WiFi Extenders

I have been looking for a WiFi extender that bridges over ethernet.  Many WiFi extenders are simply repeaters.  This means you connect to the repeater over WiFi, and the repeater connects to your WiFi router over WiFi.  Most consumers want this setup because you don't have to worry about running ethernet cable to the far ends of your house.  You buy a repeater to essentially boost your signal.  Repeaters don't increase bandwidth, though.

Imagine a simple setup with one WiFi router and two wireless devices.  If both devices are being used at the same time, then they have to split the bandwidth between the two.  They are sharing the same WiFi channel. Extend that to the repeater network layout.  You still have two devices, but they each have an access point.  The problem is the repeater acts like another wireless device.  In reality, your router has two devices sharing a channel and the repeater has a single device on it.  You still only have half the bandwidth.

With ethernet bridging, you have two access points.  You connect the access points to each other with high speed ethernet cable.  It is a bit over-simplified, but you can now have two devices, and each device gets the full 802.11a/b/n bandwidth.  When you have lots of wireless devices (3 laptops, 2 cell phones, 2 MK802s and one desktop), your devices can easily conflict with each other.  Things get worse when you start buying WiFi IP cameras.

I finally found a relatively cheap extender that allowed me to bridge over ethernet.  I bought it and started reading the instructions (imagine that!).  The instructions stated that bridging over ethernet was not recommended!  I tried it anyways.  Once I enabled the extender, the entire WiFi network came down.  I couldn't connect to either access point.

My second extender I tried was the Uspeed Wifi Repeater.  This device is designed to be a repeater.  It is designed to plug into an outlet in inconvenient locations.  It does support ethernet bridging though.  I set up the bridging and it started working.  It took less than 5 minutes to set up.  I now have two access points.