WiFi Signal boosters?

My WiFi range from my modem sucks. I’ve never seen such a small range from a router before. Like 10 meters at best. Anything more it’s spotty.

Anyone have luck with signal boosters?

I’d check out mesh instead. It’s much more seemless.

Plus. You can have the modem set to bridge mode and buy your own routers and mesh if your house is big

You can’t really “boost the signal” as such. You need to set up another router working as a “relay station”. Fortunately these are cheap now. Your best bet would be to just plug a better router into your original modem with a cable (so that the modem is working just as a modem) and have them located in the same place. Even if you have a large apartment you should get good signal coverage like this.

You should login to your router to see if you can change the settings for the range.
Most wifi have a setting for that.

It doesn’t happen to be a CHT fiber to the home Alcatel Lucent I-040GW modem? Man, that WiFi sucks.

Either way, apart from the suggestion above (to not use the modem’s WiFi and instead using another router for just WiFi), there are indeed “range extenders” that do just what you imagine. In the yellow 3C shops for example you get this brand: http://www.totolink.net/sub/product/list.asp?code1=10

I’m using their cheap model EX200 with above mentioned shitty router.

Aren’t the days of extenders in the past? Today is “internet of things” just buy another
internet connected device or whatever and they all talk to each other and increase the distance.

I added a Chromecast to my back bedroom TV and that improved my Wi-Fi connectivity in the whole bedroom.

There is a wifi router with 2 satellite system at Costco called Orbi which I recently bought because the router I’ve had from CHT is frigging old and useless, cant even get past one floor. With the new system I’ve got the router on the 2nd floor, and with the 2 satellites I’ve got full wifi on 3rd floor , 2nd floor, 1st floor and basement now. Its a bit pricey at $9999, but my whole house has full wifi.

edit…the wifi even extends to out front of my house and into the street now.

I’ve been using the TPLink Deco M5 mesh system for a while now and I’m super happy with it. The three-node starter pack gives me good coverage all over my weird old house, and I’ve just ordered a fourth node for the roof. I particularly like that you can plug ethernet cable into the nodes to hook up things that don’t have their own WiFi, like my desktop and NAS.

1 Like

I got the extender from Xiaomi. Seems to work fine. The range isn’t amazing but my apartment is only 1500sqft. I wouldn’t use it if your place is bigger.

Anyone have the Google Wifi mesh? Where is a good place to pick it up in Taipei?

If you can wait, there is a Google event this Sunday.
Not sure if there will be something Mesh related. But there were some rumors they are making mesh router/home mini combination.

1 Like

Thanks for that - there’s nothing worse than getting in at the end of a product life cycle.

Assuming all that I want is WiFi (and having google microphones in my house doesn’t fill me with confidence), is there any reason to wait for Nest Wifi?

The other thing to wait for is support for WiFi 6. But his wait will be 1y+.
And only next generation of phones/laptops will actually use it.

https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-6

You can use a metal can, for example a beer can.