Eli5: how a wifi extender works.

Question

I don’t think I’m using mine right.

In: 0

Answer 1

WiFi extender is a horrible name, WiFi repeater even more so. Traditional extenders/repeaters do not merely extend nor repeat the signal from the main WiFi signal. Instead they create a new WiFi network. The poor naming choice also makes most people chose to use the same WiFi network name which is bad.

For the best results you should place the repeater in a place where there is still relatively good reception and you should use a different SSID.

Now comes the crucial part: your phone/laptop will NOT switch automatically from your main WiFi to the repeater WiFi (or vice-versa) until it completely lost the signal. That’s because, as I said, they are not the same network even if they have the same name.

So everytime you move inside the house you need to check which network has the strongest signal and switch manually.