TP-Link N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender (TL-WA850RE)

Wow, what a concept! I guess I should keep up more on tech trends, since I didn't even know that products like this exist, ahaha, but what a brilliant solution for "dead spots" in terms of wireless signal reach.Like many folks, my WiFi modem from the dreaded Xfinity cable company was stuck being near to the cable outlet. Since it not only talks to my TV, BluRay player and PS3, but also needs to be connected to my phone and home office area, limits on where to put it are frustrating when WiFi starts to drop, the farther your devices get from the modem. Put it where it works for some things, and it quits working for other things, and vice versa.Plus, back when I set this all up, years ago, I had devices still needing hard wiring (haha, seems so primitive now -- wires, LOL) so I actually wound up running a long length of cable to place the modem where, at that time, it was needed most, for wired devices. But, that meant WiFi signal no longer reached to the further realms of the apartment.It wasn't a problem, for years, but now with greater reliance on needing a good signal for smart phones and tablets (and avoiding going over the limits set by wireless carriers -- I rarely use my phone network WiFi when home wireless is available), over time it has become an issue that, like cave people of old huddled around a central camp fire, staying connected to the WiFi signal means not straying too far from the modem, which doesn't do much good as far as having a device that's wireless when you're stuck in one place in order to keep a connection. May as well have a wire then, right?Not being too tech savvy, I hadn't known how to solve my limited WiFi signal issue, and options I'd looked at, for "routers" and "repeaters" were frankly out of my range of understanding, even for what to buy, let alone priced within what I wanted to spend. Since stores nearby that sell such things had no answers -- being of the big store type with no customer service -- I had frankly given up hope, but nonetheless remained frustrated every time my signal would vanish if I wandered too far from my little signal area.Enter the TP-Link! Cue fanfare music!From what I could glean from reviews, it seemed you just plug this thing into a wall socket, it finds your current WiFi signal, and makes another one! Really?!? How awesome is that! Wherever you put it, BAM, more signal! And, for just thirty bucks? Brilliant!So, I ordered one up.Arrived, unboxed it, read the short blurb on use, plugged it in, and, like magic, instant bliss! Seriously, it was insanely simple. I didn't need to even use my laptop to introduce it to the rest of the family and, since it just extends your existing signal, any device that you have currently connected to your main WiFi will pick up the TP-Link -- it copies the existing network name and network password, so there's no added steps as far as accessing the signal sent out by the TP-Link.In terms of set up, I just plugged it in near my WiFi modem, pushed the WPS button on my modem, that tells my modem to let the TP-Link connect to it, the TP-Link did exactly that, and that was it!Skeptical of such powers, I then unplugged the TP-Link, moved it to where I figured it would best broadcast its new signal, plugged it back in, and, waited for it to malfunction. After all, what tech ever does all of what it promises, right? Well, it fired up, it remembered its connection, and faithfully started sending signal, bringing WiFi to previously dead areas of my little abode.Watching the lights on it, the device even tells you the best place to plug it in -- what works for optimum success is keeping it close enough to your main source of signal (in my case, my WiFi modem) that the TP-Link gets a good signal from your source, because the better source signal it gets, the stronger signal it sends out for you to use.So, in other words, put it too far away from your WiFi source, and it won't have much signal to send, meaning that it does have its limits, of course. You can't plug it in and expect it to shoot your WiFi all over town for you, but, within a house or apartment, it seems a genius solution for "re-broadcasting" your existing WiFi signal to a previously unreached area.As I said, thanks to lighted indicators that show signal strength, you can wander around, plug it in various test spots, and ultimately find the best place, which is one that brings your signal out as far as possible to where you want it, for bring signal to former dead zones, while still staying close enough to your main source for the TP-Link to get a solid signal to use, for re-broadcasting.I found that, in a spot where the TP-Link is only getting a signal of two or three "bars" (it has a lighted scale of 1 to 5, showing you the strength of the signal it is receiving from your main WiFi source) it isn't sending out such a great signal either, obviously, so the best place is one where your TP-Link is getting four or five bars. Then it sends a strong signal.To speed up placement, I actually found a "WifFi Analyzer" app on my Android phone, that has a cool beeping signal detector, for showing exactly how much signal my main WiFi modem is putting out, in any given area. I was able to walk around with that and find where my WiFi signal starts to degrade. At the point farthest from the modem that still gets strong signal, is where I put the TP-Link.Of course, as it turns out, there was no electrical outlet there (go figure!), so I ran an extension cord to that area, since my options for plug sockets was either one not far enough to give good signal extension, or one that was too far for the TP-Link to get a good signal to send out. I wall mounted the extension cord, tastefully, and I now have WiFi in the other half of my pad. Woo hoooo!Drawbacks? None, really, except just the limit, obviously, on how far you can go, away from your main signal source, in trying to reach a new area for signal extension. I'm not sure how it would work between floors, or across distances greater than my need. For me, I now have signal where I previously had very nearly none -- or none practical enough to use, really -- so for me, for thirty dollars, this has been an outstanding purchase. I went from WiFi in half my apartment, to WiFi in all of it.As an added bonus, it even has an Ethernet port on the bottom of it, so if you wanted to run a wired device off of this, from where you now have extended signal, it will even do that for you. Amazing.While I found no drawback for this, I should note that it does cast a mighty bright blue light -- for me that was a plus since it now lights a dark hallway area at night, but it might be annoying for someone if placed in a sleeping area, for those who don't like an instant nightlight added to their room.Reliability thus far has been perfect. I have even gone through a couple of power outages due to storms, and a period of my modem being down to Xfinity's usual screw ups, but in all cases, once my main signal was back up, the TP-Link didn't even need to be reset, it just found the signal again automatically, and started faithfully broadcasting.I think this is one of the coolest devices ever, in making our new WiFi world a more user friendly place. Maybe in the future, existing modems will be made to send better signals, but, for now, this is a supremely convenient little gadget for extending WiFi signal at an incredibly affordable price.HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

We have a 60 x 40 metal building workshop located 50 yards from our house. Because of the metal skin, WiFi and cellular signal is nearly non-existent inside the workshop except for an area of less than 1 foot away from the small window facing the house. Even then right on the window sill showed only one bar on most devices, and if you moved more than a few inches from the glass it was gone all together so completely useless for all intents and purposes. We had been using an an extension WiFi antenna mounted in that same window for our shop PC to link to our home network out there with marginal success for the last couple years, but the speeds were lousy and we really wanted a router in the building for our phones and multiple devices to connect to. So, we were about to bite the bullet and just trench in an underground cat 5 cable out there to supply the wan for a second wireless router when I saw this and figured for 20 bucks it was totally worth a try. It is about 15% of what the competition and is charging for what is advertised as the same thing so I was a not expecting it to work well, even with our high end router. Happily, I was completely wrong, at least for our application it actually works wonderfully. We set it up first in our house right across the room from our existing router using the WPS push button option (available on most routers) and it took literally less than a minute to set up, automatically cloned our existing SSID so most devices already on your network will use it automatically wherever you put it. We then took it out to our shop and tested it by first hooking it to an extension cord in our shop and finding where it could actually pick up our weak WiFi signal at all using its led bar display, in our case that was unsurprisingly only available inside inches from the window facing our home. It worked so well there that I immediately installed an electrical outlet for it right above the window frame inside our shop so that the bottom of the unit hangs into the window facing the house. For the non electrically inclined, worry not, any small two prong extension cord should let you put this item anywhere you may need to for best reception if available outlets are in dead zones. For us we took advantage of the window letting some tiny signal into the building so from the outside and plugged it in upside down directly above the window so just an inch or two of the unit hangs down and is is actually visible though the glass from outside a small price to pay for strong WiFi in the building. We went from zero bars of WiFi in our workshop to 5 bars on every device, absolutely anywhere in or around the shop. Our iPhones and iPads switch seamlessly and automatically when coming in and out of the shop with both Facetime and iMessaging working flawlessly inside. Multiple devices can stream video and audio flawlessly in the previously WiFi dead zone. The LAN port also now gives us the ability to connect any other wired devices in the building to our home network as well, and I would assume a simple 10 dollar switch could expand that single wired connection plug to as many LAN ports as you need (example a TP-LINK TL-SF1005D 5-port 10/100Mbps Desktop Switch $9.95). I would use this for a remote LAN drop for an older non WiFi-Xbox 360, Blu-ray player, or anything at this price point, since it is easier than fishing a LAN wire just about anywhere, and will provide a strong WiFi signal wherever you install it to boot.