We ran exams on the CNET Good House, a 5,800-square-foot multistory residence within the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky, that served as a residing lab for our product exams. It is a significantly better setting for testing wi-fi units at vary than a private, considerably cramped, shotgun-style home — and with extra floor to cowl, it supplied a a lot larger problem for these extenders.
That is the management graph, displaying you the common speeds in every room we examined with no vary extenders in play in any respect. By itself, a single, entry-level Wi-Fi 6 router within the laundry room was capable of ship respectable speeds on the principle ground of the house (the primary 4 rooms on this chart), however speeds plummeted within the basement (the final 4 rooms), particularly the add speeds.
The CNET Good House has a fiber web reference to matching add and obtain speeds of as much as 150Mbps. That is a far cry from the gigabit connections increasingly of us have entry to (to not point out the brand new, blazing-fast multi-gig internet plans rising throughout the nation). Nonetheless, it is in keeping with the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband definition, which makes it an ideal place to check how residence networking merchandise will work for the common client.
For our functions, we began by organising a router within the Good House’s laundry room, the place the modem is about up. We went with the Netgear R6700AX, a wonderfully respectable mannequin we have reviewed prior to now. It supplied dependable efficiency however restricted vary once we examined it — and that is precisely what we needed for these vary extender exams.
We ran all of this 12 months’s vary extender exams with a Netgear R6700AX router working the community. It is a low-power, budget-price Wi-Fi 6 mannequin that supplied constant efficiency once we first examined it out, making it an excellent management router for these exams.
Certain sufficient, the router delivered sturdy speeds on the house’s important ground, however as quickly as we went right down to the basement stage, speeds began to fall. That features single-digit add speeds within the bourbon room and the mud room. (Sure, the Good House has a bourbon room that the earlier homeowners used to age their very own barrels. We haven’t any barrels of our personal, however it smells wonderful in there. Kentucky, ya’ll!)
Working the vary check
With our management speeds established, it was time to begin including within the vary boosters and seeing which of them improved issues the very best. Pairing every one with the router required us solely to plug it in close by and press the WPS button on each units — after that, we relocated them downstairs to the basement rec room, which was the farthest level from the router that also had an honest sign and speeds. Everytime you’re utilizing a Wi-Fi vary extender, that is usually the very best place to place it: simply shy of the sting of your router’s vary, the place it’s going to nonetheless obtain a robust sufficient sign to place out a robust sign of its personal. One of the best ways to search out that spot? Seize your cellphone or laptop computer and run some speed tests.
In the long run, we ran at the very least 96 velocity exams for every extender, two rounds of 24 exams to search out its common speeds to a Wi-Fi 5 shopper machine (an iPad Air 2 from 2015) and one other two rounds of 24 exams to test its speeds to a Wi-Fi 6 shopper machine (a 2021 Lenovo ThinkPad laptop computer). In every case, we began the primary spherical of exams with a recent connection within the laundry room, closest to the router, after which began the second spherical of exams with a recent connection within the mud room, farthest from the router. With every check, we logged the shopper machine’s obtain velocity, its add velocity and the latency of the connection.
Except for our velocity exams, we streamed video on every extender’s community and made a number of video calls whereas linked by means of every one. We additionally hung out enjoying with every extender’s settings. You should not anticipate a lot, however most will at the very least make it straightforward to alter the extension community’s title or password. Some embrace app controls with further options, too.
It is also price ensuring that your vary extender consists of at the very least one Ethernet port (virtually all of them do). If you happen to can immediately join your wired machine (like a sensible TV), then you definately’ll take pleasure in speeds which might be as quick as potential.
