I've become a fan of TP-Link in recent months. I install internet for a living right now and I've been looking for a simpler solution to recommend folks. You can go blow huge money on mediocre mesh systems like the Orbi which will set you back $500 for a 3-pack these days, or you can buy a TP-Link router and buy a couple of these extenders and create a smooth mesh system that's low-profile and can get you up to 3,000-4,000 sq ft of coverage without breaking a sweat or spending all afternoon getting it squared away. If you download the Tether App from TP-Link, it's easy to get these extenders setup. Right now I'm not connected to a TP-Link router but eventually I'll probably replace my modem/router combo from my ISP with a TP-Link A7 or whatever their AX/WIFI-6 setup is because I like the idea of a mesh network but I don't like the restrictive nature of some of the ones out there. All that being said, this extender seems to get the job done. I still get hiccups and packet loss but I'm starting to think it has everything to do with my ISP's modem/router unit or my ISP specifically and less-so the equipment in my home. I have a 3 level home (2 main floors and a bonus room/attic at the top) and want quality wireless connections on every floor. I sat this extender on the 2nd floor and game and use my PC on the 3rd floor. I initially used the 5G band for the better speed but as I sorted through the settings on TP-Link's Tether app, I found that there's a "high speed mode" available. What I quickly found is that you can choose 1 of 2 things here: use the 2.4 GHz WIFI band from your internet source broadcast as a dedicated communication channel or a 5 GHz WIFI band dedicated to communicating with your internet source broadcast and then use the other band to connect your devices to. What that does (I happen to be familiar with this process - there's no real instructions) is create a finite connection over one band and throttle-up the other band for your devices to connect to. I used the 5 GHz band to create the modem/router > extender pairing for maximum performance between those two devices (they aren't that far away from each other so the 5 GHz band is fairly strong where the extender is) then I use the 2.4 GHz band to connect my Xbox One X and my PC. The results are fantastic for the price I paid for the extender. I ran a speed test on my Xbox One X and got 105 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up, 100% wireless connection strength, 0% packet loss, and 24 ms ping. That's solid performance given that my maximum download speed is 150 Mbps if the network is completely free of other users.
You may or may not need to use the "high speed" setting and dedicate bands like I did, but I wanted my connection to be as solid as I could make it so I used the faster band to connect my extender to the internet and the "slower" band (2.4 GHz is slower most of the time) to establish high quality connections with my devices so I can move around more. I'm very pleased so-far. If anything changes I'll report back but I spent a couple hours testing out online gaming with my Xbox and it seems to work pretty well. A couple hiccups at first but the experience smoothed out quite a bit as time went on.
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11ac, 802.11g |
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