R7800 as extender?

[perseid]

Hi all, I've been using the Nighthawk X4S R7800 as my main Wifi router but I replaced it with the RAXE500. I plan to use the R7800 to extend the range from the RAXE500  in areas of my house where signal is weak or null. I'm a bit confused as to all different modes: AP, Bridge, Extender. The idea is to have the R7800 in wireless mode (not cabled to the RAXE500), and to maintain the same SSID so that devices that connect wirelessly do so in smart roaming mode (automatically hop to the strongest signal router as I walk from one place to another). I'd appreciate your help so to achieve this, thanks

[FURRYe38]

The R7800 only supports Router, AP or Bridge(wireless client) modes. It doesn't support Extender mode.

[perseid]

Yes I read that Extender mode is not supported in the R7800. Will AP or Bridge mode work the way I described?

[plemans]

No. 

Ap mode it needs to be hardwired in. 

Bridge mode doesn't rebroadcast. Its designed to use the wireless as a "bridge" from router to router with the 2nd one being able to use its ethernet ports but not rebroadcast its wifi. 

You could always use it in ap mode and connect it using powerline or moca adapters if you didn't have an ethernet connection

There is some aftermarket firmware for the R7800 if you do a little googling that might have that capability. 

[michaelkenward]

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@perseid wrote:

Yes I read that Extender mode is not supported in the R7800. Will AP or Bridge mode work the way I described?

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Hard to know what you mean by "as described".

You said earlier:

The idea is to have the R7800 in wireless mode (not cabled to the RAXE500)

The R7800 clearly won't work in AP mode like that. AP mode = wired to the router.

The manual explains how to set up the R7800 in "bridge" mode.

Visit the support pages:

Support | NETGEAR

Feed in your model number and check the documentation for your hardware.

Check the section in the manual Use the Router in Bridge Mode

You also said:

to maintain the same SSID so that devices that connect wirelessly do so in smart roaming mode

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That might not be the best idea. With the same SSID and password, wifi clients could get confused.They will have to negotiate a switch between to wifi sources no matter what the SSID and password.

Genuine "smart roaming" requires cooperation between the main router and other wifi sources. That is what Mesh is designed to do.

By all means try your approach, but check to see that it is any better than having separate identities on the wifi sources.

[perseid]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have done some research. It seems that the only 3rd party firmwares for the R7800 are dd-wrt and OpenWrt and neither supports converting the R7800 into an Extender (Openwrt does it but not reliably). So the best I can do with the R7800 is using it as an independent AP wired to the LAN main router

[michaelkenward]

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@perseid wrote:

So the best I can do with the R7800 is using it as an independent AP wired to the LAN main router

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If you don't want to have the R7800 sitting next to the router, and don't want to string Ethernet cables all over the place, the Powerline plugs might be s substitute.

Powerline Ethernet

It turns the mains circuit into an Ethernet network. In the right circumstances it can deliver better performance than a wifi link.