Suggested device to extend Wi-Fi but keep same SSID?

[King Mustard]

Our ISP is BT Broadband and we use their BT Smart Hub (sometimes called the Home Hub 6), which was released in 2016.

The router (only just) struggles to reach every part of the home.

We had a similar issue at a different house seven years ago. We had signal in a specific room but it was very poor, so we got a device that extended the router's Wi-Fi signal. However, the device created a separate SSID and, since the connection to the router was very poor but not zero, we had to keep manually connecting to the new SSID when we were in this specific room as no phone would automatically switch, then connect back to the router's SSID when we left the room. It was very frustrating.

Is there a better solution, these days?

We can not replace the router.

We are hoping to buy a device that extends the signal (we don't need to extend it by much - so maybe a £50 upper limit?) but that (hopefully) retains the SSID so that phones do not stick to the barely-working signal.

 

[BigT]

Your budget will only stretch to the least optimal solution (and probably the one you had before) - a range extender. This works by sitting half way between your router and the dead spot. It then takes the Wifi signal and repeats it on, thus extending the range. All the ones I used (before throwing them in the bin because they're rubbish IME) could let you use the same SSID and password as your router so devices wouldn't need to manually switch.

In order of my personal preference the other solutions are:

• Turn off WiFi on your router. Run ethernet cables to two equi-distant locations on the first floor of the house ceilings and put a good quality Access Point on each. Companies such as Ubiquiti (UniFi), Cisco (Meraki) and TP-Link (Omada) have offerings with good centralised management that will ensure the APs play nicely together, same transparent SSID with seamless roaming, good performance etc. You probably won't get change out of £250 though and that's with running the cables and installing yourself. It is the best solution though and makes your headaches go away permanently in all likelihood
• Turn off the WiFi on your router. Install a mesh WiFi system with two or three nodes (depends on your house size). You place the nodes equidistant from either each other or the router (they can hop back to the router via another node if required). For your budget (in fact you'll need closer to £100) you're at the bottom end of the market. I personally have used Tenda MW3 and while it does seem to provide WiFi everywhere in my mother in law's house and is pretty easy to configure, but it isn't really stressed. She only has a 30Mbit internet connect, streaming one iPlayer stream at a time is the most she does and transfers no files around the network. Whether that's sufficient for you I don't know. Probably a better mesh option from people in here's observations (no personal experience) is the Honor 3 router. Although marketed as a router it can be used as mesh I believe. You'll need some network saviness in order to not end up double NAT-ing but I think it should work and people have good results. Again you'd need to stretch your budget a bit as they cost around £40 I think and you'll need two at least.
• Use powerline adapters with WiFi built in. The performance is so random though, can be troublesome with some house's wiring and is about as clunky as a WiFi extender in terms of roaming when you set the same SSID as your router. You will get no where near the advertised speeds (like probably only 10%) and I've lost count of the number of threads I've read with random powerline disconnects. I had one in my mother's house once and it turned out it was using next door's internet connection since they also had some, weren't using encryption and the wiring across the terrace must have been in such a way that the signal could hop between the property's cabling. They got the shock of their lives when I went round and seemed to know a lot about them before offering the advice of turning on encryption on their powerlines!

Honesty, if you're planning on being in your home a while do it properly, spend a bit more and take the first of the above options. As internet connections improve over the years the kit will still be good for it and even if you move you can take the APs with you and install into a new house. I'd also maybe argue that leaving it should add value (OK, not much!) to your house in the future as ready made comprehensive WiFi might be attractive to many in this day and age.