I’ve seen a number of threads having trouble with range extenders. I currently have a Netgear EX7700 and am very frustrated with the issues that HA has with the virtual macs etc it creates.
Can anyone recommend an extender brand and maybe implementation method to avoid the problems.
My home office wifi reception was very poor and so the extender was to overcome this.
However when I move my phone (android) it swaps between the networks and HA thinks I’ve gone out when I am in the office.
Sounds like a very common misconfiguration of extenders which some of them are set up out of the box to create. Extenders aren’t great, but they can be reliable if set up properly.
Your extender is probably broadcasting another SSID like name_EXT or other nonesense. Reconfigure the extender to broadcast on the SAME SSID as the existing network, with the SAME security settings (encryption and passphrase must match).
Make sure your AP and Extender are on different channels.
Place the extender in a location with no less than 50% signal strength from the AP.
Remove the previous _EXT SSID from your devices.
If it is going to work reliably, that’s your best bet.
Or preferably, ditch the extender and use a 2nd wired AP.
I think going with the newer ‘mesh’ solutions is better than the older ‘extender’ solutions. Yes, requires a rip and replace probably. But if you are using more home automation devices which are wifi based, getting the wifi solid will worth it for long haul. I was fortunate to have installed Apple’s early mesh solution long ago, it performed well for a long period, they just dropped it as a product and it became the bottleneck. Moved to the Google mesh solution and was very happy with it, with the exception that it offers very little very into the network and little fine grained control. That’s okay, for majority of users. However, with adding a lot of home automation wifi devices, the Google solution was not ideal. I am now on an adventure of Ubiquiti mesh in one home and Mikrotik in 2nd. Ubiquiti winning from better/newer wifi solutions, Mikrotik winning from better management tools. Ubiquiti losing due to poor firmware upgrade cycle, Mikrotik losing due to complexity/too many options.
All that said, if you can find a mesh solution with relatively powerful management GUI, you will be well served for the future. As another complexity/consideration of this is ‘WiFi6’, I am of the belief that unless you have massive and multiple high speed video streaming needs, this technology adds little by itself to a home automation setup. If it comes with the mesh and management great, but solid mesh and management top not getting wifi6 as part of new solution.
Thanks for responding.
The EX7700 defaults to same ssid and same password. Extender reports good signal strength. It auto selects a different channel too.
@dproffer Could you explain what the difference between mesh and extender (beyond what I realise which is that mesh supports multiple ‘extenders’) in the context that might make a difference to my issue. I only have one problematic room.
Does the google mesh solution you had specifically avoid the virtual mac issue ? Unifi looks daunting.
Also my config has 4 devices wired to to main router and one device to the extender.
Thanks
i would very much agree that a mesh is much better than an extender solution. a simple way of thinking about an extender is that it is a wifi receiver that then turns around an creates a new ssid (sometimes people choose the same ssid info, but really it’s a new ssid) and broadcasts that new one. think of a mesh instead as a set of access points that know all about each other. and collaborate with each other to cover the area around them all. it will figure out the best route to get to the actual ethernet port. it’s oversimplifying, but you get point…
i have unifi and it’s not as complicated as you’re afraid of. in fact, i think home assistant is more complex than unifi access points… (edgerouters maybe not 
). but if you don’t want to go unifi, google’s mesh is very easy to deploy.
So if I wanted to go unifi what would I need? Any chance you could point me in the right direction?
I went to https://ubwh.com.au/UniFi-WiFi/ and I just get a big list of things. I’m not seeing a ‘package’ of what I guess I need which would be a router (with 4+ wired sockets) to connect my cable modem (NBN) and one other device (with at least one socket) to cover the extra room.
i’d need to know a little bit more. for the 4 wired sockets, what are they going to? ie, do they go to other random devices? or do they go to cat5 outlets all around the house that you can plug wired access points to?
how many wireless accesspoints are you looking to have? 1 connected hardwired to the router? and then 1 extending?
if you’re happy with your current router, then with unifi, you could potentially just get the wireless access points and keep your current router. that’s what i did initially and then later i upgraded my router when i needed a ton more ip addresses (typical consumer routers limit to 255).
Like many, I had problems with routers incorporating wifi, both the router clogging up with too many connections and the wifi having poor reception.
Since changing to an OPNSense (on an AMD64 motherboard) and a quality wired access point, no more problems and wifi to burn. You won’t regret the move.
I think some of the tech analysts on web search and youtube search will give a much better explainer that I could. @armedad makes some succinct and salient points. I have no idea what ‘virtual mac issues’ are…Good hunting.
I wish the mesh networking setup was more straight forward on the MikroTik family of products. As I said, I have both Ubiquiti and MikroTik solutions running. Both are nice, but this MikroTik USD 99 device is so full featured and allows scaling a WiFi mesh build out so cost effectively. Just buy another 100 dollar device, plug it in to a new room and you 2.4 and 5 ghz wifi and 5 gigabit ethernet ports. I have three of a slightly different units and once I got it set up it has been solid. And I have been able to monitor devices very nicely, see picture below of a small program I wrote to follow devices as they decide to connect to different mesh hubs over time…
@armedad thanks for responding.
Cat5 sockets serve on main router
Cat5 socket on extender
I hope for a single AP name serving the whole apartment using one base and one mesh/extender device. I have less than 50 ip addresses in use.
Does that clarify usefully ?
yup, mostly makes sense. one question. on the cat5 desktop computer. did you mean that you want the extender to have a cat5 out that you hard wire your computer to? or did you mean that there’s a cat5 hardwire already to your computer and that’s where you want to plug in the extension?
from what you’re describing, then i’m guessing the total square feet is 1200square ft ish??? if so i’d go with one of two setups… either do the unifi mesh (get 2 of these: https://unifi-mesh.ui.com/),
or two of these: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-network-access-points/products/unifi-ac-pro
the latter one doesn’t mesh, but it does extend. if you only ever need 2, there’s not much difference between meshing and the extend that these do. and a nice feature of the second is that it has an ethernet port out and in. so if you meant that you need your desktop computer hardwired to the extender, then you should go with this option as the prior one doesn’t have a cat5 out. it only has cat5 in and connects to your devices wirelessly.
if you aren’t positive you need to have a repeater of some sort, but if you think you might not, i might try getting only 1 of the second first… see if it covers everything. and if not, get a second to extend.
however if you are postive you need a repeater, and in fact, you’re crossing your fingers that having just 1 repeater is enough and you don’t need to hard wire your desktop to an access point (you can connect wirelessly), then i’d go with the first option, and actually get 3 of them… it’s the same price as getting 2 of the second (3x$99 vs 2x$149). the nice thing about getting 3 of the other is that if you have some sort of dogleg/non-rectangular space, it could cover the edges.
if you’re happy with your current router, i wouldn’t change that. unifi doesn’t require you to do so. i hope i didn’t make this overly complicated… it’s not really complicated. as i said earlier, i think homeassistant setup was much more complicated than unifi setup…
@armedad, thanks so much for the info. The first option seemed perfect as the website blurb made it obvious it was designed to do what I wanted… until I re-read your bit about cat5 in. !
So option 2 device has the ports, cos I do need one for the PC in the office which is not Wifi. It’s a sealed moisture-proof item due to high salt laden humidity !!
So, option 2 but it isn’t as clear that it will work as it is not mesh and my (netgear) ‘extender’ experience leaves me fearing virtual mac address issues again.
Maybe it is the final suggestion (google) that is the best way. I’ll chew things a day or two.
Thanks again
from a functional point of view, if you have only 2, i don’t think you’ll see much of a difference between a mesh vs the way unifi does its “wireless uplink” (it’s name for how it does the extension). conceptually, think of it this way… mesh will figure out a path from the receiving access point and figure out the way to get home to the router. the extender (and this wireless uplink) method specifies and fixes each step along the way. but if there are only 2 points, that ends up being the same.
so then you may ask “why do this unifi thing at all instead of the extender i had?” there are 2 benefits… 1) they know about each other and know how to coordinate so that it can get the power levels right to minimize interferance. whereas with traditional extenders, both try to blast as hard as they can, and it can have interferance. also, these work together to provide 1 ssid.
still, unless you want fine grain control on the ap, the google mesh is a nice option because you get 3, and you can then set them up more closely together and have stronger signal all throughout… and google provides 2 ethernet ports on each. both of which can be used as “out”… you’ll have to use 1 as in from your router… then you get 5 out ports to use for devices that don’t have wireless.
best of luck.
My two bob’s worth again about my setup.
I use OPNsense on an old PC and use a wired tp-link access point in the middle of the house. When my phone is on 5GHz, the connection speed is over 800Mbps.
I’ve sworn off proprietary routers of all types because most are rubbish. The powerful ones worthy of consideration cost far more than my setup.
For you, I would go that route, and install an USB wifi on the PC.
Update… Success
I ended up buying an eero mesh of three and all my problems have gone away.
I disabled my Telstra Arcadyn wifi and plugged the eero into one of its cat5 sockets and plugged the displaced item into the 2nd socket on the eero. I set the eero into bridge mode.
Thanks for everyone’s input.
