Whether you’re looking to boost the reach of your home network or hoping to get better WiFi reception at your favorite coffee shop, you can’t go wrong with the right wifi extender. The best wifi extenders will ensure that you’re getting fast and reliable internet wherever you are, but with so many different options on the market, it can be hard to find the one that works best for you. Use this guide to help you make the best choice possible!
What is a wifi extender?
A wifi extender, or wireless range extender, boosts your current network’s signal in order to improve your overall connectivity. If you can’t get a strong enough signal from your current router (or have too many walls getting in your way), investing in an extender could be your ticket for avoiding dropped calls and buffering videos. The good news is that these days there are plenty of affordable options on the market that you can use with just about any setup—whether it’s an older router or a mesh networking kit. And while they may all look alike, it’s important to remember that they don’t all work like one another. It’s crucial that you know exactly what features you need so you don’t end up wasting money on something you’re never going to use.
How do you choose a wifi extender?
WiFi extenders are small devices that you put near your router. As their name suggests, they extend your wireless signal, so you can connect more devices and enjoy more freedom of movement around your home. Before deciding on a particular product, you should consider what type of range extension you require, as well as whether there are any limitations to its power output. If speed is also important, take a look at how much data it can handle at once. Most importantly, make sure it’s compatible with your router! The most common problems when buying a wifi extender are not double-checking that it’s compatible with your existing hardware and getting the incorrect kind of coverage—getting an amplifier when all you need is a range extender!
What are the most important features of a wifi extender?
A wifi extender acts as a secondary router, re-broadcasting your wifi signal through different channels. This can be useful if you have lots of devices, are having problems with a cable provider or are just feeling overloaded by your internet usage in general. While it’s not an ideal option for everyone, if you find yourself regularly dealing with buffering on all those devices, it might be time to pick up an extender. But there’s one big question: which one should you get? Here are some of our recommendations
What should you know before making your choice?
The first thing you should do is decide where you want to put your extender. That way, you’ll know what type of coverage you need; if there’s an outlet near a window, for example, then a wifi extender that connects via Ethernet cables or via USB is a better choice than one that needs a Wi-Fi signal from another location. You also want to think about how many devices you want to connect: if it’s just your laptop and smartphone, then you don’t need anything fancy. If you plan on adding smart home devices such as thermostats and door locks, make sure they’re supported by your router and are compatible with whatever type of internet connection it uses.
Common mistakes when choosing a wifi extender
There are many factors that go into choosing a wifi extender, but there are a few mistakes we see time and time again. First of all, it’s important to note that most new routers include some kind of range extender technology (indicated by words like beamforming and mesh in their product descriptions). We recommend checking if your router has one of these features; you can usually find them on its packaging or online. One common mistake is buying an extender because your internet connection is slow in certain areas of your home—this may seem like an obvious fix, but keep in mind that wifi tends to be slower at range.
Conclusion
Before you buy a wifi extender, there are several things you should know. First of all, an extender will work best if your wireless router and modem are located in different rooms. So, if possible, relocate them—you may also have better luck with a range extender than one that is made for larger spaces like homes or offices. Secondly, it’s important to remember that a signal has speed limitations as well; while they can extend signal strength over long distances (and work well with weak signals), they won’t improve throughput speeds by much at all.
Pros & Cons
With any product, there are advantages and disadvantages. There are positives and negatives. You should know what they are when you’re looking into buying a product. This section of your guide will show both sides, why you might want an extender and why you might not want one. It will also look at different types of extenders as well as all of their benefits, drawbacks, and more. To be clear, I’m specifically talking about wifi extenders, not wifi repeaters or wireless access points (which are very different) but for simplicity’s sake, we’ll use extenders to refer to them all throughout our guide.
