Anyone have any experience with a Wi-Fi booster / extender?

[1978GS750E]

I'm having a hard time getting a good Wi-Fi connection in my metal garage and was wondering if a Wi-Fi booster / extender might help. Anyone use one and does it help? Pros / Cons / What to look out for?

Thanks!

[rphillips]

Hope somebody (Rich) chimes in. We just got a tp-link Wi-Fi range extender AC750. I think I got it all put in correct, extender needed to be linked to router, I think it all went right. All the little lights come on as they should but we've got no change in signal strength no matter where we plug it in.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

7 years ago, as a member of the board of trustees at our church, I was asked to come up with something to get Wi-fi into the sanctuary. This unit helped repeat the signal from the router/switch on the other side of the building. It worked OK for a bit, until the needs for more electronic equipment needing internet access during service increased to the point where this just wasn't cutting it. Then they had an actual IT guy (I am not) come in and run hard wires.
I took it home and plugged it in. It helped the kids upstairs online gaming connections. I have no idea if it will work for your situation. They're cheap enough. Might be worth a try.
https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wi-Fi-Range-Extender-EX6120/dp/B014YN7LVE/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1MGS755HFFV1Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ 9.Udo_wLIB5wFgBJdQddZMXQyBGegJ-preKSltI6oMdYptDTU6kenySyiiFCGQqFHBh4iuQrYKgVcBYAJ GsodEXT0i1elpFY8OvwkkMz1niJ60cEkA2w5RiViORfKhIjkg2 PUxhnO4aZbNQTgE5aETB1POLT-6IjTKAE-qBqzXeZslfQtTo0AIEXMQPJbjDoG_4B-Fajp9_L0PcQBYGBzHEyQiqvyIeXy1wsQas41uNCU.BzAGk5RfG HPCBFI607NHplF6FT0NDP-fDtj5j3ekK30&dib_tag=se&keywords=netgear%2Bn300%2B wifi%2Bextender&qid=1724067053&sprefix=Netgear%2BN 300%2Caps%2C102&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

[Spiff]

How far is it from your router to your garage? An extender/repeater can help but your metal garage might still hinder some of the signals, I had one beside my front door to get wifi in the garage in my old house but that was a wooden garage.
Think it was a netgear or tplink one. Worked good enough the only "drawback" is that the speed was halved because it cant send and transmit at the same time, but it was still plenty good enough for music streaming, doomscrolling, some youtube how to fix this broken motorcycle videos etc. Found this great analogy:

Let's say that if you yell at the top of your lungs, you can be understood from up to 500 feet away. If you needed to talk to someone, say, 800 feet away, you could have a third person stand between the two of you, so that he's 400 feet away from you and 400 feet away from the other person. You yell to him, he repeats what you said to the other person, he yells his response back to the middle person, who repeats it to you.
The person in the middle (the repeater) can's listen and talk at the same time, he can only do one or the other. So, your conversation takes twice as long. This is exactly what's happening when you use a Wi-Fi repeater.

[Sandy]

A booster/extender could most likely be your best bet. They're pretty economical and newer ones are pretty easy to setup. That being said what are the variables here as in distance from existing router, cladding on the house, (stucco has a wire mesh, bad), metal garage (bad). Ideally it would be great to hard wire the extender to your existing router but in most cases that's really not a viable option. If the main router isn't too far away you could place an extender in a window for a better signal or get one with a removable antenna and extend that via a cable. Another idea that's overlooked is if you don't need connectivity back to the home network for printing, file sharing or watching movies is to just use a cell phone as a hotspot assuming you have a decent data plan.

[1978GS750E]

A booster/extender could most likely be your best bet. They're pretty economical and newer ones are pretty easy to setup. That being said what are the variables here as in distance from existing router, cladding on the house, (stucco has a wire mesh, bad), metal garage (bad). Ideally it would be great to hard wire the extender to your existing router but in most cases that's really not a viable option. If the main router isn't too far away you could place an extender in a window for a better signal or get one with a removable antenna and extend that via a cable. Another idea that's overlooked is if you don't need connectivity back to the home network for printing, file sharing or watching movies is to just use a cell phone as a hotspot assuming you have a decent data plan.

The garage is 50 ft from the brick house and the router is in front of a window facing the garage. I don't have any connectivity issues "if" the garage door is open, but that's not doable in the winter months. I may try to just use my phone as a hotspot for the times I need the internet in the garage.

Thanks!

[Sandy]

The garage is 50 ft from the brick house and the router is in front of a window facing the garage. I don't have any connectivity issues "if" the garage door is open, but that's not doable in the winter months. I may try to just use my phone as a hotspot for the times I need the internet in the garage.

Thanks!

You probably have enough room to sneak a cable for a remote antenna through the top of the garage door. If you know a local IT guy/kid he probably has a box full of older routers (free) that can also be configured as a repeater. These have removal antennae as most dedicated repeaters don't and you don't need both antennae extended, just one. Anyway, hotspotting with the cellphones these days works very good and sure is convenient.

[Mary Hinge]

If you can run a cable to the garage that would be the ideal solution, either a lightning protected (underground or in plastic conduit) Cat6 grade ethernet external grade or pre terminated fibre. The Cat6 option would only need a booster with an RJ45 port in the garage, the house end straight into your router. The fibre option would need a transceiver at both ends to convert the signal from fibre to RJ45/Ethernet. There are also point to point/line of sight wireless options but far more expensive than a basic extender such as Rich82's example. Bottom line try an extender if it doesn't work just return it.