an option. Running a wire is also not an option. 

This is the one I'm looking at. TP-Link Deco Mesh WiFi

Anything that is advertised as "mesh" usually has a dedicated radio for meshing with the other APs, which is as good as one can get without running a wire.  I'm not well researched on specific units to make a reccommendation, but some of the other TP-Link hardware I've used worked pretty well.

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

Since this is back up to the top, can we also discuss the Mesh WiFi systems? My router is far enough away from the shop that reliable WiFi is not an option. Running a wire is also not an option. 

This is the one I'm looking at. TP-Link Deco Mesh WiFi

Up thread about 3 years ago I was using TP-Link EoP units with a old router-turned-access-point in the garage.   That router finally died, and the service was a touch spotty in the kids rooms now that we're using them as home school spots.  I went with the Tp-Link Deco M9 Plus 3 pack from CostCo.  I'm not sure what the difference between the M9 (what I got) and the M5 (what you linked to).

Looking from the front of my house, I have one in the main hookup (1st floor back-left), one in the kids room (2nd floor upper right) and one out in the garage (far right).  Over all, I'm extremely happy with the equipment.  The connection is rock-solid, and much faster than my old EoP setup.   There is some bandwidth loss from the main unit to all the way out in the garage, but we're talking about pulling down 400 Mbps instead of the ~650 I get in the house.  Waaaayyyy more than is needed for streaming video/audio/gaming/etc.  I don't do a lot of file transfer from out there.

One thing to note is that as of now, all of the configuration is done via an app on your phone/tablet. There's no web interface.  This is a huge plus in that it's really fast to get setup. I mean, I had them all configured, secured, etc. in less than 20 minutes.  The downside is I don't have the level of diagnostic info I'm used to with DD-WRT, but I haven't really needed it yet.

So far, I'm completely satisifed with my purchase.

In reply to WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) :

I installed them two days ago. They are working perfectly. 

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

In reply to WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) :

I installed them two days ago. They are working perfectly.

Glad to hear it :)

Just a FYI the cheap extender I bought did not work, I am returning it.