I’ll admit that while networking has always been a priority for me in any of the places I’ve lived, I generally stay pretty traditional using a simple combination of wired and wireless configurations. Although I’ve had situations where my wireless signal has been weak in areas, I’ve simply solved that by the changing the placement of my router. Sure I had heard and read about wireless extenders but being cheap they weren’t really for me. The other day I had a chance to try one out.
My Grandmother recently received an iPad for her 90th birthday (yes you read that right) and while she really enjoyed it, she found that the one place she wanted to use it (in her comfortable chair in her living room) had extremely poor signal strength. The thought of having to move to use her iPad was not an option as it would defeat her use case for having it. The layout of her house also left little room for moving the router and investing in an expensive upgrade to improve signal wasn’t ideal either – I decided it was time to try out an extender.
Looking at the local store I found there were several options; however, after considering both footprint and price tag, I settled on getting the D-LINK DAP-1320. One of the biggest appeals to this device over the other extenders I was comparing to is that the device is very small. The unit plugs directly in an outlet and is small enough that it leaves the other outlet free for other use. I also found that the D-LINK DAP-1320 was also $20-$30 cheaper than other comparables. I took the device back to my Grandmother’s and as per the instructions I plugged it in a little more than half way between her router and her chair.
As mentioned, I’ve had no experience with extenders so I wasn’t sure what to expect with the setup. Configuration was a breeze and even if I were not technologically inclined, it would be simple to setup. The device also shows signal strength in an easy to understand manner so that users can set up the device in an ideal area (remember – the extender is basically useless if it can’t pick up the wifi). Luckily in my situation the extender was picking up 80-90% strength, which meant I was good to go. After a few minutes the device for a test. I returned back to the infamous seat, pulled out the iPad, and was getting pretty much full signal. I did some practical tests as well and found the wifi speeds appeared to be as good as those which I was getting when directly connected to the router before (in a good area of course). Now my Grandmother can iMessage, email and most importantly FaceTime with all of her grand and great grandchildren – right from the comfort of her chair.
If you’re finding spotty wireless in your house, I’d suggest trying one of these extenders. They’re simple, reasonably priced and they take up hardly any space. Keep in mind that in order to get reasonable speeds you’re going to need to put this in a place where you get a half decent signal already. If you can’t do this you’ll find that the signal from your device to your extender will be good, but the signal from the extender to your router will be so poor your connection will crawl.
