For Londoners lucky enough to have a garage or a sizeable garden shed for their cars or motorcycles, there’s a problem - how to get your home-based wi-fi to reach. It can, after all, get lonely out there while you’re working on a spring clean or an engine rebuild. And how are you to access those useful mechanical tips on YouTube?
One way of tackling this is to use a wifi extender; one of the best we tried was Amplifi’s HD Mesh which, in our tests, proved highly efficient at not only relaying but boosting the wi-fi signal... right along a 100ft rear garden, from the front room of the house. But, at £359.99 - it wasn’t cheap.
Now they’ve brought out a ‘more accessible’ version, the Amplifi Instant, costing a more affordable £183.30 (or £112.62 for just the router). Easy enough to set up - especially when we used the helpful chat line to help us connect the ‘base’ unit to the meshpoint, as they initially refused to ‘speak’ to each other - it is small, discreet, elegant and efficient at boosting your wi-fi signal.
For the technically minded, it utilises 802.11ac Wi-Fi with both 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz radios. The Router has dual-band radios, a WAN port, and a Gigabit Ethernet port, while the MeshPoint features a Gigabit Ethernet port. It uses the AmpliFi app for setup, configuration, reporting metrics, parental controls, remote access, and guest access. The mobile app is available for download on Android and iOS smartphones.
It is certainly better than frequent trips back into the house to check online before working how, precisely, to complete that rebuild on your 1960 BSA Gold Star. However the Instant doesn’t have the ‘punch’ and reach of the more expensive unit, so if you have thick walls in between your router and your work den is a long way off, it might not have the power and reach. More at www.amplifi.com.
