I have been trying to improve the WiFi coverage upstairs in my house.
I use my phone and tablet a lot upstairs. At night, I read using my tablet and check email, the weather, theG and other things in bed. In the morning, I check my mail, bank, weather and other things before I get up. And.........being of a certain age, I use both while spending more and more time on the throne (sorry about any images that may embed on your minds - I couldn't of any more polite way to say that)
While the coverage isn't bad, it needs improvement. With the phone, I find that using my 4G coverage is far faster than the WiFi. I average 200-300 emails overnight (99% spam) and it takes 3-4 times longer to load them with WiFi than 4G. Since I never come close to my 2G of data, using my 4G is ok. But my tablet is WiFi only so I suffer with that.
Its not like we are talking about any great distances. My bed is about 20 feet from the router as the crow flys but has a ceiling and bedroom wall to contend with. I don't know how the lath and plaster (and all the nails) affects performance. For the throne, it is about 20 feet also with a ceiling, two walls, a cast iron tub and copper plumbing lines in the way. The tub is definitely bad for it. I have to hold the phone or tablet away from it to improve the coverage.
I originally had a Netgear Wireless G router ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122016 ) that was fine downstairs but sucked upstairs.
I then switched to an Netgear AC router ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122466 ).
This improved things a bit but not as much as I wanted.
I looked at extenders but I couldn't use ones like this one
because I had no place to put it where it would be useful.
I needed to place it in my hall way halfway between the bedroom and bathroom but there was no place to put it.
Then I found this: NETGEAR WN1000RP-100NAS Wi-Fi Booster for Mobile ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122483 ) $39.99 with free shipping at newegg
It is about the size of cell phone charger and plugs directly into a wall outlet
so it is perfect for my hallway.
So I bought one and installed it yesterday. Express install was a piece of cake and now my WiFi coverage upstairs is great. I don't do any streaming but for my needs it works well.
THe adapter setup was easy and you just need to add the booster as another device on your WiFi with the same password you router. It automatically adds an SSID for the booster that is the same as your router with a _EXT on the end. It looks like you can use multiple boosters throughout your house.
The only downside I have seen so far is that to doesn't automatically switch to the closest WiFi device. Some brief googling leads me to believe that that is possible but for now, I just manually switch this.
I think that this was $40.00 well spent.
I use my phone and tablet a lot upstairs. At night, I read using my tablet and check email, the weather, theG and other things in bed. In the morning, I check my mail, bank, weather and other things before I get up. And.........being of a certain age, I use both while spending more and more time on the throne (sorry about any images that may embed on your minds - I couldn't of any more polite way to say that)
While the coverage isn't bad, it needs improvement. With the phone, I find that using my 4G coverage is far faster than the WiFi. I average 200-300 emails overnight (99% spam) and it takes 3-4 times longer to load them with WiFi than 4G. Since I never come close to my 2G of data, using my 4G is ok. But my tablet is WiFi only so I suffer with that.
Its not like we are talking about any great distances. My bed is about 20 feet from the router as the crow flys but has a ceiling and bedroom wall to contend with. I don't know how the lath and plaster (and all the nails) affects performance. For the throne, it is about 20 feet also with a ceiling, two walls, a cast iron tub and copper plumbing lines in the way. The tub is definitely bad for it. I have to hold the phone or tablet away from it to improve the coverage.
I originally had a Netgear Wireless G router ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122016 ) that was fine downstairs but sucked upstairs.
I then switched to an Netgear AC router ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122466 ).
This improved things a bit but not as much as I wanted.
I looked at extenders but I couldn't use ones like this one
because I had no place to put it where it would be useful.
I needed to place it in my hall way halfway between the bedroom and bathroom but there was no place to put it.
Then I found this: NETGEAR WN1000RP-100NAS Wi-Fi Booster for Mobile ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122483 ) $39.99 with free shipping at newegg
It is about the size of cell phone charger and plugs directly into a wall outlet
so it is perfect for my hallway.
So I bought one and installed it yesterday. Express install was a piece of cake and now my WiFi coverage upstairs is great. I don't do any streaming but for my needs it works well.
THe adapter setup was easy and you just need to add the booster as another device on your WiFi with the same password you router. It automatically adds an SSID for the booster that is the same as your router with a _EXT on the end. It looks like you can use multiple boosters throughout your house.
The only downside I have seen so far is that to doesn't automatically switch to the closest WiFi device. Some brief googling leads me to believe that that is possible but for now, I just manually switch this.
I think that this was $40.00 well spent.