Netgear has been boosting wireless signals for a while, but its newest range extender works with AirPlay speakers for the first time. The Wall-plug Edition (WN3500RP) will amplify your Wi-Fi signal and frequency and it’ll work with your speakers from your iPhone, iPod or through DLNA.
Gadgets
I don't really understand how wi-fi range extenders work.
Do they receive and then rebroadcast wi-fi channels? All of them, or do you select which channels or which SSIDs? Does the rebroadcasting add appreciable lag to the wi-fi connection use? Do a I need a dedicated wi-fi extender, or could I configure a spare wireless router to perform this role?
With so many of us using wi-fi at home, and experiencing deadspots, it might be a good idea for Giz to do a story about this.
Only the channel of the station that it is repeating. No appreciable lag, but max bandwidth is halved because the wifi chip has to handle packets twice. It is possible to reconfigure a wireless router.
In general, EoP with a standard access point is the preferred solution by the masses for speed and reliabiity.
Thanks camreeves for taking the time to fill me in.
I`ve got the previous version. Not impressed at all. It connects to your existing wifi, and create another wifi network named the old SSID +Ext, and works as a network bridge that receiving the ip address from the existing router. So that it EXTENDS the wifi range.
I would rather prefer it working by using the same old SSID and channel so that I dont have to change to the EXT network everytime I entered the far side room. (yes of course you can manually set the SSID the same as the old one but you have to choose another channel, which is actually a new wifi as well)
Last edited January 8, 2013 11:05 pm
Besides the DLNA bit, this just sounds like the AirPort express...but with the description Surface gave in her/his comment below, it's a really lame APE. Which can't be a good thing. The Express having a few of it's own usability issues.
Well, actually the phrasing "it'll work with your speakers" confuses just what this does, but I assume it has a 3mm/optical jack to plug your *other* speakers into, and stream music from iOS, iTunes or an Android AP streaming app.
Unless it costs 20% less than the APE, or you really (really) want to combine DLNA with your WiFi, then why would you get this? Especially if it fragments your WiFi network. Just stupid.
And finally: Netgear products rarely work well with my OSX machines....at least they never did before I stopped buying the f-in brand.
Last edited January 9, 2013 1:22 am
I am curious which brand you do find works well woth your mac? as I want to get a new dual band router very soon. Damn 144 speeds
Laaaaaate reply, but Billion seems to do the trick.
Do they sell dual-band? No idea.