Looking For A Small Wifi Extender

[dj_ripcord]

Hi All,

 

I am looking for a small, affordable (Cheaper the better), and low-power Wi-Fi repeater or bridge.

 

Allow me to be more specific though. I do not intend to extend my Wi-Fi network wirelessly, but instead, I wish to configure the repeater as a client, and then connect something via ethernet. I want to do this because I live in a 140-year-old home and running ethernet cables through the walls is not an option for me. The device i'm connecting will be a part of my home automation system, and it only has an ethernet port, hence why I need to go about this in this fashion. Also, the device is extremely low bandwidth and low priority. It's connection does not need to be incredibly stable nor does it need to be gigabit. I do, however need to be able to disable wireless re-broadcast.

 

I have done this before with a Blu-Ray player in the far end of my home with a NETGEAR WNDR3300, which works great because it can stream HD with little to no buffering. I have a couple more WNDR3300's laying around, but I don't want to use them for this project because 1) They are large. And 2) They have high power consumption.

 

Has anyone had a similar experience with a cheap router before? I would even be interested if I can install DD-WRT on it as well, but if it can be configured as a wireless client out of the box, i'm happy!

 

Thanks for any input!

[FlightRisk]

Just to make sure, so what you are looking for is something to input a Wi-Fi signal which then outputs an Ethernet connection?

[dj_ripcord]

2 minutes ago, FlightRisk said:

Just to make sure, so what you are looking for is something to input a Wi-Fi signal which then outputs an Ethernet connection?

 

Yes.

I figured this would be a default feature of most repeaters out there, but i'm perfectly capable of using a regular router to achieve this.

[FlightRisk]

Sadly I don't think I have encountered anything that is a perfect solution. I think a cheap router would probably be your easiest solution, especially if you have some spare on hand.

1 possible alternative which I think may work for you (Assuming I understand you properly) is This. It doesn't use a wireless signal rather your homes own electrical circuit to connect the 2 modules and as far as I can tell it won't rebroadcast as a wireless access point. According to newegg it also has a low power draw of <2w. I think the main disadvantage would be that it does not seem to be configurable in anyway, it is just plug and play.

 

Hope this helps.

 

p.s Amazon do have a 200mbs version if you are not joking about a low bandwidth device. 

 

[KuJoe]

I've tried all of the highest rated sub-$100 repeaters and extenders I could find on Amazon and none of them work. I did have an old Buffalo router that I flashed to DD-WRT and used that as an extender (with a PC plugged into it via ethernet) but the connection was unstable and when it did work the performance was awful even for just browsing websites, and this was in a 2 bedroom apartment barely 30 feet from the other router with only one thin wall in between them. It might work for your needs, but I would never recommend it even to my worst enemies.

[Gaub]

this should do the job in theory. It's pretty cheap too but I've never tried it. Reviews seem to be good though­.

[dj_ripcord]

19 hours ago, Gaub said:

this should do the job in theory. It's pretty cheap too but I've never tried it. Reviews seem to be good though­.

That looks like exactly what i'm looking for! But unfortunately it's not available in my country.

On 3/29/2017 at 5:43 PM, FlightRisk said:

Sadly I don't think I have encountered anything that is a perfect solution. I think a cheap router would probably be your easiest solution, especially if you have some spare on hand.

1 possible alternative which I think may work for you (Assuming I understand you properly) is This. It doesn't use a wireless signal rather your homes own electrical circuit to connect the 2 modules and as far as I can tell it won't rebroadcast as a wireless access point. According to newegg it also has a low power draw of <2w. I think the main disadvantage would be that it does not seem to be configurable in anyway, it is just plug and play.

 

Hope this helps.

 

p.s Amazon do have a 200mbs version if you are not joking about a low bandwidth device. 

 

 

These! I can't believe I didn't think of them!

 

A long time ago I used to have a few sets of these for phones in my home. They were used in conjunction with my Dish TV service as a method of confirming On-Demand options. I still have them laying around but they would definitely not work for ethernet obviously. I did remember having some issues with them however. They would often be unreliable and disconnect frequently, and you can forget ever using them to make a call. They seemed to only work for data connections. Makes me wonder how well these will work in my home, I wonder if the technology has improved and reliablility issues have been resolved.

 

Thank you for this! I think this will work for me!

[Gaub]

1 hour ago, dj_ripcord said:

That looks like exactly what i'm looking for! But unfortunately it's not available in my country.

Here's the US version