I have been experimenting with Wi-Fi extension extenders to remove dead spots of coverage in my house for some time. A couple of weeks ago I came across a short review of a Edimax extender in PCPro magazine and installed the single band version to see how it performed.
The instructions with the Edimax N300 Wi-Fi Extender are clear and concise. I ignored the option of using WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) to link the extender to my network simply because of security concerns. Instead I opted to connect the extender with the provided Ethernet cable to my laptop, remembering to turn off its Wi-Fi. I put the extender in a plug close to my router and after firing up a browser I was able to connect to the device and take it through its initialisation. I selected my network and after entering my password it was connected.
I used the option to hide its SSID and asked it to save its settings. A congratulations message is displayed and that is that – ready to go. My only criticism is the lack of control over which channel the device will use for its extended network. In a congested environment this may be a problem especially with ISP provided locked down routers all using the same channels.
Now came the trial and error part. Turn the device off and move it closer to where the dead-spot is. Plug it in and switch it on. The device indicates how strong the Wi-Fi signal is that it is receiving and by experiment I was able to place it so it was getting a strong signal and still gave coverage to the dead spot.
The extender broadcasts with a network name that has a code appended to your original network name and uses the same password as the original network. It was then a simple matter to add the new network to devices such as iPhones and they switched seamlessly between the original network and the ‘new’ network depending on location in the house.
The device extends the range of existing 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks on the 2.4Ghz band.