Questions on wifi extender / mesh

JonoB

JonoB

JonoB

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Joined
19 Nov 2004
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248
My elderly parents have just moved into a new flat. Towards the back of their house, there is no (or very weak) wifi signal. They also need their computer connected in a room where there is no signal.

There are a few options here:
  1. Get a mesh wifi setup for them. May be too difficult for them to install themselves? Also, the fibre engineer said that there are a lot of people with mesh networks in the building, and it can cause conflicts. Is this even remotely possible?
  2. Get a wifi extender/repeater.
That will sort out their mobile phones and tablets. I also need to think about the computer. We can either (i) Get a wifi dongle for the computer to connect to the mesh network or repeater; OR (ii) get a powerline for the computer

Any suggestions on the best way to achieve what we're looking for? I think my main concern is that we get a wifi extender, then we'll want to use the same wifi network as the router. Will their mobile phones automatically swap over to the repeater? Or will it continue to hold onto the router's wifi, even though its much weaker?

Unfortunately I can't visit them to help them set it up, so it needs to be relatively easy. I can talk them through it over a video call.

What are the best options here?
 
Thanks for the responses.

I'm quite happy to use powerlines, but my concern is the wifi. If I use a powerline with wifi, then there will be 2 wifi signals - the existing wifi at the router, and a different one at the powerline. I assume this means that my parents would have to manually switch from one wifi signal to the other, which is a no-go.
 
WJA96 said:
If you set the powerline WiFi to transmit the same SSID and use the same password as the original WLAN from the router then they shouldn’t need to log off and log on again. It might drop connection momentarily while it switches, but unless you’re using WiFi calling or VOIP phones I doubt anyone would notice.
Click to expand...

Ah, I didn't realise that you could change the SSID on powerlines. At least the ones that I've used didn't have this functionality, so I just need to make sure that I get one where you can.

Are phones/tablets smart enough to automatically swap to the strongest signal (assuming they are on the same SSID)?
 
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