Wifi Signal Booster

[Simon Bags]

Morning everyone, hope you're all good.

We've replaced our Virgin Media hub router box thing, as recommended and sent to us, and it's rubbish. I can no longer pick up wifi in the main bedroom upstairs which mean no laptop, no mobile phone and worst of all the V6 box doesn't work with all it's features. The last box managed all of this no problem.

Guess I'm looking for a wifi signal booster, a plug in the wall unit, can anyone recommend one please? I think I've found what seems to be the best seller, about £36. Do these things work?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

SImon.

PS, I've also posted this in the Computers, Gadgets section as unsure which was the best place, hope you don't mind?

[hepy]

We’ve been using a NETGEAR Wi-Fi Range Extender EX2700 . Works fine even on an Xbox. Was about £20 from Amazon.

Doddle to set up.

[Simon Bags]

hepy said:

We’ve been using a NETGEAR Wi-Fi Range Extender EX2700 . Works fine even on an Xbox. Was about £20 from Amazon.

Doddle to set up.

Thanks. That needs the internet cable plugged into it though doesn't it? I want one that I can plug into a wall socket, anywhere, and it will pick up the wifi signal, amplify it, and push the signal back out.

Like this, I think.

https://www.top10wifiboosters.com/gb/review/xtrabo...

[Louis Balfour]

Simon Bags said:

hepy said:

We’ve been using a NETGEAR Wi-Fi Range Extender EX2700 . Works fine even on an Xbox. Was about £20 from Amazon.

Doddle to set up.

Thanks. That needs the internet cable plugged into it though doesn't it? I want one that I can plug into a wall socket, anywhere, and it will pick up the wifi signal, amplify it, and push the signal back out.

Like this, I think.

https://www.top10wifiboosters.com/gb/review/xtrabo...

Are you feeling lucky?

We tried lots of extenders and they were universally a bit rubbish.

We used something like this for a while and it was OK but didn't cover the whole of Balfour Grange. https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerli...

We most recently got a TP Link Deco mesh system and, whilst it requires ongoing support by way of updates, it delivers fast wifi everywhere.

[Castrol for a knave]

We use a combination of wifi repeater and powerline with a powerline wifi repeater.

The first is the basic repeater - Linksys for £35 - it has 2.4 and 5 ghz and is ok for pushing a signal out in the garage

The wired I use for the music streamer and laptop - much more stable and faster - these are £39 if you get the following

BT Broadband Extender Flex 600 Powerline Adapter Kit - Twin Pack

The last is on the way, it's a powerline but with a wifi repeater, so it is again more stable and faster, but pushes the signal much further since it only needs a plug, not signal from the hub - our house has thick stone walls, so it covers the drop outs. .

[MrVert]

Have you tried Google Mesh?

We have an extender about 20m away from the main hub and it works well.

On Virgin, speed is really high, never less than 80 mb/s download & 4 mb/s upload and this is about 10m further away from the extender. Can use pS4 online racing without any problem.

After using loads of different extenders....I would recommend.

[Anthony Micallef]

I live in an old house with thick walls and struggled with the Wifi signal throughout the house. This was solved by buying this:

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/de...

Its very easy to install and is controlled by an App that you download to your phone (Surprise surprise!). I cant recommend it enough.

[LeoSayer]

I'm using BT Home Hub which is a mesh system. It cured wifi reception issues instantly.

I still have the original router which deals with the wired connection but I no longer need that for wifi so I switched that off.

[StescoG66]

Also with VM and generally pretty happy with them, but the standard wi if router really is bks.
I don’t live in a big house - typical uk 3 bed semi - router is upstairs as recommended but signal levels were at best erratic and fluctuated wildly by massive amounts.
I already had a long Ethernet cable run to downstairs, and it was a faff but worth it. Tried boosters and a basic mesh system with no real improvement. In the end, bought a.router, connected to the Ethernet cable downstairs and set the router up as an access point to the VM hub. No bother since
Increases the number of wired connections available too - my music streamer, tv and the TiVo box are all now wired connections and perform far better than before

[danf1983]

This is what i have and it works really well. Provides internet with approx 20Mb download speeds in our summer house which is about 140 metres from the main house.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-P9-Powerline-coverag...

Expensive but provides seamless roaming all around the house and garden.

[Deranged Rover]

I've tried a couple of those plug-in ones and they all seemed to be very flaky. Gave this a try instead and have been very pleased with it.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-13a-2-gang-sp-switc...

[UTH]

I had something like this in my last flat, it was pretty good: https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerli...

[LuS1fer]

My broadband speed is north of 105mbps but if I link to the plug-in wi-fi booster, it's 10 Mbps.

[andyc11]

Just installed the Amazon Eero mesh system. Had VM 350 and although a large house, poor connection and speeds. Bit of a faff to get the Eero up and running but the Sky Q box (through Ethernet) is now up to 220mb. Main advantage of the Eero (or any mesh system per se) is that you can extend. So now have 5 of them placed around various spots in the house, some using Ethernet and others not. Compared to the VM Hub alone, significant improvement in performance - having also wasted money on various crappy plug boosters.

Can be picked up on eBay at quite a bit less than Amazon.

[Richtea1970]

We had a rubbish wifi for years, and have probably tried every type of booster/router/homeplug combination with limited success.
Then I switched to the BT wholehome mesh system. I had to get 5 discs rather than the 3 that are recommended for a 4 bed property, but the signal is now flawless across the house, on the front drive and in the garden. The best by far. I've had it about 2/3 years and it has been faultless.
This was the 'full size' BT discs though, not the mini ones that they now do.

[Mikebentley]

Thread resurrection:

Having a home office outbuilding put 30 metres up the garden. Just tested WiFi from Sky Q router and I can watch You Tube at about 23 meters.

Any recommendations for a booster that works?

[clockworks]

I think you said in another post that you were getting a power cable laid underground as part of the works? If that's the case, just get a couple of ethernet cables laid at the same time, and fit a wifi access point in the new building.

[Richtea1970]

Richtea1970 said:

We had a rubbish wifi for years, and have probably tried every type of booster/router/homeplug combination with limited success.
Then I switched to the BT wholehome mesh system. I had to get 5 discs rather than the 3 that are recommended for a 4 bed property, but the signal is now flawless across the house, on the front drive and in the garden. The best by far. I've had it about 2/3 years and it has been faultless.
This was the 'full size' BT discs though, not the mini ones that they now do.

Almost 3 years on from this the BT wholehomes are still working perfectly, no problems at all. The difference now is that there are 3 of us now working from home and still strong stable signal for all.

[OutInTheShed]

clockworks said:

I think you said in another post that you were getting a power cable laid underground as part of the works? If that's the case, just get a couple of ethernet cables laid at the same time, and fit a wifi access point in the new building.

That would be my approach too, although FTTS (fibre to the shed) might be an aspiration?

A mate of mine uses powerline ethernet doofers to great effect.

A directional wifi antenna on a wifi extender in the house is another option.
Even an ordinary aerial located e.g. under the eaves might work well due to not having the loss of going through the wall or window.

[Lucid_AV]

Anything that picks up the existing Wi-Fi signal out of the air and then repeats it is going to result in halving the speed. This is why having an Ethernet cable connected to an extender, or using powerline adapters, are better options. The best choice though is a straight Ethernet cable.