Repeater

[PPBart]

Several months ago I pre-ordered an Amazon Fire Stick with the specific thought to add access to Prime videos to one of our bedroom TV's. The promotional price was only $20, and it looked promising.

The Fire Stick finally showed up about a week ago and I immediately tried installing it. Unfortunately, that TV is at the extreme opposite corner of our house from the location of the wifi gateway, apparently too far away for the Fire Stick to see the network. Wanting to get it functional before the grandkids arrived for the holidays, I searched Amazon for wifi repeaters and ordered the first item on the list: NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender, Essentials Edition (EX2700), $36.99.

I received the extender a couple of days ago. It only took maybe 10 minutes to read the instructions, set up and position the extender roughly in the middle of the house. Then I tried setting up the Fire Stick again -- and BINGO! Extender works great, Fire Stick works great. It's nice when something actually works as advertised. As a plus, we now have strong wifi signal throughout the house -- which the kids like since they can now access the net anywhere inside, even outside on the porch and patio.

 

[Geoff]

Glad to hear that worked well for you. Is your wireless router located in one corner of the house, or is it centrally located? Ideally, the wireless router would be in the middle of your house on the middle floor to provide the most reliable access throughout the house. Range extenders do work, however they reduce the speed and increase the latency, which for use wouldn't be noticeable, but for those who need low latency and the highest speeds possible, they would notice the performance hit.

 

[PPBart]

...Is your wireless router located in one corner of the house, or is it centrally located?...

Our house is a mid-80's ranch style. The router is located in one corner of the house (my office). The bedroom in question is on the opposite corner of the structure. I had thought about relocating the router to a central location, but that would present more problems than did adding the extender, which seems to meet current needs just fine.

 

[Geoff]

Our house is a mid-80's ranch style. The router is located in one corner of the house (my office). The bedroom in question is on the opposite corner of the structure. I had thought about relocating the router to a central location, but that would present more problems than did adding the extender, which seems to meet current needs just fine.

Another good option would be to run an ethernet cable from your office to the center or opposite end of your house with another access point.