They also allow you to move the individual units around your home, steering a WiFi signal around obstacles. And that’s in an ideal world, where the WiFi signal from the router hasn’t been degraded by obstacles such as thick walls and large appliances.īy contrast, mesh routers use two different frequency bands, which limits the speed loss to roughly 10 percent. “They repeat the signal on the same frequency to extend coverage.”īecause the signal is now going through an intermediate step, the speed-or throughput-is cut in half.įor example, if you’re standing right next to your WiFi router (where the signal is strongest) and get 50 megabits per second (fast enough to stream two 4K Netflix videos at once), the speed in your extended network will be about 25 megabits per second. “In the radio frequency world, they’re called repeaters, but in WiFi they’re called extenders,” says Henry Parra, who leads CR’s testing for smartphones and wireless routers. That’s in part because an extender relies on the same frequency band as the router itself. The extender can then pick up the WiFi signal from your router and push it deeper into your home.īut you’re likely to notice a significant drop in throughput speeds in the “extended” network. To get the best results, you have to plug the extender into a power outlet midway between your router and the dead-zone area. While it’s tempting to think of a WiFi range extender as a device that can beam fast, reliable WiFi throughout your home, it’s more like a spot-fix for the dead zone in your bedroom or attic-turned-home office. While WiFi extenders can increase the range of your wireless network, their effectiveness is limited by a host of factors, including the speed of the internet connection coming into your home, the distance from your router, the areas in your home in need of WiFi coverage, and the WiFi demands of your family. The prices ranged from $20 to more than $200, which is a bigger gap than the last time we looked at these devices. With all of that in mind, we set out to see just how effective a low-cost WiFi extender can be in improving coverage. Following up on testing done in 2020, we recently evaluated seven popular models from Linksys, Netgear, and TP-Link, companies that also make some of the highest-scoring routers in our ratings (available to CR members). You’ll pay even more if you want cutting-edge features like WiFi 6E. The problem is that a good mesh router setup starts at around $150. Those have two or three units that work together to spread WiFi more evenly throughout your home. In some cases, according to our testing, a mesh router system may be a better solution.

Best home wifi signal booster