TP-Link N300 WiFi Extender(RE105), WiFi Extenders Signal Booster for Home, Single Band WiFi Range Extender, Internet Booster, Supports Access Point, Wall Plug Design, 2.4Ghz only

I was thrilled to unbox my new ILIFE A30 Pro robot vacuum-mop—LiDAR mapping, self-emptying station, the works! It felt like stepping into a sci-fi movie, especially after hearing about this tech just weeks ago and thinking it'd be a decade away from my budget. But here's the plot twist: my son's ironclad Xfinity router setup (bless his security-savvy heart) runs only 5GHz, and my vac needed 2.4GHz for the app connection. No way was I messing with his fortress of solitude!Enter the TP-Link WiFi extender—a $16.24 game-changer that plugged straight into a wall outlet, no router tweaks required. Setup took about 5 minutes via the Tether app. It wirelessly latched onto my main network and beamed out a dedicated 2.4GHz SSID (I named mine "DustBunnySlayer2.4" for laughs). Boom—vac connected, scanned my QR code, and mapped my obstacle-course apartment (exercise gear, bed, shelves, and all) in its quirky, gerrymandered glory. First run? It tackled the bedroom and closet like a pro, returned to dock, charged up, and dumped the dust into the big bag. Mind. Blown.What sold me on this extender? Zero security drama. It mirrors your existing WPA3 encryption and password—no new vulnerabilities, just a tidy IoT bubble. Post-setup, I could even unplug it if paranoid, but it's staying for future tweaks. If you're in a shared-home WiFi standoff, this sidesteps the whole debate without a single cable or compromise.And a massive hat-tip to Grok (xAI's witty AI sidekick)—their step-by-step guidance turned my glitchy hours into a victory lap. From remote-only basics to extender hacks and permission paranoia-busting, it was like having a tech-whisperer on speed dial. Reviewed Grok by R.H.: 10/10, would future-proof again!If your vac dreams hit a band-width bump, grab this TP-Link. Spotless floors and zero regrets await. (Signed, R.H. – Proud Floor Overlord)

I bought this repeater for an unconventional purpose, trying to get wifi access in my metal building from the access point / router in the house 100 feet away. Since this repeater is 2.4ghz only, I suspected it would be best for not intermittently losing the house side. Works flawlessly, and it was super easy to set up. I'm old fashioned; I set it up by connecting to it's initial SSID, navigating to the IP adress given in the manual instead of using the app or QR code, I'm thankful that the manufacturer doesn't require the QR code or app usage! I got it working in literally 1 minute after plugging it in. It's a very simple construction, I admit to taking it apart to see what antenna connectors it uses on the circuit board (they are the common U.FL) and I'm shocked at the simplicity of construction, no wonder it's so inexpensive. No matter the minimal hardware, it works very well and with zero reduction in connection speed, up or down. I love it!

Using it to connect two cabins, about 100 feet apart. The source signal is a Dlink extender, and after tromping around in the weeds, I found a spot between us that is 10-14 mbs. I used my phone and speed test to find a good spot. Hung the N300 on a tree at the end of a 50 feet extension cord. Back in cabin, I'm getting a speed test of 6-8 Mbs, enough to stream TV. Yay. It was important to learn how to do the setup, I used my phonefor that. Connecting to the RE-105 was not plug-n-play. It had to be done manually. Also, I set it up on my home network at home and made sure I knew how to switch it to a new network. This is not well explained, by the way. Might be better just to reset if you need to do this, I could never have done either step outside, with mosquitos swarming around and poison ivy around. So this is working. The N300 is in a plastic bag and weatherproofed, but I'm only here for a few weeks. It will leave when I go home and come back with me next year.

I used this range extender to connect an older HP network printer to my home WiFi. It worked like a charm. I used this because my home WiFi router and my office printer are in different rooms. I spent $30.00 + MORE for a high end ethernet to WiFi adapter to try and accomplish the same thing. It stopped working when I added a mesh network. I reset the WiFi adapter to factory defaults many times, but it just would not link up. This TP-link Extender was reasonable priced, set up easily and worked with my Eero mesh network. I couldn't return the WiFi Adapter I had purchased earlier because I was determined to get it to work and then it was too late to return. So, if you have a similar situation, save yourself some money and try this unit first.

I'm using this to connect an ethernet-only device to my wireless network (a printer). Works fine but only if I configure the printer with a static address. This device forwards DHCP discover requests when you disable its internal DHCP server. However it does not forward the response back. I can see my router receiving the request and sending back a response, but the response never makes it to the device connected to the ethernet port. This is probably because my DHCP server sent a unicast response to a discover with a specific IP. Totally legal and should totally work. Not a showstopper for my use case but obnoxious. UPDATE: Lowering from 4 stars to 3. Along with the above, this device is unreliable. Printing only worked about half the time, and often only after a several-minute delay. The printer became unreachable on the network after sitting idle for awhile. I finally gave up on having the printer where it was and moved it to a location where I can connect it directly to my network through an Ethernet cable. Now the printer responds instantly and prints quickly. I am now the proud owner of a paperweight TP-link N300.

This is a review of my second TP-Link N300. The first one not only behaved erratically, but had an interfering effect on my home network, causing low transfer speeds and signal dropouts. It was returned the next day. Setup of the second device seemed to work OK using the WPS feature. Initially, at any of the various distances from my wireless router that I tried from 10' to 18' (and through an interior wall), the download speed on the extended network ranged from about 0.1 Mbps to about 6 Mbps, with a typical reported speed of less than 3 Mbps. Upload speed was on the same order, and tended to be slightly higher. (This matches the first device's completely unsatisfactory performance.) After about an hour, the signal strength from the device suddenly jumped about 15 dB, and download speeds also jumped about an order of magnitude. The attachment shows an iMac speed test result after this happened. The download speed is reported as 12.6 Mbps, but it reached as high as 25-30 Mbps. (For my purposes, this is entirely adequate, except for the other demonstrated problems.) Three hours later, this result could not be duplicated due to failure to make a server connection for the upload test. Even at this higher signal level, the device is still unreliable, as the attached WiFi Analyzer plot shows. The time span of that plot is roughly 20-30 seconds. A different WiFi analyzer on my phone shows download speeds ranging from 0.1 Mbps to an unsustainable maximum of 16 Mbps or more, but fails to complete the speed test because a connection to the server cannot be maintained. The extender was intended to provide a network connection to a home automation device at some distance from my router. It does not reliably serve that purpose. The second device, too, will be returned as defective out of the box.

So everyone: I just read an online article about WiFi. It was from a very popular gadget blog. It listed several things that people with WiFi problems should NOT do. High up on the list of things not to do is try to solve a WiFi problem with a WiFi extender. A WiFi extender is a device that accepts a weak WiFi signal and amplifies it, thus extending the signal further than the router originating the WiFi signal does. The article instead recommended that you replace your old router with a shiny, brand-new one. Maybe one of those new mesh systems, or one with WiFi 6! I've been noticing a lot of articles like this recently and sometimes that advice is good. It depends a lot on your situation… which is different for everyone. What I am here to tell you about is, when it is time to call bullshit on this. Practically all of these blogs have an interest in you buying equipment through a link they provide. In exchange, they get a small cut of whatever you buy. It's not a big deal— it usually doesn't affect the objective information they provide— but sometimes it is obvious that it increases the pressure to sell devices or equipment that you really don't need. In my 1000-square-foot condo, I am using Apple's Airport Extreme router. It's 5th generation, introduced in 2011. I bought it used from a UW student in Seattle. It was fine until we moved into this condo and got a bunch of voice-activated, "smart" devices like lightbulbs and cameras, all connected to the router's WiFi signal. Many of the devices were installed through multiple walls or otherwise distant so they got weak WiFi signals from the Airport Extreme router. I wound up running an Ethernet cable under baseboards and over doors from the router at the back of the condo to the front. At the farthest end, I installed a switch and a very cheap hardwired access point (AP). At the time it cost about $60 total and about 1 afternoon. It was fine until I installed WiFi cameras in and outside the garage. The garage cameras and Google speaker were at the edge of the Airport Extreme's WiFi range, even with the access point at the front of the building. I decided to get another WiFi extender to daisy-chain the AP's WiFi signal to the garage. Then, last weekend, I came across the article I mentioned. Right at the top of the list it said, Don't Use WiFi Extenders. Instead, it urged buying (admittedly good) new routers or mesh systems to replace your old router. That sent me soul-searching about whether to replace my old, used Airport Extreme with a Google Nest mesh 3-component system (on sale for $140) or to go with my original idea: an $18 WiFi extender from Amazon, plugged into an outlet in the garage and using my existing AP's signal. I finally went with the $18 approach. I installed it in the garage yesterday, then did a status check afterward with a WiFi app on my phone. The results knocked me out. The WiFi signal-to-noise ratio on my network was suddenly the best I could receive in the garage. The network congestion is terrible in my neighborhood. Previously, my next-door neighbor's WiFi came through clearer in my garage than my own network. But installing that extender meant that my network's signal sliced through nearby foreign networks loud and clear. The link speed on the farthest device (mounted just outside the garage door) is 130 MB/s. That is a lot less throughput than a new router would provide, but it is more than fast enough for my streaming cameras and that Google speaker. The signal analysis picture I uploaded shows the extender using the AP's wireless signal through two interior walls, but only about 3-4 yards (2.4-3.7 meters) apart. Now, I admit: I would like to buy a new router with all the bells and whistles. But man. It's hard to turn my nose up at such an inexpensive solution that works so well. The garage camera video streams now pop up instantly on my network feed, and all's right with the WiFi world.

This is an excellent extender - second one I have purchased - set up is the easiest of any I have ever used - the best instructions - I got it up and running in less than 5 minutes - especially good if you need a 2.4 to put a device on.