TP Link 300Mbps Wifi Extender - £16.49

Davy

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AHXXJVW - £16.49

Today only, deal of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpULi2wBjz4

same ol sh1te

Davy wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AHXXJVW - £16.49

Today only, deal of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpULi2wBjz4

You are aware of the drawbacks of using a wifi extender or repeater on your network? They're never a good idea. Wireless is half duplex, unlike a cable it cannot send and receive traffic at the same time, either one direction or the other. Adding a wireless repeater halves the throughput of your wireless network. Better off to run a cable or use homeplugs to get a connection to the area and then adding an access point on another channel your original

The Ayatolla

£16.90 to Ireland inc VAT.

Greenmachine

same ol sh1te wrote: »

You are aware of the drawbacks of using a wifi extender or repeater on your network? They're never a good idea. Wireless is half duplex, unlike a cable it cannot send and receive traffic at the same time, either one direction or the other. Adding a wireless repeater halves the throughput of your wireless network. Better off to run a cable or use homeplugs to get a connection to the area and then adding an access point on another channel your original

Don't these plug in one not use you electric cable. One plug connected directly to the router and the other plugged in an area where a stronger signal is need which can also use a wired connection from the plugged unit.

carrotcake

I got one of these last year (same model), and it works great. The router is downstairs, and some of the rooms upstairs had very weak or no reception when the doors were closed. Now with the range extender plugged in on the landing, all of the upstairs rooms plus the attic have no problems with reception. Haven't noticed any issues with speed.

jamesd

Greenmachine wrote: »

Don't these plug in one not use you electric cable. One plug connected directly to the router and the other plugged in an area where a stronger signal is need which can also use a wired connection from the plugged unit.

No these just extend from the existing wifi.

Greenmachine

jamesd wrote: »

No these just extend from the existing wifi.

Image appears to show an rj45 connection. Is it a single box instead of a set. My understanding was that one was plugged into the wall next to the router connected by a Cat cable and then another box was placed in another room which could be connected by cable also if so desired.

What are the other alternative? Bridges? Anything else.

carrotcake

Greenmachine wrote: »

Image appears to show an rj45 connection. Is it a single box instead of a set. My understanding was that one was plugged into the wall next to the router connected by a Cat cable and then another box was placed in another room which could be connected by cable also if so desired.

What are the other alternative? Bridges? Anything else.

The RJ45 port is so that you can plug in something that doesn't have WiFi.

There's no set. You connect the extender to the existing WiFi network in the same way that you would with a computer. (Or, if your router supports it, WPS.) You can see more details in the OP's link.

same ol sh1te

Greenmachine wrote: »

Don't these plug in one not use you electric cable. One plug connected directly to the router and the other plugged in an area where a stronger signal is need which can also use a wired connection from the plugged unit.

No, it is not a homeplug, it's a standalone single unit that uses the same wireless frequency to link to your original wireless router as it does to connect your end devices. Now note I posted earlier about wireless only transmitting in one direction at a time (only one frequency) and you will understand that this is not the ideal situation where everyone is upgrading from 'G' to newer wireless 'N' and 'AC' standards to get more throughput, this cuts throughput in half just by being there.

Repeaters are never a good idea, it's best to link to another device by some other method, not wireless, then you can add another wireless access point that will run at full speed on another frequency (different channel)

Edit: I see mentioned you can use it a wireless bridge with the Ethernet port, this wouldn't that bad as long as you're receiving and not re-transmitting on the same frequency (repeating). That is if the software allows bridging without repeating

vibe666

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Repeaters are never a good idea, it's best to link to another device by some other method, not wireless, then you can add another wireless access point that will run at full speed on another frequency (different channel)

there is absolutely nothing wrong with a repeater if all you want to do is extend your wifi to another part of your house so you can surf the net in a wifi dead spot without the hassle of running cables, and all for 20 quid and less than 5 minutes setting it up.

even if you're only realistically getting a real world throughput of a 3rd of that (supposed) 300Mbps and then only at half duplex it's still going to be significantly faster than a lot of peoples internet connections so it's plenty good enough for a lot of uses.

same ol sh1te

vibe666 wrote: »

there is absolutely nothing wrong with a repeater if all you want to do is extend your wifi to another part of your house so you can surf the net in a wifi dead spot without the hassle of running cables, and all for 20 quid and less than 5 minutes setting it up.

even if you're only realistically getting a real world throughput of a 3rd of that (supposed) 300Mbps and then only at half duplex it's still going to be significantly faster than a lot of peoples internet connections so it's plenty good enough for a lot of uses.

Agreed, as long as people are aware of the drawbacks of adding one. The nets & comms and wireless forums get continuous threads about wireless speed issues, everyone wants theirs as fast as possible. People aren't aware that wireless speeds are completely optimistic, if you get quarter the speed a device is rated for you are doing very well, and that's without introducing other device talking at the same time. As I said homeplugs with an access point are a much better solution.

Alanstrainor

Cheers for the BA. Might order one for home to get better WiFi in the front of my house.

Also, for people who need more of a home plug fix, these are a good price for a bricks and mortar shop:

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/1914102/Trail/searchtext%3ELINKSYS.htm

Bought a set yesterday. Have yet to test it tho, hopefully I'll set it up this evening and I'll report back here with my opinions!

slave1

same ol sh1te wrote: »

You are aware of the drawbacks of using a wifi extender or repeater on your network? They're never a good idea. Wireless is half duplex, unlike a cable it cannot send and receive traffic at the same time, either one direction or the other. Adding a wireless repeater halves the throughput of your wireless network. Better off to run a cable or use homeplugs to get a connection to the area and then adding an access point on another channel your original

Jibberish, put one in earlier in the year and no drop in wireless connection speeds

same ol sh1te

slave1 wrote: »

Jibberish, put one in earlier in the year and no drop in wireless connection speeds

What, the laws of physics are jibberish?

I suggest you read up on the science of them, you half the speed of your network. Of course if you have a very slow link to the internet you will not feel it as much but some folks in the cities have connections of 50-200mbit. As vibe666 said they are fine for general browsing but for high rate downloading/file transfer/streaming you are better off with a different solution like the homeplug one Alanstrainor posted

Marhay70

I wouldn't write off the extender, I have both an extender and power line adapters and both serve a purpose for me.
My router is upstairs and my extender is downstairs because both the media centre and TV box I have are WiFi only, so I would have to install a wired repeater or reconfigured wifi router downstairs to use them. The power line adapter is used for a second desktop upstairs.

arikv

Davy wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AHXXJVW - £16.49

Today only, deal of the day.

Seems great for providing Wifi in blackspots.
Ethernet port only supports 100MBPS and not Gigabit so streaming HD over Wired connection would be a challange and would probably buffer a lot if streamer only have Wired conenction.

Would suit 90% of users.

Phantom99

I have fairly slow O2 mobile broadband. It works best in one of the rooms at the top and front of the house.

It is quite poor in the kitchen/back of the house.

Should this extend this throughout the house for me if I plug it into a kitchen socket?

MaceFace

fwiw:

Wired connection to my router - best quality (by far) - 85Mbps
Wireless connection to router (within 5 feet) - 70Mbps
Wireless connection to wifi extender (within 5 feet) - 50 Mbps
Wireless connection to wifi extender (15 feet) - 27Mbps
Wireless connection to router (40 feet) - 21Mbps
Homeplugs - 17Mbps

Problem with homeplugs is it depends on the electrics in your house.

With the wifi extender (in my situation), I can browse throughout the house, watch netflix (HD works no problem).

sneachtaman

Thanks - great value. Just what I need. Very poor wifi in house. Cant get any upstairs in the bedrooms at all. Seen some very like these a few weeks ago in hardly normal, and they were about €70

Bargain

same ol sh1te

MaceFace wrote: »

fwiw:

Wired connection to my router - best quality (by far) - 85Mbps
Wireless connection to router (within 5 feet) - 70Mbps
Wireless connection to wifi extender (within 5 feet) - 50 Mbps
Wireless connection to wifi extender (15 feet) - 27Mbps
Wireless connection to router (40 feet) - 21Mbps
Homeplugs - 17Mbps

Problem with homeplugs is it depends on the electrics in your house.

With the wifi extender (in my situation), I can browse throughout the house, watch netflix (HD works no problem).

You're testing a single device, introduce another wireless device streaming a HD YouTube video or a media player streaming a HD movie from a network drive at the same time and see how it goes. This is the situation in people's homes with multiple users and the reason why people are upgrading to faster wireless devices as our bandwidth needs are exploding

Agreed, homeplugs don't work in every situation, depends on the electrical cabling. You'd be better off running a cable.

I have a 1080p encode of The Dark Knight that uses 35mbit when streaming from my nas to my media player

vibe666

arikv wrote: »

Seems great for providing Wifi in blackspots.
Ethernet port only supports 100MBPS and not Gigabit so streaming HD over Wired connection would be a challange and would probably buffer a lot if streamer only have Wired conenction.

Would suit 90% of users.

it's 300Mbps wireless, which realistically is never going to give you a sustained transfer of more than about 100Mbps. Since any wired ethernet device you plug into that port on the bottom is only going to be transmitting over that wireless connection back to your router, a gigabit ethernet port would be pointless.

The Ayatolla

Not everyone needs HD devices streaming constantly. I've bought one of these, a cheap solution to bring faster Facebook browsing to the 3rd story of a house. Happy days.

Slipshaney

great bargain - thanks OP

Citizenpain

i have this ... great device but had a bit of trouble setting it up -- needed to connect directly to Router to pair it as WPS option didnt work ..

The Ayatolla

What happens after the setup? Would you have two wifi networks in the house with two different WPA keys?

eg; eircom1234_5678 & TP_Link_Wifi ?

MBSnr

The Ayatolla wrote: »

What happens after the setup? Would you have two wifi networks in the house with two different WPA keys?

eg; eircom1234_5678 & TP_Link_Wifi ?

No - it just repeats your own wifi SSID (name) but on another channel freq. As you walk about your device will transfer to the strongest access point (wifi) seamlessly. So if near the router connecting to that but as you move away it will jump and connect to the extender.

CL7

Bought two for my parent's house. Cheers OP.

The Ayatolla

MBSnr wrote: »

No - it just repeats your own wifi SSID (name) but on another channel freq. As you walk about your device will transfer to the strongest access point (wifi) seamlessly. So if near the router connecting to that but as you move away it will jump and connect to the extender.

Perfection!

ThisRegard

MBSnr wrote: »

As you walk about your device will transfer to the strongest access point (wifi) seamlessly. So if near the router connecting to that but as you move away it will jump and connect to the extender.

If you have an android device that won't happen, it's a flaw in android as I think android also looks at the BSSID which will be different event if the SSID is the same, something like that anyway. You'll need a 3rd party app to do that for you.

MBSnr

ThisRegard wrote: »

If you have an android device that won't happen, it's a flaw in android as I think android also looks at the BSSID which will be different event if the SSID is the same, something like that anyway. You'll need a 3rd party app to do that for you.

You sure? I have 3 wifi APs at work on Ch 1 / Ch 6 / Ch 11 and as I walk about the building my phone re-authenticates with each.

I will admit it can take a few seconds for it to realise that there's another AP with the same SSID and password but that's a polling wifi issue I'd imagine. To say it doesn't work is incorrect in my experience.

same ol sh1te

MBSnr wrote: »

No - it just repeats your own wifi SSID (name) but on another channel freq. As you walk about your device will transfer to the strongest access point (wifi) seamlessly. So if near the router connecting to that but as you move away it will jump and connect to the extender.

Repeats on the same channel as it only has one radio

ThisRegard

MBSnr wrote: »

You sure? I have 3 wifi APs at work on Ch 1 / Ch 6 / Ch 11 and as I walk about the building my phone re-authenticates with each.

I will admit it can take a few seconds for it to realise that there's another AP with the same SSID and password but that's a polling wifi issue I'd imagine. To say it doesn't work is incorrect in my experience.

It's a bug that has been reported on the google forums, most recently here, https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/93GcQ8O75q8 and the the second post has a link to other similar bug reports.

There's a few apps on the store that 'fix' this issue. I'd be interested to see why your device switches. I have 3 android devices and neither will switch to the strongest signal on the same SSID.

MBSnr

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Repeats on the same channel as it only has one radio

You sure about that?
TP specs page lists the Frequency as 2.4~2.4835GHz which cover the Ch 1 to 14 range.

Ch 1 is 2.412 GHz
Ch 14 is 2.484 GHz

ThisRegard

But if it has only one radio, won't it need to use the same channel ?

same ol sh1te

MBSnr wrote: »

You sure about that?
TP specs page lists the Frequency as 2.4~2.4835GHz which cover the Ch 1 to 14 range.

Ch 1 is 2.412 GHz
Ch 14 is 2.484 GHz

That is the range of frequencies the radio in the device covers

MBSnr

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's a bug that has been reported on the google forums, most recently here, https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/93GcQ8O75q8 and the the second post has a link to other similar bug reports.

There's a few apps on the store that 'fix' this issue. I'd be interested to see why your device switches. I have 3 android devices and neither will switch to the strongest signal on the same SSID.

Base vanilla 4.2.1. Just tested there to be sure. As I walk away from Ch6 AP and towards the Ch11 one, the signal drops until one bar, then a 10 sec delay and refreshes to a full bars with a signal on Ch11.

Confirmed with WiFi Overview 360 as changing as well.

MBSnr

same ol sh1te wrote: »

That is the range of frequencies the radio in the device covers

Oh d'oh. Yes sorry I see now... I was thinking of an AP sent a LAN signal via RJ45 (which is what I was writing about above...). Of course this isn't as it uses the radio to communicate with the router......:eek:

same ol sh1te

ThisRegard wrote: »

But if it has only one radio, won't it need to use the same channel ?

Yes, which I already explained the drawbacks of. Make your own mind up based on your own needs

ThisRegard

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Yes, which I already explained the drawbacks of. Make your own mind up based on your own needs

It was an answer to MBSnr.

@MBSnr, I'm intrigued as it has been wildly reported as an issue as far back as android 2.1. I'm running on Jelly Bean and Kit Kat. Unless the signal drops completely, android will hang on to the death to the weaker one. Hence the plethora of fixes for it.

TP Link even acknowledge the issue and point towards such apps to resolve the issue
http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?faqid=592

same ol sh1te

I have the same issue in Android on both a Nexus 5 and 7. I use the best wifi app to keep connected to the strongest signal
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pintacdesign.bestwifi

ThisRegard

I use WiFi Roaming fix on all my devices and it does the job in the background without you even knowing it's there.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heleron.wifiroamingfix

I tried Best WiFi but preferred WiFi Roaming Fix, for reasons I can't remember anymore.

MBSnr

ThisRegard wrote: »

It was an answer to MBSnr.

@MBSnr, I'm intrigued as it has been wildly reported as an issue as far back as android 2.1. I'm running on Jelly Bean and Kit Kat. Unless the signal drops completely, android will hang on to the death to the weaker one. Hence the plethora of fixes for it.

TP Link even acknowledge the issue and point towards such apps to resolve the issue
http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?faqid=592

Well that's it then. My phone also has a slightly more limited wifi range compared to others, so thinking about it, it's dropping the weaker signal 1st.

Need to test with another phone.

EDIT: Just tested with a HTC M8 and again same as my Wiko Stairway - seamless switch from the Ch6 AP to the Ch 11 AP. The only thing I can say is the AP devices are Apple airport ones - perhaps that makes a difference....

same ol sh1te

MBSnr wrote: »

I can say is the AP devices are Apple airport ones - perhaps that makes a difference....

No, roaming is completely handled by the client device. It may be something that HTC have added their own fix for though

ThisRegard

same ol sh1te wrote: »

No, roaming is completely handled by the client device. It may be something that HTC have added their own fix for though

Probably something like that, I think Samsung released their own fix too.

NATLOR

Anyone buying make sure to bring your spend up to £25 to get free delivery as one its own postage is nearly £7

rocksolid

NATLOR wrote: »

Anyone buying make sure to bring your spend up to £25 to get free delivery as one its own postage is nearly £7

or you could work around trick and not pay postage at all and still only buy one, and im not talking about the old BT trick, or any thing illegal, just a system glitch i discovered and have used 3 times in the last 2 weeks and worked each time....

Tinie

NoelDoran wrote: »

or you could work around trick and not pay postage at all and still only buy one, and im not talking about the old BT trick, or any thing illegal, just a system glitch i discovered and have used 3 times in the last 2 weeks and worked each time....

Shhhh keep it to yourself. We don't want it being fixed by Amazon now do we !!


Can someone answer this please. I'm not 100% sure how this works. Does it take the broadband signal over electricity like a home plug and broad cast it in with its own SSID, or is it a extender basically?

NATLOR

NoelDoran wrote: »

or you could work around trick and not pay postage at all and still only buy one, and im not talking about the old BT trick, or any thing illegal, just a system glitch i discovered and have used 3 times in the last 2 weeks and worked each time....

Very informative...

sweetie

i'm guessing order another item to bring the total over £25 then cancel that item leaving you with free delivery on the homeplug...

Mantis Toboggan

Or you could ship it to parcel motel for free and get delivered to your depot of choice for 3.50

irishpancake

same ol sh1te wrote: »

I have the same issue in Android on both a Nexus 5 and 7. I use the best wifi app to keep connected to the strongest signal
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pintacdesign.bestwifi

Thanks for that mr. sh1te....:)

I have been wondering just what app to use, as I have an oldish Solwise homeplug AP with the same SSID, and it is a bugger, my phone or tablet hang on to whichever original sig, and there is no seemless roaming.

I will try that app, thanx.