Connecting a WiFi extender

[Nigel]

Loving the R2 with a wired connection to my ps4 it's great, bit the WiFi isn't great for the rest of my house.

I had a Nighthawk x4s before I got the R2 and the WiFi was Great, I live in a normal 3 bedroom house so I shouldn't have much issues but the WiFi isn't reaching to the far corners of my house like the X4s did.

Was wondering if I purchased a WiFi extender would it help but the one I was looking at only has WPS connection but I don't think the R2 has this function, would love some help with this matter.

Many thanks Nigel

[Newfie]

Hi Nigel

just a heads up that they are working hard on the WiFi to improve performance so you could hold back. 
 

i have a couple of the Netgears EX8000 extenders that I use if need be. Ones set up as an access point as I wanted my Arlo basestion well away from my router and that works fine. I’ve also used them as extenders but it does require the router to be in DFS100 or above and they are a bit of a miss match on the WiFi side as it’s different spec.

[johnnytran]

Hey, I also have wifi issues and had a team viewer session with one of he devs last night. He's got enough info to work on it offline so hopefully they can make it more powerful and consistent.

I was given another firmware which I'm assuming will be posted around here if they haven't started already. It did improve my speedtest, I'm now able to achieve 70-90Mbps tops on speedtest.net ONLY if nothing else is using the wifi (in comparison to old router, i always hit 110Mbps/37Mbps). Using wifi sweetspots while running a test seriously tanks the connection though - I don't know if that's normal? Using the app on it's own shows anywhere from 15-50Mbps max compared to 100+ on previous router.

It's definitely improved more than before but still needs improving. These results are over 5Ghz 4-5m away from the router with 1 thin wall in between. Signal strength in't consistent, usually fluctuating between 60-75dBm

[liveandletdie34]

6 hours ago, Nigel said:

Loving the R2 with a wired connection to my ps4 it's great, bit the WiFi isn't great for the rest of my house.

I had a Nighthawk x4s before I got the R2 and the WiFi was Great, I live in a normal 3 bedroom house so I shouldn't have much issues but the WiFi isn't reaching to the far corners of my house like the X4s did.

Was wondering if I purchased a WiFi extender would it help but the one I was looking at only has WPS connection but I don't think the R2 has this function, would love some help with this matter.

Many thanks Nigel

Having the exact same issue mate and need the same question answered my self

[Newfie]

4 hours ago, johnnytran said:

Hey, I also have wifi issues and had a team viewer session with one of he devs last night. He's got enough info to work on it offline so hopefully they can make it more powerful and consistent.

I was given another firmware which I'm assuming will be posted around here if they haven't started already. It did improve my speedtest, I'm now able to achieve 70-90Mbps tops on speedtest.net ONLY if nothing else is using the wifi (in comparison to old router, i always hit 110Mbps/37Mbps). Using wifi sweetspots while running a test seriously tanks the connection though - I don't know if that's normal? Using the app on it's own shows anywhere from 15-50Mbps max compared to 100+ on previous router.

It's definitely improved more than before but still needs improving. These results are over 5Ghz 4-5m away from the router with 1 thin wall in between. Signal strength in't consistent, usually fluctuating between 60-75dBm

WiFi Sweetspots just checks the connection rates between the router and the device running Sweetspots. It’s an internal test only. So for example you test and get 400mbps. If your isp throughput was high enough you could achieve that, if you had a 1 gig connection the best would be 400mbps on WiFi to that device.

Now the test relies on how accurate the app is testing the connection and like all testing there is a degree of tolerance which is never stated and you also have the tolerance of the device and it’s hardware and software. So it’s a rough indication of what your throughput is and the only way to confirm the accuracy is a lab test which none of us will be doing. It could be +/- 10% For all I know so take the figures with a small pinch of salt but it’s a good way of checking your network. 
this applies to all testing as there is no real standard when matched all together and no devices are calibrated for such testing, you don’t send your iPhone in yearly to insure its WiFi is reading correctly and having a part 2 certificate produced to ISO standards. 
so it’s a rough guide of throughput which not only shows what to expect but is handy to map your property. You might find it drops to 0 at times yet connection is still ok, that’s the accuracy part I mentioned above. 

so when you run Sweetspots say on an iPhone and you place it down on a flat surface you should see a nice straight line and a small fluctuation on the number output. If you  pick the phone up and move it around in your hand you might see the line drop then rise then drop and rise. If you notice when you place the iPhone for example on a flat surface and you see the line fluctuating it could be interference from either neighbouring networks or background RFI. Wi-Fi will always have more variables involved in the quality of service than a LAN connection but with each generation of new Wi-Fi specs we see improvements across the board. 

The way around the WiFi and to get good performance would be to use let’s say an EAX80 AX WiFi extender in AP mode. You would simply have it sat in the same room as the router and then disable the R2 WiFi. The extender is £278 which is a heck of a lot of money which is down to the latest tech inside. I’ve a pair of EX8000 extenders and have tried one in AP mode on the R2 with great result, they are about £150. 
as you go down the price range the performance drops and this is where you can’t simply find the holy grail of routers because everything boils down to the end cost to the consumer. 
The R2 does a decent job WiFi wise, it’s not meant to be on par with say the XR500 just as the XR500 is not on par to the new generation of WiFi. It’s all about costs but you can add hardware to improve performance depending on your pocket and what you want.

[Netduma Fraser]

You could definitely use an extender or AP but you're correct in that the R2 doesn't have a WPS function. I've PM'd you so please take a look there.

[Dennis86]

Hello, I Want 2 use an extender (repeater) with the ND R2 ! Could u please DM me how 2 config it ? (Lan connection 4 Wlan on the repeater) thx 

[Netduma Fraser]

12 hours ago, Dennis86 said:

Hello, I Want 2 use an extender (repeater) with the ND R2 ! Could u please DM me how 2 config it ? (Lan connection 4 Wlan on the repeater) thx 

There are no specific instructions for the R2, the extender will come with instructions and you just need to follow those to have the two work together properly.