Looking for a Wireless booster or WiFi extender to improve your WiFi signal?

Whenever you are struggling to get a decent (or outstanding even) Wi-Fi signal at a certain spot without any signal losses you’ll appreciate a Wi-Fi range extender.

WiFi Range Extender will push the WiFi connection up by receiving the wireless signals from your router and then repeating them through the powerful antennas and amplifiers going to the farthest corners of your space, be it a home or an office.

IMPORTANT NOTE! Before setting up a WiFi Range Extender or a WiFi Repeater, download NetSpot to test the strength of WiFi signal. This way you will be already aware of the weak and strong spots of the coverage and can work out a very efficient strategy.

NetSpot is also a big help in smart placement of your new Wi-Fi extender.

WiFi repeaters, boosters and extenders are pretty much the same thing — devices to improve WiFi coverage. Even though you won’t find a clear difference between “repeaters” and “extenders” not all of them will work the exact same way. We’ll do our best to look into and explain those differences for different types of available devices. Follow along and choose the best WiFi extender for your needs!

An extender intercepts the signal of your WiFi router/switch, magnifies and retransmits it. You can extend a wire from the main router to a spot you want a network signal at and plug in your WiFi extender. This way main router is sending network signal via the wire to the extender. The latter will have a new WiFi name.

This plug-and-go solution is easy and fast to set up providing the fast connection you wanted. An extender using WiFi instead of a wire may experience some loss of speed. If such extender talks to your devices on the same band it’s using to talk to the router there will be a speed drop obviously.

In case of powerline Ethernet adapters the distance between power outlets as well as the type of wiring you are using can impact the overall performance. A WiFi repeater is an alternative to a powerline Ethernet adapter.

Choosing a WiFi extender boils down to your needs and budget. As yourself how many additional rooms would you like the extender to cover. If it’s just one small room, just about any basic WiFi extender should do the trick.

However, if you want to cover a large area with a strong WiFi signal, you need a dual-band WiFi extender with 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz support. The extender should also be compatible with the latest WiFi standards and support technologies such as beamforming and MU-MIMO, which stands for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output.

To help you select the best WiFi extender for your needs, here’s a list of the top 3 best WiFi extenders that you can buy right now.

WiFi repeaters are the devices that receive wireless signal and rebroadcast it. If your WiFi signal can’t reach some spots of your house or office, try a wireless repeater to boost the signal from the main router. A WiFi Repeater contains two wireless routers, similar to a wireless router you may already have at home or office. One of them takes up the WiFi connection that you already have and sends the signal to another wireless router. The latter produces the amplified signal.

Repeaters are aimed to let you keep the original network name. These devices are easy to set up with no wires stretched around. Sometimes repeaters may face the interference that may result in an unstable connection.

Did you know there are weatherproof WiFi repeaters? They are very helpful if you are trying to extend the signal outside, e.g. to the pool house on your property.

No WiFi repeaters are ideal. They do have some speed loss issues, some more others less.

Repeaters can be single band and dual band. The devices of first type receive, then retransmit each packet of data through the same WiFi channel, which may easily lose up to 50% of the bandwidth. Dual band repeaters get around this by having the router on one band and sending a WiFi signal on the other.

When choosing a WiFi repeater, you need to pay attention to the same things as when choosing a WiFi extender, including coverage and price. Because the purpose of a WiFi repeater is to receive wireless signals and rebroadcast them, you should select one that supports the same security protocol as your main router.

WiFi repeaters come in a variety of formats, ranging from desktop to plug based. Some WiFi repeaters have multiple external antennas, while others have no external antenna at all. Truth be told, it doesn’t really matter how many antennas a WiFi repeater has as long as it covers the entire area you want it to cover.

Let’s take a closer look at 3 best WiFi repeaters so that you have something to choose from without having to first read length reviews and comparisons.