Because the repeater must use the same radio to receive data from your wireless router and send data to your wireless router, it effectively cuts your Wi-Fi network’s bandwidth in half. Unlike a Wi-Fi extender, a Wi-Fi repeater works by connecting to the base station (your router) wirelessly and it then rebroadcasts and amplifies that signal. The Hawking Hi-Gain Outdoor 2.4GHz Wireless-300N Dual Radio Smart Repeater is built for outdoors, so you can extend your Wi-Fi network to your yard as well as other parts of your home.Ī Wi-Fi repeater, as with a Wi-Fi extender, aims to bring Wi-Fi coverage to areas of your home that otherwise wouldn’t have any, but it does so in a different way.

Michael Crider/IDGĪ Netgear Wi-Fi extender.

There are wireless extenders available, but those are essentially just repeaters, which I’ll explain next. At that point, you might want to reconsider and buy a mesh Wi-Fi sytem instead. And depending on the size of your home, you might need to add several Wi-Fi extenders around your house to completely blanket your home with Wi-Fi. The part of the extender system that plugs into your router needs to be relatively close to the router. With a wireless extender setup, location matters. Powerline technology will then take care of the wired connection and your “client” devices-laptops, media streamers, etc.-will establish wireless connections to the extender. You’d then insert the extender itself into a wall outlet where you need better Wi-Fi coverage.

Wifi amplifiers