The Best Wi-Fi Extender and Signal Booster of 2024 | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Joel Santo Domingo

Joel Santo Domingo is a writer focused on networking and storage. He’s tested over 250 mesh networks, routers, and modems.

We added new Wi-Fi 7 extenders we’re looking forward to testing soon.

Sometimes, there’s one spot in your home where Wi-Fi just doesn’t work very well. If your standalone Wi-Fi router keeps your laptop or phone reliably connected everywhere in your house except for that one trouble spot, a good Wi-Fi extender would be the quickest, cheapest fix. After a new round of research and testing, we’ve reaffirmed that the TP-Link RE315 can make a network noticeably more reliable in a small area, for an affordable price.

Make sure your router is centrally located before you try using an extender or a booster.

If your router is more than a few years old, replacing it may be a more reliable and effective option than getting an extender.

Mesh-networking kits take the weight off of a single router, spreading multiple access points around your house to improve Wi-Fi range and performance.

The fastest internet always comes from a hard line into your devices. Connect directly and avoid Wi-Fi if you can.

This is a good extender for anyone who wants to boost a network, add an Ethernet jack to another room wirelessly, or install an access point in a prewired home.

In our testing, the TP-Link RE315 reliably improved Wi-Fi connections and speed. It’s easy to plug in and set up, and it has an Ethernet port for connecting wired devices. Typically priced under $45, it’s a good, inexpensive fix for spotty Wi-Fi in a particular room of your home. If you have a compatible TP-Link router, such as the Archer AX3000 Pro, our current router pick, you can use the RE315’s OneMesh feature, which simplifies setup and Wi-Fi coverage.

If you have dead Wi-Fi spots in your house, a powerline networking adapter like the TP-Link TL-PA9020P KIT may fix the problem.

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Before joining Wirecutter, Joel Santo Domingo tested and wrote about PCs, networking, and personal tech at PCMag.com, PC Magazine, Lifewire, and HotHardware for more than 17 years. Prior to writing for a living, Joel was an IT tech and system administrator for small, medium-size, and large companies.

Metaphorically, Joel has been a wire cutter for over two decades: Testing wireless home networking has been a part of his life for the past 20-plus years, through all versions of Wi-Fi, back to the wireless phone extension he tacked onto the back of his Apple PowerBook.

A wireless extender connects to your existing Wi-Fi at a location with a strong connection, and then it rebroadcasts its own signals, improving the quality of Wi-Fi connections within its range. If you already own a decent router, and you simply want to improve your Wi-Fi and eliminate a dead spot in one or two adjacent rooms, an extender may be just the fix you’re looking for.

Despite the name, a Wi-Fi extender can’t grow your network much farther than its current maximum range. A good extender improves the radio coverage of your network within its current boundaries, thus improving your web-browsing experience. And it’s great for bouncing the signal around obstructions like refrigerators, reinforced walls, or foundations.

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Extenders are a cheap, easy solution to a common problem, but they’re rarely the most optimal one. Before buying a Wi-Fi extender, consider replacing a router that’s more than a few years old with a newer, faster model or going with mesh networking. If you already have a good Wi-Fi 6 router, make sure you’ve positioned it as high up and as close to the center of your home as possible. Plug computers, streaming devices, game consoles, and anything else you can into the router (or, if you need more ports, a network switch) via Ethernet, to reduce the number of devices competing for a wireless connection.

If you’ve done all of that and still have a trouble spot, a wireless extender could help. Cost is key, though: Good mesh Wi-Fi networks start at just above $120, and they offer more features, greater range, better roaming between access points, and generally higher performance. The cost of replacing an older router and adding a Wi-Fi extender is high enough that one of our mesh picks would be a much better choice.

One final warning: Avoid extenders that don’t use 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) or 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E). Old, 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) extenders are cheaper, but when such extenders are running, they significantly decrease the speed of all devices on your Wi-Fi. In addition, for devices connected by Wi-Fi to the extender, such models provide less than half of the base router’s speed. None of our picks are 802.11n extenders.

In considering models for this guide, we wanted each device to have the following:

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In a 2,300-square-foot, two-story suburban home, we found a spot that had an iffy connection to a standalone Wi-Fi 6E router one floor up and across the home. To get to that location, the Wi-Fi signal had to go through several interior walls, ending in a room surrounded by masonry walls, which can absorb radio signals and interfere with Wi-Fi.

For our tests, we wirelessly connected each extender to an Asus RT-AXE7800 tri-band router. We placed each extender in the living room, on the main floor of our test home. That was about 20 to 25 feet horizontally from the base router, through at least two interior walls, but well within the “bubble” of the Wi-Fi signal from the Asus router. (Despite their name, signal boosters can’t extend the signal too far beyond where the router’s original signal gives out.)

In the rest of the house, our test Dell Latitude laptop was able to connect to the router via Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, but its signals were stretched a little thin in our test space. In fact, the laptop lost 6E signal in the test space, but it connected to the router just fine in the master bedroom right outside the door.

Before testing any extenders, we ran baseline tests using only the Asus router. Then, as we tested each extender, we subtracted the value of our baseline test. This approach allows us to directly show you how much each extender improved our test network’s performance from what we started with.

Our test involved downloading a large file. We wanted to see an overall throughput of 100 megabits per second or better, to simulate the experience of an impatient person waiting for a device to complete an update. When we ran the test without an extender, the laptop managed only 11 megabits per second (Mbps) on Wi-Fi 6 and zero Mbps on Wi-Fi 6E.

This is a good extender for anyone who wants to boost a network, add an Ethernet jack to another room wirelessly, or install an access point in a prewired home.

TP-Link’s RE315 isn’t the fastest Wi-Fi extender on paper, but in our tests it improved performance and connection quality immensely compared with the Asus RT-AXE7800 router alone. It is also compact, plugs directly into a power outlet, and has a 100 Mbps wired Ethernet port for connecting nearby devices.

It’s inexpensive. The TP-Link RE315 has been our extender pick for over a year and a half, and in that time the price has hovered between $30 and $40. That’s significantly less than the price of most of the Wi-Fi extenders we’ve tested in the past two years; those can cost as much as $200.

It improves Wi-Fi connections in a localized area. The RE315 was able to restore a speedy, lag-free connection to a room that had neither speed nor reliability. Transfer speed went from 11 megabits per second (Mbps) to almost 160 Mbps. That’s the difference between having an iffy time streaming a single 4K video versus it being no big deal to download large files or stream multiple videos simultaneously.

The extender sped up responsiveness. In addition to better transfer speed, the Wi-Fi’s responsiveness (latency) improved from 10,799 milliseconds (ms) to 765 ms. In other words, that’s a shift from an interminable wait while staring at a spinning pinwheel on your phone to instantly changing channels while watching YouTube TV.

It improved a spotty connection into a solid, speedy one. And it wasn’t just connection quality that improved: Compared with the router alone, the RE315 improved speed by 1,350% on downloads for the laptop in the dead zone. While that might not make a difference if you’re simply streaming music, it will be noticeable if you’re in a Zoom meeting or trying to get the latest game updates.

You can plug it in. The RE315’s 100 Mbps Ethernet port is convenient. Where possible, it’s a good idea to plug devices like media streamers or game consoles into an extender’s Ethernet port, rather than putting them on Wi-Fi. When you take a bandwidth-hogging device—such as a streaming box or gaming PC—off of the wireless network, you free up more Wi-Fi signal for the other devices in your home.

The RE315 is mesh-compatible with TP-Link routers. If you’re already using a compatible TP-Link router, such as the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro, enabling OneMesh on the RE315 improves connectivity even further. Unlike the normal extender mode, which usually rebroadcasts your Wi-Fi network on a second network name, OneMesh integrates the two devices like a mesh-networking system does. All you have to do is enter the common network name (the SSID) on your phone or device, and your phone or device will automatically connect to the extender or the router based on whichever connection is more efficient as you roam around your home. Plus, you can manage the settings and firmware updates for both devices using the same interface on the Archer AX3000 Pro.

Although your connection may perform faster and feel more responsive with an extender, using the TP-Link RE315 isn’t a substitute for plugging an Ethernet cable directly into your router, using powerline networking, a MoCA wired bridge, or a mesh Wi-Fi system.

The RE315’s sole Ethernet port is capable of only 100 Mbps. That’s sufficient for a single 4K streaming box, but it may be less than your internet connection can produce overall.

If you plan to hook up more than one PC or multiple devices to the extender, you may be better off with an extender that has multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports, like the Netgear EAX20.

The RE315’s two antennas, which swing up from their parked position, are a bit of an eyesore. But compared with the antenna-less RE230 we tested in a previous version of this guide, in our tests the RE315 antennas helped the extender maintain a solid connection back to the base router.

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If you need extra wired Ethernet ports: The Netgear EAX20 is shaped like a router, and it has four Gigabit Ethernet ports for connecting game consoles and smart TVs. It’s normally priced around $130, so it may be cheaper to buy an RE315, a few Ethernet cables, and a 4-port hub. But the EAX20 is more convenient for multiple connections in the same room, and it’s more compact.

If you absolutely need Wi-Fi 6E: The TP-Link RE815XE has Wi-Fi 6E compatibility and was able to extend a strong Wi-Fi 6E signal to our test laptop in a room that had zero 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E coverage from the Asus RT-AXE7500 router. You can also connect the RE815XE via Ethernet and extend Wi-Fi 6E in access point mode to a room on the other side of the house, provided you have the wire run between the router and the extender. However, since the price of the extender alone is usually $200, we’d recommend this solution only if you must connect laptops or phones with Wi-Fi 6E. Replacing your router with a Wi-Fi 6 or 6E mesh network from scratch is likely to be cheaper in the long run.

Wi-Fi 7 routers are out, and the TP-Link Archer BE550 is our new Wi-Fi 7 router upgrade pick. TP-Link has announced compatible extenders including the RE655BE and RE235BE, which we’re planning to test soon. The pricier RE635BE costs $300, which is an eye-watering 1,200% price increase over our pick. If you’re considering upgrading your home to Wi-Fi 7, it would be more cost effective to start over with a mesh network like the TP-Link Deco BE63, our upgrade pick.

In practical terms, you would need both a new router and new extenders to take advantage of Wi-Fi 6/6E and Wi-Fi 7. This combination could cost $500 and up. It’s already difficult to recommend investing in an extender when purpose-built mesh kits typically provide faster, farther-ranging connections and easier setup.

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During this revision, we tested the TP-Link RE600X, RE715X, and RE815X, Netgear EAX12 and EAX80, and Asus RP-AX58. All tested well but were significantly more expensive than our pick. Their performance was marginally better than that of our pick but not enough to justify their price increase. Again, if you need to improve Wi-Fi in more than one dead spot in your home or business, consider a mesh-networking system.

In previous versions of this guide, we’ve tested and rated the TP-Link RE220, TP-Link RE605X, TP-Link RE200, Asus RP-AC55, D-Link E15, Linksys RE7350, Netgear EX7700, EAX15, Nighthawk X4 EX7300, and others from Amped Wireless, AmpliFi, D-Link, Edimax, Linksys, Tenda, and Zyxel. But we dismissed them because they lacked features, were significantly more expensive, or lagged our pick in some way.

This article was edited by Signe Brewster and Caitlin McGarry.

Joel Santo Domingo

Joel Santo Domingo is a senior staff writer covering networking and storage at Wirecutter. Previously he tested and reviewed more than a thousand PCs and tech devices for PCMag and other sites over 17 years. Joel became attracted to service journalism after answering many “What’s good?” questions while working as an IT manager and technician.

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