As millions of workers are displaced from their offices to work from home, plenty of them are coming to a startling epiphany. Their Wi-Fi may be good enough for some light Netflix and Spotify, but for work – or at least looking like they’re working – it’s simply too flakey. Too slow and too prone to drop outs to be up to the job.
While it might be tempting to get on the phone to your ISP and yell, that may be entirely futile. A Wi-Fi signal can only travel a limited distance, especially with walls to impede it, and if you find that only certain rooms in your house are not-spots, then a Wi-Fi extender will likely be a far better bet.
Read on for our guide to the best Wi-Fi extenders to make working from home that little bit more productive. But first, a quick Q&A.
What is a Wi-Fi extender, and why would I need one?
If you’re close to your router, your internet connection is – hopefully – fast and stable. But the further you move away from it, the weaker it’ll get. This is especially true if your home covers multiple floors, as a wireless signal struggles to get through walls and floors.
If you have a home office in your attic, say, and your router is by your phone line on the ground floor, then this can spell trouble. You’ll likely lose some speed, first of all, but if your internet is really struggling then you’ll also get frequent dropouts where your internet just stops working. Frustrating for web browsing, but a deal breaker for video calls and remote meetings.
Wi-Fi extenders fix this by – as the name suggests – extending your Wi-Fi signal. Wi-Fi repeaters are the most common form: if you’re trying to get a solid signal from Point A to Point C, plugging a Wi-Fi repeater in at point B will repeat and amplify the signal, helping it reach the darkest corners of your house or flat.
Note that they won’t make your actual connection faster – that’s on your ISP. But if you have a solid connection next to your router that gets worse as you move away, then it should make a big difference.
What about powerline extenders?
Powerlines have the same outcome – getting the signal from A to C – but they have a different way of getting to B enroute. While a repeater picks up the wireless signal and broadcasts it again, a powerline adapter sends data to the router via your electrical wiring rather than ‘over the air’.
Sidenote: if you only have a desktop PC in your office that doesn’t get a signal, you could use powerline adapters to connect to your router via ethernet for a whole lot less money, but obviously your overall wireless signal wouldn’t improve.
What about Mesh Wi-Fi?
Mesh Wi-Fi systems are typically more expensive, but better for larger properties with blackspots aplenty. This lets you place a whole bunch of nodes around your house to cover multiple areas. Theoretically you could do that with Wi-Fi repeaters, but the signal would get weaker with every new repeater added, plus you’d get different Wi-Fi networks each time, making it fiddly to move from room to room with a laptop.
Mesh Wi-Fi options like BT Whole Home or Google Nest Wi-Fi create one giant network, and come in packs of two, three or even four nodes to cover properties of all sizes.
Single band, dual band or tri band?
In the early days of Wi-Fi, there was just the 2.4GHz frequency band. But this frequency is both oversaturated by devices and prone to interference, which is why we now have 5GHz. It has a shorter range, but offers faster speeds if your device supports it (older and cheaper devices don’t.) Ideally, therefore, you’ll want your Wi-Fi extender to support both: that’s dual band. By splitting devices across the bands, you can ensure your simple hardware (think wireless printers, cameras and smart speakers) isn’t hogging bandwidth from your laptops, phones and tablets.
Tri band takes this even further, adding an extra channel to the mix. These offer an additional radio freeway on the 5GHz band, essentially letting you connect more devices without impacting speed too much. But they are a lot more expensive, so may be overkill for your needs.
Best Wi-Fi Extenders 2020:
Netgear Nighthawk X6S
If your home is too small to justify a multi-point Mesh Wi-Fi solution, then the Netgear Nighthawk X6S is the smoothest option, though at around £130 it’s not exactly the cheapest solution around.
But it does offer speed and features aplenty. Not only does its tri-band design mean that client and backhaul communications get their own separate channels (in short: it’s faster than most), but it boasts four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB port for file sharing over the network.
This does come at a price, and not just the high cost of entry. Size wise, it’s as big as a router, but if you want the best you have to pay for it both in pounds and a footprint in your home.
£133.49 | Amazon | Buy it now
Tenda A18 AC1200
If that seems way too rich for your blood, then the Tenda A18 is a surprisingly impressive solution for just a fifth of the price.
It fits neatly in a plug socket, and its dual bands offer both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz channels, with two external antennas for boosting the signal. There’s even an ethernet port on there if you want to wire a connection in, and the lights will change colour to show the strength of connection to your router, letting you pick the optimal socket in your house for it to live.
There’s an element of getting what you pay for here, of course, but if you’re happy just boosting your signal and don’t mind a slight drop in speed at the furthest points of your house, then it’s hard to go wrong for £26.99.
£26.99 | Amazon | Buy it now
TP-Link RE450
A similar solution is available from networking veterans TP-Link, and the RE450 is a great mid-range buy, even if it’s getting on a bit.
It’s dual band with and offers pleasingly fast speeds, although its large plastic casing does make it touch and go as to whether you can use the plug socket next door. It promises impressive speeds though, and the signal should be strong with the three antennas sticking out. The lights will also change colour to let you know if there are internet problems – though, to be fair, you’ll likely already have noticed.
£46.93 | Amazon | Buy it now 
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Netgear AC1200
If the thought of losing a plug socket (or two) to a Wi-Fi extender upsets you, then the Netgear AC1200 has a neat solution: a plug pass through, that lets you keep using the socket in question while still boosting your Wi-Fi performance. Handy!
It’s dual band, and comes with an ethernet port on the side for any wired connections you may want to add to the mix, too.
£49.99 | Argos | Buy it now
Devolo Magic 1
If your main problem with your Wi-Fi isn’t the size of your house but the thick walls, you may find a Wi-Fi repeater struggles to pick up the signal to repeat. That’s where the Devolo Magic 1 comes in, as it connects to your router via your powerline rather than over the air, before rebroadcasting the Wi-Fi signal to the rest of your house.
This means that its dual band speeds should be extremely reliable, but that does come at a price that’s up there with some mesh Wi-Fi solutions. Still, if your walls are too thick for conventional solutions, then this could be your best bet – and you can get a two pack if your walls are thick *and* you live in a huge house...
£129.99 | Amazon | Buy it now
BT Whole Home Wi-Fi
On the Mesh Wi-Fi front, the BT Whole Home solution is easy to use, reliable and pretty reasonably priced these days, if you shop around.
You get a set of two, three or four dishes depending on the size of your house. Plug one into the router, and then dot the others around your house, guided for the best positions by the helpful companion app. While it’s BT branded, you don’t have to be using BT broadband to benefit, and for speed and reliability it’s up there with the best of them.
£161.98 | Amazon | Buy it now 
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Google Nest Wi-Fi
If money is no object, then Google Nest Wi-Fi is the best mesh Wi-Fi option you can buy, but we’re not kidding about that cost. You’re looking at dropping at least £239 for the router and a single extender, and if you have a large property you’ll want more to make sure it stretches.
That said, there’s a reason it’s the best, and as well as offering a fast and stable internet connection, Nest Wi-Fi offers a whole bunch of extras. Family controls are probably the best part, with the app able to schedule internet time out for everyone or just select devices (games consoles and kids smartphones, maybe?). A built-in firewall also lets you block millions of the web’s more adult offerings, too, should you wish.
Oh, and there’s a microphone built in, turning each point into a Google Home Hub smart speaker. Play music, ask questions, listen to the news – whatever you like. One neat function you can test with your voice: “Hey Google, what’s my internet speed?” Space-age stuff.
£239 | Argos | Buy it now
Tenda Nova MW3
If you’ve ruled out powerlines solutions and repeaters, but are put off by the cost of BT Whole Home or Nest Wi-Fi, then Tenda’s mesh Wi-Fi solution is worth a look. Just £69.99 (at the time of writing) gets you a three-pack of Tenda Nova MW3 nodes, letting you cover an area of up to 3,500 square feet.
No, neither performance nor looks are as good as you get from the two options above, but if money is tight and you’re convinced mesh Wi-Fi is the answer to your woes, then Tenda’s cheap and cheerful option is certainly worth a look.
£69.99 | Amazon | Buy it now
Verdict:
Picking a winner of all the above is a little strange, because if you’re suffering from a weak Wi-Fi signal, it’s possible even the cheapest option here will be more than enough simply by making things bearable.
Still, it does nobody any favours if you end up buying something that doesn’t fix the headache, so our favourite repeater is the Netgear Nighthawk X6S. It’s well designed and its tri-band design make it both speedy and reliable if you have the funds and your home will work without needing to go all in on a mesh Wi-Fi solution.
If you *do* need to get a mesh Wi-Fi solution, then while Google Nest Wi-Fi is the best option available, BT Whole Home will do a pretty similar job in terms of performance, albeit with fewer bells and whistles, for a whole lot less money. For that reason, it gets the nod from us too.
