A Wifi Extender can help with dead spots and improve your Wifi coverage. If there is an area in your home where the Wifi drops out, a Wifi Extender can help.
If you’re finding that your smart home devices are disconnecting due to poor wifi signal, a WiFi extender can also help with this. Especially for reaching smart devices that are outdoors.
The Best Wifi Extenders in Australia
These are the best Wifi extenders available in Australia for 2023. I’ve found these are the easiest to setup and provide the most reliable performance. These are the best wifi extenders that work:
TP-Link RE650 Wifi Extender – My Pick
The TP-Link RE650 is my top pick of Wifi Extenders. It has a convenient plugin design and I’ve that it provides excellent coverage over a large area.
It can provide reliable internet at a distance of around 22 meters. The TP-Link wifi booster also has beam forming support. This targets wifi signals towards active devices to increase performance and has 4 antennas to extend range. This is something you don’t get on the cheaper wifi extenders.
The only con I could find is the unit is quite large and will cover both sockets of a standard duel power outlet.
Setup is incredibly easy and requires no networking or tech skills.
Netgear AX1800 – Upgrade Pick
If you want the absolute best range and speed then the Netgear AX1800 is the Wifi Extender for you. For most people, this extender will be overkill and the TP-Link above will be more than adequate.
The Netgear AX1800 also comes with Wifi 6 – the latest, and fastest Wifi standard. Wifi 6 can perform better in congested network conditions.
The Netgear also has a router style design. It doesn’t plug directly into the socket. This might suit you better if you want to hide the box away in a cupboard or on a shelf.
You’ll pay a little more of this Wifi Extender but in my testing it had the best range and speed.
TP-Link N300 – Best Cheap Wifi Extender
If you’re looking for a cheap wifi extender that will still perform well my pick is the TP-Link N300. You obviously don’t get the same performance and range of the other two options, but it still does a great job and my pick of the cheap wifi boosters
I really like the setup process of the TP-Link wifi extenders. It’s as simple as pressing a button. There is also a companion app that can control some of the settings.
If you’re looking to fix a small dead spot this will definitely do the job.
Wifi Extender Pros and Cons
Thinking about adding a Wifi Extender to your home? Here are some of the pros and cons you should consider:
Quick and Easy Fix
A wifi extender is usually the easiest and cheapest way to fix dead-spots in your network. The best wifi extenders have better antenna than your default routers and you can usually place them closer to the dead spot which will fix your coverage issues.
Bandwidth
In order to extend your Wifi, the extender has to use part of you Wifi’s bandwidth to relay the signal. So basically a Wifi Extender will cut your Wifi’s bandwidth in half. This shouldn’t be an issue most of the time. It only might cause problems if you’re doing lots of network streaming between devices. Most people’s routers have more bandwidth than internet speed.
Network Settings
If you’ve setup specific rules or settings in your network, these probably won’t work with your Wifi Extender (by default). For 99% of people this won’t be an issue, but it’s something to think about if you’ve got a complex network setup.
What about Mesh?
If you have a large house and you have an NBN box in your house/apartment I definitely recommend looking into a Mesh router instead of using a Wifi Extender. A Mesh router replaces your existing Router with multiple smaller routers that sit throughout your house. Mesh routers are the latest generation of routers and typically have better performance and more features.
I use a Mesh Wifi router in my apartment and it provides amazing coverage and reliability.
Mesh routers are more expensive, but they tend to just work and provide high speed wifi without any of the drawbacks of extenders.
If you’re looking at switching to a Mesh setup take a look at the TP-Link Deco, Google Nest or Amazon Eero as a good starting point. All of these systems perform well, have easy app based setup and are super reliable. Plus you get amazing Wifi coverage no matter how large your property is.
