What is the optimal wifi extender, (extend an N wifi signal in another room).
I was thinking haplite.
I was also thinking it would work best if one could join one radio in a device to the source wifi and use a second radio to the devices in the local room (but on another frequency).
What device could do that , but is cheap??
What is cheap for you? I.e. I use a hAP ac2 as travel rotuer and find that really cheap.
Yes, but is it any good and does make use of two radios for example (some can do 2.4ghs and some can do 5ghz chains, assuming this is two radios, one could link to the primary source 2ghz for example and then retx on 5ghz or am I wrong??
As the saying goes useless as nipples on a bull 
I am talking Mikrotik not google choice … House of Slytherin you lose 50 points.!!
All MikroTiks are good…some are just better. There is a very nice blogpost that I used to inspire my travel router. That one is based upon a hAP ac Lite:
https://www.justinho.com/blog/2017/07/15/hap-ac-lite.html
Sweet erlinden. Now why did you go with the hap ac2 vice haplite??
Also wouldnt these be better with external antennas?
Hi Anav,
even with repeater there are some thoughts to be done before deciding a solution.
First of all 2.4G repeaters are really only good in none dense environments.
If you live in city apprtement building with 20+ AP, then just forget this one.
But if you are the king of Nova Scottia in your castle, then 2.4G can be adequate…
Do a “same band/same frequency” (example: hap lite TC) range extender is ok for basic usage:
- non dense environment (little interference), low throughput need (like some sensors you have in remote locations) or a
single user with couple of Mega throughput ask
- Example: Garden of your castle, with no neighbours and only some throughput needed
→ Hap lite TC (tower case) could be a solution.
You could do also a same band (2.4G), but dual frequency solution , by using 2 x hap lite (one as the Client to the main AP and one as the extender AP).
The issue here is you must distance the two AP quit a bit (you can not put them each one next to each other). Ideally one or 2 meters
appart from each others and connect them with ethernet cable together.
Advantage: You can use all of the spectrum for 2.4G etc. as you use two of the 2.4G bands seperatly (again only for none dense environemnt).
Disadvantage: ugly, bit expensive, and not good in dense environment.
Now if you go to dual band devices (hap ac2), the advantage is you can do “backhaul” (connection to the main AP) on which ever band
you want it to be, and you can also use both bands on the front haul (the link that connects to the client device).
2.4G as backhaul will give you better reach. 5G will give you higher speed but less reach.
With hap-ac2 you can do pretty much what ever you want and you will have most flexibility.
But having said this, I find the mikrotik 5Ghz 2x2 achievable distance not that great. I use audience 4x4 5Ghz and it covers barely my medium size home.
So conclusion to me: If you live in remote place, hap lite can do good repeater job in above mentioned condition.
But if it’s dense area, hap lite will do nothing, but also hap-ac2 might not be solution that provides you full satisfaction.
To put it in other words: If you think with hap ac2 you will get crazy speed internet in places you did not had internet before, then its probably not really true.
But with hap ac2 and good planning, you will get better/faster internet where you have already internet but today with limited speed.
Does this make sense to you?
hAP ac2 is the most versatile networking product I’ve used, as a repeater the speed will depend a lot on the signal reception and the capacity of the main network.