Need a good wireless repeater/booster/extender

[techbeck]

This is for my parents....

 

They have a Cisco N1200 wireless router. on the 1st floor of their house.  Their office is in the basement level (1 floor down) about 70ft from the N1200.  Currently I have a old Linsys 54mbs (forget exact model) loaded with dd-wrt setup as a repeater.   The repeater is setup in the middle of the house, 1st floor, 35ft from the N1200.   I set this up years ago and worked fine, but now starting to have issues. 

 

Looking for a replacement.  Their house has the old style wire mess in the walls that dampens the signal so will need to be able to handle that.  If the old Linksys router could do it, then I am sure something newer would do a better job.

 

Ideas? Looking to get something ASAP.

 

Thanks!

Edited October 18, 2016 by techbeck

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I use a Linksys RE2000, and it's nice and compact....you can either plug it in via a cord, or use a wall adapter to plug it directly into an outlet. Works wonderfully!

 

Link: http://www.linksys.com/kw/support-product?pid=01t80000003K7ZPAA0

 

It's a dual-band wireless N repeater, with 2 ethernet ports. It's so simple to set up, and it has never let me down.

[adrynalyne]

58 minutes ago, techbeck said:

This is for my parents....

 

They have a Cisco N1200 wireless router. on the 1st floor of their house.  Their office is in the basement level (1 floor down) about 70ft from the N1200.  Currently I have a old Linsys 54mbs (forget exact model) loaded with dd-wrt setup as a repeater.   The repeater is setup in the middle of the house, 1st floor, 35ft from the N1200.   I set this up years ago and worked fine, but now starting to have issues. 

 

Looking for a replacement.  Their house has the old style wire mess in the walls that dampens the signal so will need to be able to handle that.  If the old Linksys router could do it, then I am sure something newer would do a better job.

 

Ideas? Looking to get something ASAP.

 

Thanks!

https://www.amplifi.com/

[HoochieMamma]

I second anything from Ubiquiti ^

 

Ever since putting in 1 AC LR access point in my ceiling I can get a signal 7 houses down my street. Amazing products.

[adrynalyne]

1 minute ago, HoochieMamma said:

I second anything from Ubiquiti ^

 

Ever since putting in 1 AC LR access point in my ceiling I can get a signal 7 houses down my street. Amazing products.

I love my LR too. I have a Pro as well but the LR has better signal. 

[HoochieMamma]

Their firmware/software beats anything I have ever seen from Linksys/Netgear/Dlink as well.

 

On par if not better than some of the Aruba stuff we have at my work. Which cost serious dollars.

[techbeck]

22 minutes ago, HoochieMamma said:

I second anything from Ubiquiti ^

 

Ever since putting in 1 AC LR access point in my ceiling I can get a signal 7 houses down my street. Amazing products.

 

20 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I love my LR too. I have a Pro as well but the LR has better signal. 

Looks good, but was looking at something more around the $100 range, if possible..  I dont need enterprise grade.  Just something that will go through wire mess walls and over 70ft with good/decent signal.  Appreciate the suggestions.

[Circaflex]

Thought about grabbing a power line kit for the basement? if it's purely an office and nothing extreme bandwidth wise, could be an easy and cheap solution. 

[adrynalyne]

26 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

Thought about grabbing a power line kit for the basement? if it's purely an office and nothing extreme bandwidth wise, could be an easy and cheap solution. 

A UAP-AC-LR would fit that bill as long as you have a decent router. Though it's not the most straight forward to setup if you are looking for user friendly. 

[farmeunit]

1 hour ago, Circaflex said:

Thought about grabbing a power line kit for the basement? if it's purely an office and nothing extreme bandwidth wise, could be an easy and cheap solution. 

I use Powerline, myself.  Zyxel PLA-256 is what I'm using until I get around to wiring the house.

Edited October 18, 2016 by farmeunit

[techbeck]

Was really looking in to a way to get wireless working throughout the house.  So if I get a powerline, I would need to have another wireless AP as well.  The important location for my mom to get service is her office, but the family room/common area is on the other side of the house as well so when family/friends come over...need to have wireless in those areas.

[xendrome]

13 minutes ago, techbeck said:

Was really looking in to a way to get wireless working throughout the house.  So if I get a powerline, I would need to have another wireless AP as well.  The important location for my mom to get service is her office, but the family room/common area is on the other side of the house as well so when family/friends come over...need to have wireless in those areas.

Can you get a CAT5e to the office then put a switch up there with an AP?

[+BudMan MVC]

10 hours ago, techbeck said:

something that will go through wire mess walls

Good luck with that

 

1 hour ago, techbeck said:

need to have wireless in those areas.

Then you should put AP in the appropriate areas..  If you have to you can use powerline to connect them to your network.  But a wire is going to be best.. If need be hire a company to do the wiring for you.

 

The secret to good wifi is proper coverage.  5ghz especially does not go through walls well.  use of "repeater" is not good wifi.. Its out of the gate /2 of the available bandwidth because you have to repeat!!

 

Get some actual AP, the uap-lites are under $100 so get a few of them and proper place them.  Wifi routers sitting in some corner under a desk, etc. does not make for great wifi coverage all over the house or building.

 

The nice thing about multiple AP as well is you don't have all your devices on same AP all sharing the limited bandwidth you spread the connections out across multiple AP so each client has more available bandwidth, etc.

 

As to setup of the UAP devices being more complicated than wifi on some wifi router is just nonsense.. 

 

 

You set a SSID, you put in your psk.. You can set for wap2 only, etc.  if you want.  Just like any other wifi router.  If you don't want to run the controller software on some machine for setup, or leave running so you get details of all your different devices connection times and strengths and bandwidth used.  They do even make a app for your ios/android device for setup of the network..

 

 

[helpifIcan]

Just do a search for power line with WIFI.

These usually have at least one wired port along with a WIFI radio.

 

Usually under a $100 for the pair

[techbeck]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I ended up using a powerline and the AP that was acting up.  Reflashed the firmware and appears fine now.  Needed something quick since this is a busy time of yea for my moms business.   Of course, would have been faster if I remembered to  disabled DHCP on the AP....been a looong day....