Best Extender (EAX80 or EA8000) for use with XR700?
So, I bought an XR700 recently and added an EAX80 extender today. I was debating between this one or the EA8000 tri-band extender, and thought I would give this one a try.
After setup, I ran speed tests on the new device and found that I'm getting only half of the speed that I was getting from the XR700 directly. Speed tests from the XR700's 5GHz wifi were coming out around 320Mbs down, but the same 5GHz network through the EAX80 capped me at 150Mbs down.
Is this normal for an extender to cut down the speed like that, or is there some weird Wifi 6 mismatch going on with my non-Wifi 6 router? Would using the EA8000 instead fix this problelm?
Re: Best Extender (EAX80 or EA8000) for use with XR700?
You do get loss with wireless extenders unless you have a band reserved for backhaul. Normal extenders have to receive and then retransmit the data thats being processed. It reduces the bandwidth. the help for this is either a mesh system (not just mesh extender) or a triband extender as it uses one radio just for the backhaul.
For extenders the RBS50Y, RBS40V, and the ex8000 have this triband option for the backhaul. I've got an EX8000 with minimal loss and it works great.
I've never used the EAX80 so I'm not sure how it performs but its a wireless ax devices and the XR700 you have isn't wireless AX. Unless you plan on upgrading your router, I'm not sure how much of a benefit you'll get from the EAX80 versus the EX8000. the ex8000 probably performs better with its 3rd radio for backhaul but I can't say it for sure as I've only got the EX8000
Re: Best Extender (EAX80 or EA8000) for use with XR700?
That does make sense, thanks for the reply. I was wondering about how it would connect back to the router, and what affect that would have, but I didn't expect it to have the speed get cut down by 50%. I think I'll go pick up the tri-band extendeder today and try it out to see if there is any improvement. With luck, I'll see better speeds. I'll keep you posted.
