Some models allow you to plug in an Ethernet cable and connect it back to your main router, which is the best possible option as long as your home allows for it.

You can alleviate some of this with a “tri-band” extender - like the Netgear EX7500 - which dedicates an antenna to communicate with your router (which is known as “backhaul”).

The extension of the signal takes a bite out of its speed, in other words. “You have signal where you need it, but it can be half (and sometimes less) the speed you think you have,” explains Dionicio.

And depending on the extender, the wireless signal solution comes with a few downsides: namely, the signal might be slower. Should you get a wireless range extender?Ĭompared with mesh Wi-Fi setups (which we’ll get to below), extenders are a bit more clunky to set up since they don’t integrate as seamlessly with the router. Instead, the extender just repeats the signal, acting as a middleman between your router and your computer, smartphone, TV, or whatever else you’ve got on your home network. “The router isn’t aware of the range extender.” “A range extender regenerates a signal from your router,” explains Rowell Dionicio, managing director of Packet6 and a Certified Wireless Networking Expert.

You’ve probably heard of range extenders before: they’re those little plug-in devices that help broaden - or extend - the coverage of your home network. Shopping How to buy an indoor plant - and keep it alive What is a Wi-Fi range extender?

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