Wireless Boosters and Wi-Fi Extenders

There are several ways to improve Wi-Fi speed and reliability throughout your home. You can buy a new router that uses the latest Wi-Fi standards and has better aerials, you can buy a heftier adapter for your computer or you could use a wired connection such as Ethernet or Powerline to extend the signal to hard to reach areas. By far the easiest option, though, is to get a range extender.

Jump straight to the product you're interested in or read more about how Wi-Fi extenders work, what you should look out for and how we tested them.

1. Netgear EX6200: 6/10
2. Asus RP-N53: 8/10
3. D-Link DAP-1320: 8/10
4. BT Dual-Band Wi-Fi Extender 600: 8/10
5. Linksys RE6500: 8/10
6. Zyxel WRE2205: 9/10

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Best Wi-Fi Extenders: What is a wireless booster?

As their name suggests, Wi-Fi extenders simply piggyback on your existing Wi-Fi connection and rebroadcast it so further away places can get a stronger signal. 

They won’t reach as far as wired connections and they won’t improve your overall network speed, but if you simply want to ensure the top floor of your house finally has some signal they’re a really easy option. Generally they’re cheaper and less hassle than any alternative.

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Most offer simple automated setup procedures, with them either connecting automatically using WPS or having their own open network to which you connect to then configure them through a browser. Generally you only need to know the SSID (the name) of your existing Wi-Fi and its password to get setup. 
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Best Wi-Fi Extenders: What to look out for

The main consideration with Wi-Fi extenders is what sort of Wi-Fi standard you need. Wi-Fi used to be a fairly simple standard where it went from WiFi A to B then G and N, with each new standard increasing in speed. Now things have become more complicated with two radio frequency bands available – the older 2.4GHz and newer 5GHz – as well as a new standard called AC. On top of that there are different rated speeds for Wi-Fi N and AC, ranging from the basic 300Mbps of N right the way up to routers that claim 1900Mbps. 

The long and short of it, though, is that if you’re using anything older than a Wi-Fi N compatible router then your first port of call should be to replace that. Beyond that you need to check what sort of connection you’ve already got and buy an extender to match – there’s no point spending big money on a fancy 1200Mbps AC extender if you’ve only got a 300MBps N router.

Aside from speed the next possible extra you might consider is an extender with an in-built Ethernet switch. These models will enable you to connect wired devices to the extender, such as an older network-equipped TV, and potentially help improve overall speed because there will be fewer Wi-Fi signals interfering with each other.

A few models also have USB sockets so you can attach printers or external hard drives to share them on the network. Some even have audio outputs so you can plug them into a remote audio system and stream audio from your phone or tablet. 

Most range extenders are fairly simple devices that, like Powerline adapters, are incorporated into a single mains plug/transceiver, though those with more features and external aerials (for greater range and performance) look like routers, with a separate power supply and external aerials.

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Best Wi-Fi Extenders: Frequencies Explained

At the heart of the latest push for speed in Wi-Fi is the introduction of a 5GHz frequency. Its main advantage is that nearly all existing Wi-Fi devices use the 2.4GHz band, which makes it highly congested. By using 5GHz you’re far less likely to get problems with interference from neighbouring Wi-Fi signals. 

The 5GHz band actually has a lower theoretical range than 2.4GHz so drop off at distance (and through walls) is much more dramatic. However, the latest AC standard only uses 5GHz, combining it with techniques such as MIMO and beamforming to improve peak performance and range. As such, as shown in our tests, a top-notch 5GHz AC router provides very fast performance, even at long distances. So much so that if you're thinking of upgrading your router anyway, spending the extra on a top-notch one may well eliminate the need to buy an extender.

In case you were wondering, aside from the frequency band all Wi-Fi standards are backwards compatible, though you will need compatible hardware at both ends to get the performance benefit of the latest standards (most hardware still can’t use AC without an extra dongle).
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Best Wi-Fi Extenders: How We Tested

We’ve picked out a range Wi-Fi adapters and put them to the test. They vary from the very basic £18 single-band Zyxel WRE2205 to the £90 dual-band Netgear EX6200, with plenty in between. We tested them by recording transfer speeds at two points distant from our main router, the class-leading Netgear R7000 Nighthawk. With the router in a downstairs front room we tested at a rear, second floor bedroom (approximately 7m through two walls and a floor) and at the bottom of the garden (approximately 20m and through another wall). 

Baseline speeds for 5GHz were 189Mbps when right next to the router, 146Mbps in the upstairs bedroom and 20Mbps at the bottom of the garden (see what we mean about the rapid drop off in peak performance of 5GHz). For 2.4GHz it was 43Mbps, 19.2Mbps and 8Mbps respectively.

For our tests we placed the extender in a downstairs room below the upstairs bedroom, putting it 5m and two walls closer to the garden as well as a couple of metres and one wall closer to the bedroom. 

We actually found that because the router we were using for 5GHz was so powerful, with its triple external antennae and beamforming, it far surpassed any of the extenders for the 7m test, with the extenders only improving things for the longer range garden test. However, for less hardcore routers you would likely see benefits at this shorter range.

At 2.4GHz the router struggled much more, with all but one of the extenders out pacing it for the 7m test and all far surpassing it for the 20m test.

Also, note we tested with a Netgear A6100 USB dongle with a max speed of AC600, so its peak performance isn’t as high as some adapters (you can reach over 500Mbps real-world performance with the fastest hardware). However, we’re not interested in peak performance but rather range.
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