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Forum Discussion
AC750 Wi-Fi Range Extender
I have tried an extender before locating it (in the 2nd floor piano room) ~1/2 way between our modem/router which is in our office on the 1st floor at the N end of the house and the kitchen on the 2nd floor at the S end of the house.
There were 2 problems at the time: the reception at the kitchen was not appreciably improved and the Roku boxes got confused.
A third potential problem comes from a review posting on the Costco page--the person said that you had to physically change your device's connection to whichever extender/modem-router you were in the vicinity of since the extenders use a different band? I thought that the iPhone and iPad, as long as a device was programmed into the device, automatically picked the stronger sending signal(?).
I realize all situations are different but if someone has some + information I'd be glad to hear it. Although I can return the extenders if they do not work out, I'd rather not go through the trouble if I know I'll be having problems/trouble ahead of time.
Mark
3 Replies
The best solution is, purchase a router that is capable of running in Access Point mode. Run Ethernet cable your Base Router and the Access Point. If running an Ethernet cable isn't a option, your can purchase powerline products to provide connectivity between a base router and Access Point.
2 things--
My modem/router is the only one I can use--it's an Adaptec branded by Century Link and apparently needed to interpret their DSL line. However, it appears you're leaving it alone and connecting a second router to it. The Ethernet is out of the question--there's zero way to run the cable hidden.
Although I have no idea what Access Point mode is, I think you're intending to use the second router in that mode 'as the extender' in the piano room that's midway?
I used powerline product before WiFi. If I remember correctly they were not really acceptible then for productive use and that would mean even less so for today's computers/smartphones due to the powerline device's lack of speed. I think at the time they were running a max of 10 Mbps.
Regarding the third problem, an iPhone or iPad will automatically switch to a stronger signal, but only after the current signal has degraded sufficiently. You can read more about it here.
If the current signal hasn't degraded enough, the device will stick with the current signal, even if it is slower. This can be a problem when a device is in range of two networks. My iPhone will often select my 2.4 GHz network even though my 5 GHz network is much faster. My theory is that when I get home from work, my phone picks up the 2.4 GHz network first (due to the longer range) and locks onto that. I've had to resort to forgetting the 2.4 GHz network on my phone and sticking exclusively with 5 GHz. It's too bad there is no way to control the roaming aggressiveness on iOS.
Note, this problem is not specific to switching between 2.4 and 5 GHz networks. It can occur between two 2.4 GHz or two 5 GHz networks, which is exactly what you have when using an extender or Access Point (AP). That doesn't mean an extender or AP is necessarily bad. It's just something to be mindful of. You may expect a device to automatically switch to the strongest network while walking through the house, but that may not always happen.
