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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk m1 (MR1100) extending range of wifi
I know the Nighthawk m1 is a mobile hotspot but I would like to leave it centred in the house with ethernet to my AppleTV. Problem is the range is not as great as the Telstra salesperson led me to be...
That is very helpful indeed, UK. I will let you know what worked in the case I have - a friend with 2 x MR1100, and so 2 wifi networks that still fail to cover the entire home. That is quite an invetment in gear that is not really designed for the home set up but he is keen to make it work. We shall see.
You're welcome Umberto2. The investment I made was very low - the unmanaged switch was £13 and the 2 second-hand routers that I converted to access points were purchased on ebay. The total cost was about £25 or about $33 at current rates. When you only have to pay this sort of money, it makes experimentation more acceptable - if it doesn't work out, there's no great loss :smileywink:
Umberto2: I forgot to mention that the MR1100 has a relatively limited WiFi signal range, even when the range is set to Long in its settings. This is understandable because of its size and hence small internal WiFi antennas - its primary function is a mobile hotspot not a high-strength household router.
If I had 2 MR1100s like your friend, I would use one of them purely as a mobile hotspot and have the other one set up as a fixed household router, running without battery on an upgraded QC 2.0 or QC 3.0 mains charger (not the supplied 2A charger), connected to a switch and access points as I explained in my previous post. This would also have the advantage of allowing your friend to have 2 MR1100 batteries for his mobile unit - it seems that replacements for these batteries are hard to obtain.
In my case, I've kept the MR1100 dual band WiFi active in my fixed configuration to give a small boost between the 2 access points, but you could even switch off the WiFi on the MR1100 to avoid crowding the frequencies. When I need to use my MR1100 as a mobile hotspot, I have to disconnect my 2 external antenna connections, the Ethernet cable and the USB C power cable, which is a bit of a hassle due to the location of the MR1100. The luxury of having 2 MR1100 units would avoid this :smileywink:
I thought you might like to know the outcome, UK. Along the lines you suggested I connected the first MR1100 [M1] to a TP-Link N300 wireless range extender I had in my kit. That was enough to extend one wifi network to cover most of the house using the 2.4Ghz band. M2 is in the den just out of range of M1, connected to a Netgear ethernet switch that also connects a Foxtel STB and Apple TV, and though I have not switched off its wifi, M2 is now functionally a modem. It all worked well in tests today. We shall see how the setup works when the family all connect at once.
Thanks for letting me know how you solved your range issues. I must say that I was always under the impression that WiFi extenders caused slower internet access because there is some added communication back and forth between the router and the extender. However, this video appears to disprove that misconception.
Good luck with your testing.