Best range wireless router for less than $80-100?

[bartosz]

Hi,
I'm looking for a wireless router capable of covering a ~600 square feet home with a strong and consistent signal. I installed a Belkin N450 that I was able to find at a local store, but it barely covers adjacent rooms. What do you suggest?

The router would be placed on the north end of the house, with the kitchen separating it from other rooms, with the possibility of moving it to the center of the house, which would require spreading out a 100feet ethernet cable.

I have a 28mbit connection from Comcast, if that helps.

My knowledge is lacking in these respects, let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Thank you.

 

[Scooterit]

These are some factors you have to keep in mind that will effect the coverage:

• Walls
• Wall material
• Mirrors
• Interference from other WiFi signals
• Sensitivity / strength of the device you want to connect to*

*its a 2 way communication the router needs to be able to hear the other side as well...

Locate the wireless router in a central location and as high as possible. Compare it to a lighthouse beaming an invisible signal trough your house. The less obstacles the better.

 

[stevech]

Hi,
I'm looking for a wireless router capable of covering a ~600 square feet home with a strong and consistent signal. I installed a Belkin N450 that I was able to find at a local store, but it barely covers adjacent rooms. What do you suggest?

The router would be placed on the north end of the house, with the kitchen separating it from other rooms, with the possibility of moving it to the center of the house, which would require spreading out a 100feet ethernet cable.

I have a 28mbit connection from Comcast, if that helps.

My knowledge is lacking in these respects, let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Thank you.

That N450 should be fine - unless you have lath and plaster (old) walls rather than drywall. But it isn't.
600 sq. ft. is small. While a central location for the WIFi router is best, that small of a home should be OK with drywall. And if you place the WiFi router in a relatively clear space (e.g., not adjacent to a metal filing cabinet).

Try several client devices' display of signal strength. It's OK to have, say, 3 of 5 bars.
What matters is the speed you get using speedtest.net, trying several nearby speedtest.net servers (some are far slower at times).

Note too that a WiFi router's "range" is affected too by the client devices' transmitted signal strength. And we hope it has few impairments blocking the path. It can be weak from some handheld devices. It's not normally displayed by the WiFi router's admin software.

lastly, it is possible you have a faulty WiFi router.
And we assume here you are talking about the 2.4GHz band mode rather than the 5GHz band - and it uses an old standard in the 5GHz band.

If you can return it for credit, you might consider, for that 600 sq. ft. and not striving for costly state of the art, an ASUS RT-N12. It's low cost. I use it to cover my 1700 sq. ft. two-story. It just works. No reboots needed. Used with HTC phone, iPad, and several other things.

I suggest not over-paying for features and the very latest standards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320168

 

[azazel1024]

What kind of construction? Concrete rebar? 600sq-ft is tiny and even on 5GHz should be easy to cover, even if the router is not in a central location. Also...how do you need to run 100ft of cat5e if you wanted to relocated it to a central location? My house is 2,500sq-ft and to run from my ONT in my garage on the furthest side of my house to the exact opposite side down in my basement office only took about 100ft of cat5e. Circling the house twice before running it inside?

I am with Stevech. Simpler might be better for you and the suggested router is good. If you need something with more speed and good range, try the TP-Link WDR3600. Good range, especially on 2.4GHz, but 5GHz is decent too. Not very expensive.

 

[bartosz]

Ha, what was I thinking? The house is actually closer to 1200 square feet. It's mostly plywood, but the n450 struggles to get past the kitchen, without dropping to one line on my Nexus phone or my laptop. I uploaded a rough layout of the house. The router is right next to the TV. Below is the bathroom – I marked the washer and the dryer – and then the kitchen with major appliances.

Between the two suggested routers – Asus and TP-Link, which one would you recommend? The Asus isn't dual band? Can I buy stronger antenna to improve the range?

 

[stevech]

Ha, what was I thinking? The house is actually closer to 1200 square feet. It's mostly plywood, but the n450 struggles to get past the kitchen, without dropping to one line on my Nexus phone or my laptop. I uploaded a rough layout of the house. The router is right next to the TV. Below is the bathroom – I marked the washer and the dryer – and then the kitchen with major appliances.

Between the two suggested routers – Asus and TP-Link, which one would you recommend? The Asus isn't dual band? Can I buy stronger antenna to improve the range?

That ASUS isn't dual band - assuming that extra cost isn't needed.
Changing antennas (staying with omni-directional) won't make a noticable difference.

Did you try speedtest? What matters is the speed your client devices achieve, moreso than the signal strength - unless your signal strength is down to 1 or 2 bars.

In a two story, often you need to add an Access Point (AP) for the 2nd floor, and at the opposite end of the home vs. the downstairs. Just too many floors/walls in the path to use just one. That ASUS I mention has an AP mode. You connect the AP to the router via cat5 cable if you can, else HomePlug or MoCA (See that forum section).

But at 1200 sq. ft. and drywalls, you should be able to get by with one WiFi router more or less centrally located.

 

[bartosz]

Speedtest shows significant drops in speed, from 27-28 mbps right next to the router, to 5-7 mbps at the far end of the house, and around 10-14 in the central area.

So dualband doesn't really matter? The TP-Link is only $15 more and is db, so if it helps with coverage, I'll go with it.

 

[tommls]

Hello,
I just found this thread.
Can either device provide a GUEST wireless network?? in addition to the regular wireless networking??
Thank you, Tom

 

[azazel1024]

Well, if you have any dual stream clients, the WDR3600 is N600, so 300Mbps in 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The Asus is just N150, so 150Mbps max in 2.4GHz.

However, if all of your clients are only 1:1 (single stream) clients, it doesn't matter.

The TP-Link can do guest networks, I believe that the Asus can as well, but I am not positive. It looks like you biggest issue is router location.

From the looks of your sketch, to get to the rest of your house, the signal has to either pass through a bunch of appliances, exerior walls or get bounced.

All three of those are generally recipes for vastly reduced range. Insulation is decent at soaking up wifi signals and any kind of metal siding is just a killer. As a comparison, out the front of my house on the same level as my router about 15ft from the router, it is only going through a 2x6 wall with fiberglass insulation (R19), 1/2" drywall, 17/32" plywood sheathing and vinyl siding. Signal strength is around -65dBm. By comparison going in to the house and siding by the exterior wall only about 3ft closer, but without the exterior wall in the way, the signal strength is at -38dBm.

If I walk roughly the same distance in the opposite direction and go in to the half bath there and sit on the toilet, I am around 15ft away from the router with only one interior 2x4 wall with 1/2" drywall on both sides. Signal strength is at about -55dBm. That means that exterior wall with all of the insulation, siding, etc was good for roughly 10dB of extra signal attenuation (IE signal is reduced to 1/10th what it was).

In your case, for a lot of your house, it has to go out through an exterior wall and back in through an exterior wall, at an oblique angle too.

Another good comparison steping out on to my back deck, with aluminum siding now (I haven't replaced the siding yet), but ONLY 2x4 construction and R13 fiberglass (front of the room has 2x4+furing strips and R19, rear of room is straight 2x4. Its an old house and hodgepodge as I upgrade/renovate it). However it has aluminum siding over cedar siding. At 20ft distance and that thinner wall, but with aluminum siding over wood siding the signal strength is -75dBm.

So thinner wall, but some extra wood and very thin METAL and it hits the signal strength by -10dB over and above the impact that a THICK insulated wall will do to signal.

So look to your router location first. If it has to go through metal appliances, tile and stuff in a bathroom, or exterior walls, ANY router is going to struggle with that.

 

[Samir]

The easiest way to get better coverage will be a hard wired solution to the other side of the house and a second access point there. You can put a cat5 somewhere, use existing coax in the walls with adapters, or even the power lines with powerline adapters.

 

[stevech]

The easiest way to get better coverage will be a hard wired solution to the other side of the house and a second access point there. You can put a cat5 somewhere, use existing coax in the walls with adapters, or even the power lines with powerline adapters.

Or MoCA, which has served me well for a long time.

 

[bartosz]

I received the TP-Link WDR3600, placed it in a central location (green square), and although I get decent coverage on the right side of the house, the bedrooms on the left get barely any signal. In fact the 2.4ghz signal is super slow, at around .5-1.5mbs. I can use the 5ghz, but my macbook is the only client that can pick it up.
Should I get a wifi extender there? Is TP-LINK TL-WA850RE any good? Why is it that the signal and speed drop so dramatically so quickly? I checked the wifi channels and there isn't that much interference with my neighbors networks.

 

[bartosz]

The easiest way to get better coverage will be a hard wired solution to the other side of the house and a second access point there. You can put a cat5 somewhere, use existing coax in the walls with adapters, or even the power lines with powerline adapters.

What would you recommend to act as an access point?

 

[azazel1024]

I received the TP-Link WDR3600, placed it in a central location (green square), and although I get decent coverage on the right side of the house, the bedrooms on the left get barely any signal. In fact the 2.4ghz signal is super slow, at around .5-1.5mbs. I can use the 5ghz, but my macbook is the only client that can pick it up.
Should I get a wifi extender there? Is TP-LINK TL-WA850RE any good? Why is it that the signal and speed drop so dramatically so quickly? I checked the wifi channels and there isn't that much interference with my neighbors networks.

What kind of construction is this place? Distances? I get okay if not great signal over a distance of 30ft through a 4ft thick masonry chimney and 3 other interior 2x4+1/2" drywall composition walls. I can still manage to push around 15-20Mbps to/from my laptop laying in bed like that. Of course, I have my router right below in my basement office, so that side of the house I connect to that, but I've tested it and it works just fine.

Do you have a ton of 2.4GHz interferance or competing networks? Concrete or plaster with chicken wire construction or something?

 

[stevech]

What would you recommend to act as an access point?

I am pleased with the inexpensive ASUS RT-N12. Has been flawless in providing WiFi for the handled devices here. My HTC One does IP layer 30Mbps with Speedtest.net and that speed is what I pay for from the ISP.