WiFi Camera were "trained" to see the SSID of the router prior to installation. Cameras were installed and cables have been secured in the wall. Now, it has been determined that an extender is needed for the signal from the camera to reach the recording device. The extender was purchased and configured as per the instructions. However, none of the devices that are on the network prior to the addition of the extender "see" the extender since the extender has created two new networks with suffixs to the original network. Do I need to configure the extended as an "access point", and if so where are the instructions to doing this?
Model: WN2500RP|Universal Dual Band WiFi Range Extender
You can try to rename the network names on the extender to the main name even though it is not suggested to do it that way but if you are using it just for the cameras that may work.
I have several devices other than the cameras that are on the network - smart TV, iPad, smart phones, etc. The cameras are an addition to everything else that is on the network. Everything is connected directly to the router and all of the devices are close enough that the router reachs them. Two of the cameras are at the edge of the range of the router. The people at Best Buy recommended an extender in order to get good connection between the devices and the router. The best location for the extender was in the same room where several of the devices that use the WiFi are located. I had hoped that it would improve the connection for these devices which sometime is intermittant as well as the cameras.
Moving the extender closer to the router has no effect. The problem is that the extender is configuring two new SSID's each with the original SSID and an extension of ",2?ext" and ".5?ext". All of the devices that are currently on the network are configured for the original SSID, i.e. "ABCDE" with no extension. Since the new SSID's created by the extender are different than the SSID configured into each device, no connection is made to the extender. The extender has a connection to the router and most of the devices still have a connection directly to the router (not through the extender), but some of those connections are intermittent and not stable. Hence the need for the extender or some other device that will receive the signal from the router and repeat that signal with the SAME SSID.
