Lots of customers these days have begun to purchase and set up range extenders in their home, whether it be from their ISP or on their own. Range extenders, however, are easy to set up in ways which make network connections even worse!

Here is a quick guide on how customers should set up wireless range extenders with brief explanations on why these things matter. Please note that these are instructions for wireless extenders, as powerline or wired extenders do not have the same issues (they have their own set of problems!). Please note that range extenders are not the same as the "pods" or "nodes" in proper mesh networks.

1) Where to place the extender

Range extenders are also known as repeaters because they take a WiFi signal and re-broadcast it farther. This, however, means that they need to be set up in an area with a GOOD, strong WiFi signal so they have a solid signal to repeat!

Many customers will make the mistake of going into the area/room with a bad connection they want to improve, but in that area the extender will be repeating a weak signal and the extended network will also be weak.

Customers should set up their range extender halfway in between the router and the area of bad connection that they want to improve. This will make sure that the range extender has a good signal to extend.

2) How to name the extender network

Many customers make the mistake of naming the extender's network the same as the home's main WiFi network. Range extender networks should be given a different name (aka SSID). For example, if my home's main WiFi networks are "Pretty Fly for some WiFi" and "Pretty Fly For some WiFi_5G", I should name my extender network something like "Pretty Fly_Ext" and "Pretty Fly Ext_5G" so I can easily tell which is which!

The reason for this is because phones, TVs, laptops, and other devices are HORRIBLE at choosing the best WiFi network and basically never switch between them. Networks that are named the same don't magically "blend" together, they just confuse my devices, Typically a phone or device will connect to the first network is has saved that has a decent connection, even if it later on sees a stronger network with the same name and password! As well, if you move throughout your house, your phone won't switch between the main network and extended network automatically, it will hold onto its network until its so far it can't connect anymore.

What this means is that to make it clear what network each device is connected to, we want to name the extender networks differently from the main network, and manually control which each device connects to so we can be sure we know how the network is set up! For phones and other devices that move, customers can manually switch to the extended network when they are closer to the extender to be sure their signal stays strong.

For more information on which frequency (2.4GHz or 5Ghz) to connect to, see our article on frequencies.