topic Re: WIFI Boosters do they work? in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 11:38:47 GMT

On the basis of if it sounds too good to be true, can I assume that WIFI Boosters don't work? I understand it may extend the range, but can it "boost the wifi speed"?

I saw this advert https://www.wifiboost.pro/products

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 11:46:57 GMT

Well surely not, as the speed is dictated by the connection from it to the router. It may be able to compress the data and transfer from the PC to it quicker but not overall.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 11:53:30 GMT

It won't improve the speed to your router but if you are at the extremety of your router's wireless range then your speed will drop below that when close to the router. A booster will improve the wireless signal level and bring your speed up. So it can improve wireless speed.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Townman — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:12:24 GMT

It is far from clear what that product is.

I am guessing that it is a WiFi repeater - it connects over WiFi to your existing router as a client and then 'repeats' the network traffic over its own WAP SSID.

Given that it is using the existing WiFi capacity to do this it is difficult to understand how it can boost the speed, albeit may be extending the range of the WiFi coverage. In doing that it is may be just conceivable that something connected to this secondary SSID might perform slightly better than being connected at that distance direct to the router.

What problem are you seeking to solve? Personally I use Devolo Ethernet over power adapters with a WiFi AP - they are not cheap, but cheap ones I have seen in action do not seem to work so well or they interfere with the xDSL signal.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Strat — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:43:25 GMT

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from Everything Else to Tech Help.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

steveocee — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 15:00:02 GMT

Using WiFi to solve the issue of poor WiFi........Do I need to say any more?

You walk as far away from your router as you can but it still gets signal, plug it in and then stand a further few meters away with full WiFi and wonder why you have poor speeds.

They don't work well, WiFi is only ever half duplex at best and then you are repeating that with a wireless hop.

They sometimes work in some scenarios but usually they can be a real hassle to get working and only ever increase the range, not the speed.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

VileReynard — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 16:01:37 GMT

The latency will increase if you use this gadget.

If you use a wired connection to a distant wifi access point then your range (and possibly speed) will increase.

This is because an ethernet cable is lossless and even one of those power plugs things can be of use.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 16:26:41 GMT

@steveocee I'm pleased to say, I don't have a problem but for under £10, I was considering looking at it ...and maybe not now?

Being a non-technical person, in lay terms, does it "dilate" the quality of the signal?

Is that the "latency" issue that @VileReynard refers to?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alextry-Extender-Superboost-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B07KS6HNDY/ref=asc_df_B07KS6HNDY/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310085547242&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13675563337072952208&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045909&hvtargid=pla-694661957720&psc=1

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

steveocee — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 16:27:52 GMT

It dilutes the signal a fair bit yes.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 16:29:40 GMT

@steveocee wrote

They sometimes work in some scenarios but usually they can be a real hassle to get working and only ever increase the range, not the speed.

So you believe that as you move further away from a router the speed does not decrease, you just get to a cliff edge when the wifi speed goes from that received next to the router to dropping the connection?

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 16:35:10 GMT

@Townman No problem, just curious to try to understand the pros and cons of these devices and their claims, and I guess it's more con

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

ejs — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 17:18:01 GMT

Going over two wifi links in sequence, each one with a good signal, could quite easily be better than having something struggling over one long wifi link with a poor signal. A poor wifi signal could quite easily have higher latency than the two links each with a good signal, because with a poor / weak signal, there will be a lot of retransmissions over the wifi, since devices will have to keep re-sending things at ever decreasing speeds.

All the drawbacks people have pointed out about them may be technically true, but do not necessarily make using wifi repeaters worse than using a weak wifi signal.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 17:55:45 GMT

@ejs now I'm really confused

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

pjmarsh — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 18:07:04 GMT

@Leapy, as an example, say you have a long thin house, consisting of 3 rooms downstairs. A lounge at the front, then a dining room, then a kitchen at the back. You have your router in the lounge. The dining room also gets a good signal from the router, but the kitchen only gets a poor signal, likely with slower speeds and possibly dropouts from the wifi. If you stick a wifi repeater/booster/extender in the dining room, then connect to that in the kitchen, you may very well get better speeds in the kitchen than you did when just using the signal from the lounge. Does that make @ejs's comments easier to understand?

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

VileReynard — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 19:45:39 GMT

The signal strength will be better - but you have to go via a repeater, which increases the transmit/receive time. If your expectations are not too high, then it might allow you to get a slightly better connection if your present connection is virtually useless.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 19:58:08 GMT

I must be a thick as a brick

@pjmarsh but is that a "boost" of the original signal or just a relay, repeat or extension and is that relay, repeat or extension as good as the original signal or does it weaken the signal integrity?

Is it like a bad TV signal, that if you amplify, relay, repeat or extend it, you just get a bigger bad signal?

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

VileReynard — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 20:13:22 GMT

Its more complicated than that...

If your wifi had no errors it would be relatively simple.

But it always has some errors...

So if your PC detects an uncorrectable error on a received packet, it will send an error packet over the two legs requesting a retransmission (over the two legs!) - so if your received signal is poor you will get many errors and many retransmissions.

The same thing applies to any data uploads you do.

It's true that a repeater will not improve your signal quality though.

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Leapy — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 20:24:37 GMT

@VileReynard So I guess that means, they don't really work and if you have a problem, it won't make it better, but it will allow you to have a that problem (or worse) elsewhere?

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

VileReynard — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 20:42:09 GMT

They can make the difference between a location getting a poor connection and no connection at all.

It's a long time since I've played around with wifi (a laptop has to take its chances).

I went to the trouble of putting Gigabit ethernet in for my desktop, TV and a couple of other nearby devices years ago.

Have you tried the simple things to improve wifi - such as placing your router higher up (say 6 feet) instead of near the floor with nothing obviously blocking it?

Re: WIFI Boosters do they work?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 22:19:03 GMT

@VileReynard wrote:
I went to the trouble of putting Gigabit ethernet in for my desktop, TV and a couple of other nearby devices years ago.

Me too and it was well worth the effort.