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The wifi signal in our house is excellent in some rooms and rubbish in others. It seems that the strength of the internet is good but the router can't push it to all the rooms. I've been looking at signal boosters but as I'm not techy I don't want to spend money on rubbish. Does anyone have any experience of wifi boosters? What should I be looking for?
TP-Link powerline adaptors worked well for about 6 months before dying for no reason.
Make of that what you will.
That reminds me I need to send them back....
I had the same problem, so got some 3 of "Google GA00158-UK Wi-Fi Whole Home System" pricy but they work well and create a single wifi zone over the whole house. I just need to sort out my crappy internet speeds from Sky.
As above, TP-Link powerline adapters work well but tend to suck about 50% of your line speed. Not an issue if you've got a decent speed to start with. I use them to run a signal to the shed.
They use the electric wires in the house to run the signal.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-WPA4220T-KIT-Powerline-Broadband-Configuration/dp/B07N1HDMFR/ref=sr_1_3
I use the TP-Deco system in the house. Very good, boosts the signal with no bandwidth loss.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M5-Coverage-Replacement-Antivirus/dp/B071241G3R
it's come up here a few times and people have their own things that work. Try doing a google search for site:singletrackworld.com mesh wifi. For what it's worth I went for NetGear Orbi system and it's fab but there are other mesh systems as well. Have a look at the past threads
Same story here, went BT home mesh, 200 quid, it's brilliant.
Following.
TP powerlink doesn't work from downstairs to upstairs here (worked well in my flat before I moved) - but they could be faulty I guess.
Hoping for something less than £150!
Will also search the forums
Ta.
Si
Fritz! Repeater 3000
Price on Amazon from £119 to £175.
BT mesh is £119 for 2 discs, or £169 for 3. 2 should do most homes and you can add another later. I have a very long thin house, with my modem at one end, and the kids games room/home cinema at the other. Netflix streams there perfectly.
We’ve got an Orbi. It’s fantastic really, nothing negative to say about it. Managed to pick one up around Black Friday and it took all of 15mins to set up. Gone from no WiFi in half the house to gigabit everywhere. Added bonus is hardwiring in the PC and printer without needing to channel Ethernet through the walls. The PC connection is virtually as fast as plugging it into the original router (Ookla Speedtest).
I’m really chuffed with it.
Not cheap, and other Mesh systems may work as well, but it came highly recommended to me, and I’m highly recommending it back!
HTH
Think I'm into getting some of these. My TP-Link line extenders have become increasingly unreliable, so I'm sacking them
A sub 30 quid wifi repeater from the likes of netgear will do the job just fine if you only want to do a bit of Spotify, email and browsing in the other rooms.
Powerlink user here, but as we have a thick, granite wall splitting our long, thin house in two (which it turns out also splits the electric circuits), I'm only able to use the Powerlinks to cover one end of the house and the garage (for Zwift etc).
I've got a borrowed Wi-Fi repeater, which I'm using to try to boost the signal into the other half of the house, but it doesn't really work all that well.
I'm interested to hear how a Mesh system would overcome the barrier of the big wall, as surely it'll just block out the signal as before?
My next planning option is to run an ethernet cable down the outside of the house, to bridge around the wall. Anything else to consider?
I've just got the Tenda Nova MW6 - it's brilliant, easily pushing full strong signal to all rooms in my house, and i've only used 2 of the 3 nodes. Can be had for £100..
It's also pushing the signal about 40 meters down the garden to the cabin.
I'm another one with Orbi and a fan. Good bit of kit, very easy to set up, plus as an IT person, I can fiddle. Difference is enormous. No need to have physical cables anywhere in the house. I know it is not cheap and other Wi-Fi mesh solutions are available, but I spent a long time looking into this before spending the cash.
I’m interested to hear how a Mesh system would overcome the barrier of the big wall, as surely it’ll just block out the signal as before?
I live in a pre-1900 stone walled bungalow, there are 2 solid walls between the base unit of the BT system which is cabled into my virgin router, and mesh#2 in the kitchen. I then have mesh#3 at the far away end of the kitchen to connect out to the summer house. If it wasn't for the summer house, the 2 would cover fine.
signal between these walls is bob on.
The big advantage of mesh, for me, is that there is no drop in signal anywhere in the house, and it's all on one network, no .EXT to swap between.
I've just ordered the Deco 5, gets delivered tomorrow.
watching
BT Whole Home here. No problems, it just works. I've also added a wired one to our outbuilding where we have an office to give us wifi out there.
got the white bt discs. (the black ones only work with the bt router)
should have got them years ago. Brilliant.
I tried the TP link 2240s to get internet to my powered shed...couldn’t get them to work anywhere in the house, never mind the shed. I could connect to them, but got no internet (probably something I did wrong).
I’m now using a NetGear booster/repeater which worked within 5 mins of setting up.
we tried three google mesh. Long thin house, solid walls all the way through, and router at one end
the mesh worked, but according to the app was never happy. I couldn't justify it for the price.
Went back to a lot of TPlinks, and they're perfect - every room has one. Get speeds of 100gb every where, which is a drop from next to the router, but still good enough. Also means you can hardwire a lot of equipment. The only slight downside (?) is when the MiL phones on the VoIP; if you move rooms, there's a momentary drop of signal, which still confuses her.
Orbi. Main unit and two satellites. Expensive (even on a deal) but brilliant. Rock solid, very high performance, gigabit ethernet ports for printer, internet phones and NAS.
Tenda Mesh - good but didn't do it for us. House too spread out so needed loads and that cripples the BW. Gave ours away to someone on here!
Tenda Mesh here - much better than the wifi and powerline fudges used before.
I went with Tenda MW3.
Arrived today, simple to set up and do a great job.
Previously I was getting a download speed of 15 Mb/s max in the spare room, with the Tenda Mesh system I'm getting 58Mb/s plus. Very impressed.
Only needed the 2 pack which was just under £50, but the three pack is only about a tenner more.
Obviously I can't comment on longevity yet.
I got them from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07CTH2RPZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Got those Deco 5's (3 pack) today, installed in minutes. Changed them from their default 'router' mode to AP.
Has made a big difference. I hadn't realised how slow my Meraki AP was, was fun deleting it from the management page a bit later. Lots of coverage now.
I would not recommend you for wifi boosters, as it is a scam, just try another router as your present router is not compatible
Well, to follow up on my previous question, I ended up getting a Deco 9+ mesh system. Set it up very quickly last night, after disconnecting various generations of powerlines, Apple Time Capsules, Airport Express and wi-fi boosters (if nothing else, my electric bill should be lower!)
The main thing it has definitely managed to do is bridge across the 1m thick separating wall. Tested at the furthest end of the house, I'm now getting between 70-90MB/s download, whereas we were getting 2-3 before and quite often nothing.
So, many thanks for the advice and pointers!