How do wifi boosters actually work?

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If you’re looking for ways to improve the internet connection around your home, then you’ve likely come across wi-fi boosters. Also referred to as extenders and repeaters, these devices can help you to get a stronger signal around your home, and enable it to travel a greater distance too.

They’ve become increasingly popular in recent years, with many people looking to improve their signal strength, whether are home or in the office too.

But how exactly do these wifi boosters manage to do this? Surely it can’t be simple to just make a signal better and more powerful? Well, let’s look at just how exactly wifi boosters really work.

How do wifi boosters actually work?

Quite simply, a wifi booster works to help increase the speed of the wi-fi connection around your house, as well as the range and distance it can reach. Essentially, the wifi booster pulls in the wi-fi signal from your current router. It then amplifies the signal, and then sends it out again to your other devices. Essentially, this helps to make your wi-fi signal more powerful.

So, a wi-fi booster will pull the signal into one router, then amplify this signal and send it back out via another router. The transmission is then send back from your device to the booster, which then transfers it back to the router (and then through to the modem).

Also referred to as a wifi repeater or a wifi extender, they can help improve both the quality of internet signal and the distance that the signal can travel as well. This makes them a good option if your internet service provider can’t do anything to improve your home wi-fi.

Often, they’ll also come with ethernet ports on them for you to use as well. You can use with with the device you want to have the best connection, as a wired cable is still going to be a lot more reliable than simply connecting wirelessly.

What’s causing my weak wi-fi connection?

There are many different causes of a weak connection in your house. Whilst sometimes the problem may just be with your internet provider, often there are other things that may have an effect too. The main causes are;

Walls – Of course, a having a wall or a ceiling in between your wifi router and your device makes it more difficult for the signal to pass through. Whilst a wireless signal tends to find it pretty easy to pass through some materials, like glass, it’s much more difficult for it to pass through bricks & metals.
Distance – Another reason why you might be having issues with devices in your home is the distance that the wireless signal has to travel. The further away that your device is from the router, the weaker the signal will get. Try moving your laptop or your phone closer to your router or extender.
Other electronics – Although you might not realise it, other devices around your home can actually cause interference with your wireless signal. A typical one is a baby monitor, which can definitely cause problems with your wireless signal as it travels to your device.
Amount of devices – Although the amount of devices that are connected to your router typically isn’t going to be a problem, you can definitely have issues if you’re trying to use many different devices at the same time. If they’re all downloading data simultaneously, then this will affect their speed. Having a dual band or tri band wifi network can be a good solution to this problem.

Do Wifi Boosters Really Work?

Many people wonder whether wifi boosters really work as they’re supposed to. I think that a lot of this is because of their pretty low price, as people think you probably can’t get such a great improvement in your internet connection for just £20 or £30.

However, the truth is that wifi boosters work really well to help spread the wi-fi signal around your home. Even the cheaper models can help to boost your wi-fi quite significantly, so they’re definitely worth trying. If you’re interested, then check out ly list of the best wifi boosters.

There are some scenarios where a wi-fi booster won’t really help your situation. This might be because;

Connecting too many devices – The majority of wifi boosters are created to be able to have 10 devices connected to them. If you try to connect more devices than this to your booster, then you might have problems.
One booster only – I’ve seen people who think they can link several boosters together to improve their signal drastically. This just isn’t the case, and you should stick to using one wifi booster.
Some cheaper models aren’t good – Whilst you can get some great deals on wifi boosters, some of the models out there aren’t good at transmitting a signal efficiently, which doesn’t allow them to fulfil their full potential.

Conclusion

All in all, a wifi booster is a very easy and cheap way for you to improve your wi-fi connection around your home. All you need to do is pick up one device, and it takes just a few minutes to set it up. This device will help to amplify your wi-fi signal, so that it can reach all of the areas around your home.

So, if you’re having wi-fi issues at your house, you might not need to switch providers – a wifi booster could be a cheap resolution to help improve your wi-fi range and its quality too.

About Jon

Hey, I'm Jon. I'm an engineer by trade, so it makes sense that I'm obsessed with anything technology related! On the weekends, you can find me playing around with my computers or fixing something around the house. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to get in touch.

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