WIFI Boosters do they work?

[#1]

On the basis of if it sounds too good to be true, can I assume that WIFI Boosters don't work? I understand it may extend the range, but can it "boost the wifi speed"?

I saw this advert https://www.wifiboost.pro/products 

[#2]

Well surely not, as the speed is dictated by the connection from it to the router. It may be able to compress the data and transfer from the PC to it quicker but not overall.

[#3]

It won't improve the speed to your router but if you are at the extremety of your router's wireless range then your speed will drop below that when close to the router. A booster will improve the wireless signal level and bring your speed up. So it can improve wireless speed. 

[#4]

It is far from clear what that product is.

I am guessing that it is a WiFi repeater - it connects over WiFi to your existing router as a client and then 'repeats' the network traffic over its own WAP SSID.

Given that it is using the existing WiFi capacity to do this it is difficult to understand how it can boost the speed, albeit may be extending the range of the WiFi coverage.  In doing that it is may be just conceivable that something connected to this secondary SSID might perform slightly better than being connected at that distance direct to the router.

What problem are you seeking to solve?  Personally I use Devolo Ethernet over power adapters with a WiFi AP - they are not cheap, but cheap ones I have seen in action do not seem to work so well or they interfere with the xDSL signal.

[#5]

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from Everything Else to Tech Help.

[#6]

Using WiFi to solve the issue of poor WiFi........Do I need to say any more?

You walk as far away from your router as you can but it still gets signal, plug it in and then stand a further few meters away with full WiFi and wonder why you have poor speeds.

They don't work well, WiFi is only ever half duplex at best and then you are repeating that with a wireless hop.

They sometimes work in some scenarios but usually they can be a real hassle to get working and only ever increase the range, not the speed.

[#7]

The latency will increase if you use this gadget.

If you use a wired connection to a distant wifi access point then your range (and possibly speed) will increase.

This is because an ethernet cable is lossless and even one of those power plugs things can be of use.

[#8]

@steveocee I'm pleased to say, I don't have a problem but for under £10, I was considering looking at it ...and maybe not now?

Being a non-technical person, in lay terms, does it "dilate" the quality of the signal?

Is that the "latency" issue that @VileReynard  refers to?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alextry-Extender-Superboost-Wireless-Repeater/dp/B07KS6HNDY/ref=asc_df_B07K... 

[#9]

It dilutes the signal a fair bit yes.

[#10]

---

@steveocee wrote

They sometimes work in some scenarios but usually they can be a real hassle to get working and only ever increase the range, not the speed.

---

So you believe that as you move further away from a router the speed does not decrease, you just get to a cliff edge when the wifi speed goes from that received next to the router to dropping the connection?

[#11]

@Townman  No problem, just curious to try to understand the pros and cons of these devices and their claims, and I guess it's more con 

[#12]

Going over two wifi links in sequence, each one with a good signal, could quite easily be better than having something struggling over one long wifi link with a poor signal. A poor wifi signal could quite easily have higher latency than the two links each with a good signal, because with a poor / weak signal, there will be a lot of retransmissions over the wifi, since devices will have to keep re-sending things at ever decreasing speeds.

All the drawbacks people have pointed out about them may be technically true, but do not necessarily make using wifi repeaters worse than using a weak wifi signal.

[#13]

@ejs now I'm really confused 

[#14]

@Leapy, as an example, say you have a long thin house, consisting of 3 rooms downstairs.  A lounge at the front, then a dining room, then a kitchen at the back.  You have your router in the lounge.  The dining room also gets a good signal from the router, but the kitchen only gets a poor signal, likely with slower speeds and possibly dropouts from the wifi.  If you stick a wifi repeater/booster/extender in the dining room, then connect to that in the kitchen, you may very well get better speeds in the kitchen than you did when just using the signal from the lounge.  Does that make @ejs's comments easier to understand?

[#15]

The signal strength will be better - but you have to go via a repeater, which increases the transmit/receive time. If your expectations are not too high, then it might allow you to get a slightly better connection if your present connection is virtually useless.