You are Here
News

Best Wi-Fi Extenders of 2025

Our picks

90001 Edit ZIP code

Why we chose these providers

In the CNET Smart Home, where we have a fiber internet plan with uploads and downloads of up to 150Mbps, the RE7310 returned average Wi-Fi 6 downloads throughout the entire multistory house of 132Mbps. As for the uploads, Linksys finished with an average whole-home speed to my Wi-Fi 6 test device of 124Mbps.

The RE7310 finished in a virtual tie with the TP-Link RE605X on Wi-Fi 6 devices, but was slightly less impressive with earlier-gen Wi-Fi 5 devices, particularly with respect to upload speeds. Still, the performance was solid across the board, and strong enough for me to take video calls in the Smart Home’s basement dead zones, something I would have struggled with using just the single router I ran my tests on. It’s a bit bulky-looking, but the RE7310 is the best Linksys range extender I’ve tested yet, and it’s an especially great pick if you can catch it on sale.

…Read more

TP-Link makes some of the most popular picks in the range extender category, with a fairly wide variety of options to choose from at various price points. If you’re buying one in 2025, the TP-Link RE605X should be right at the top of your list (government investigation notwithstanding). At $64, it’s far from the most affordable extender on the market (keep reading for the value picks), but with a highly capable AX1800 design, full support for the latest Wi-Fi 6 speeds and features, adjustable antennas and a helpful, easy-to-use control app with strong reviews on both Android and iOS, it’s about as well-rounded as range extenders get.

The performance is particularly sharp too. In my tests at the CNET Smart Home, an RE605X in the basement was able to extend the router’s signal from upstairs just fine, giving my upload and download speeds a significant boost in every room I tested. Throughout the entire 5,800-square-foot-home, among all the extenders I tested, the RE605X delivered the fastest average upload speeds to both Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 devices, the fastest average download speeds to Wi-Fi 6 devices and the second fastest average download speeds to Wi-Fi 5 devices.

By default, the extender puts out its own separate network when you first pair it with your router, and that network will use the same password as your original network, and the same SSID with “-EXT” added to the end. That’s better than extenders that put out an unsecured network by default — and if you use the app to delete that “-EXT” bit, it’ll automatically sync up with your original network and work invisibly to keep you better connected, which is ideal. All of that makes this extender an easy recommendation.

…Read more

The TP-Link RE220 was the least expensive range extender during my first run of at-home tests, but that didn’t stop it from outperforming everything else I tested at every turn. As Wi-Fi extenders go, it’s fast, it’s reliable, it works with just about every Wi-Fi router out there, and it’s easy to use. And, as of writing this, it costs even less than I paid for it initially — down to $15 on Amazon.

Plug it in and press the WPS button to pair it with your home network, and it’ll begin broadcasting its own networks on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Both offered steady Wi-Fi speeds throughout my home, including average download speeds on the 5GHz band of at least 75Mbps in every room access point I tested, along with strong upload speeds. The RE220 never once dropped my connection, and its speeds were consistent across multiple days of tests during both daytime and evening hours.

It’s a little long in the tooth at this point, and it won’t wow you with Wi-Fi 6 speeds, but the strong ease of use and the steady, dependable level of performance it offers mean it’s still an absolute steal. It’s not as fast as the top models I’ve tested in the years since, and I haven’t had a chance to retest it at the CNET Smart Home just yet — but it’s still a great choice if you want to boost the signal from the Wi-Fi router to a back room that sits beyond the router’s reach, but you’d like to pay as little as possible to get the job done.

…Read more

Ry Crist/CNET

D-Link DAP-X1870

Wait for a sale for this Wi-Fi extender

Last year’s top pick, the RE505X is just a slightly less powerful version of the RE605X that costs a bit less. I wasn’t able to retest it at the CNET Smart Home yet, but I’ll update this post when I get the chance. For now, I think performance-minded users will be glad they spent up for the better upload speeds of the RE605X or the Linksys RE7310, and value-minded users will likely be better served with the less expensive TP-Link RE220.

That leaves the RE505X as a bit of a middle child at this point, but it was an extremely capable and consistent performer in my earlier tests. At $57, it’s one of the cheaper Wi-Fi 6 extenders you’ll find.

…Read more

An outside view of the CNET Smart Home at night with lights on.

I spent weeks testing these range extenders at the CNET Smart Home.

Tristan Rinehart/CNET

How CNET tests Wi-Fi extenders and signal boosters

In 2022, I was able to resume tests at the CNET Smart Home, a 5,800-square-foot multistory home in the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky, that served as a living lab for our product tests. It’s a much better environment for testing wireless devices at range than my somewhat cramped, shotgun-style house — and with more ground to cover, it offered a much bigger challenge for these extenders.

CNET Smart Home single router Wi Fi speeds graph

Enlarge Image

CNET Smart Home single router Wi Fi speeds graph

This is the control graph, showing you the average speeds in each room I tested with no range extenders in play at all. On its own, a single, entry-level Wi-Fi 6 router in the laundry room was able to deliver decent speeds on the main floor of the home (the first four rooms in this chart), but speeds plummeted in the basement (the last four rooms), especially the upload speeds.

Ry Crist/CNET

The CNET Smart Home has a fiber internet connection with matching upload and download speeds of up to 150Mbps. That’s a far cry from the gigabit connections more and more of us have access to (not to mention the new, blazing-fast multi-gig internet plans emerging in some parts of the country). However, it’s in line with the average internet speed in the US, which makes it a great place to test how home networking products will work for the average consumer.

For my purposes, I started by setting up a router in the Smart Home’s laundry room, which is where the modem is set up. I went with the Netgear R6700AX, a perfectly decent model I reviewed last year. It offered reliable performance but limited range when I tested it — and that’s exactly what I wanted for these range extender tests.

Plug-in range extenders like these can help boost your speeds when you’re connecting far from the router, but they can only do so much. The actual speed boost will depend on a multitude of different factors, including the layout of your home, the type of router you’re using, the type of device you’re trying to connect with and your internet plan’s speeds. 

If your home’s internet connection offers top speeds of 100Mbps or higher, then a decent, well-placed range extender should be able to boost your download speeds in a dead zone or when you’re in range by at least 50Mbps, if not 100Mbps. That’s enough to browse the web or stream video online. Upload boosts are typically a little lower, but should still be enough to ensure that you can make a video call or upload a file to the cloud.

Most range extenders will put out their own separate network — usually the name of your original network with “_EXT” added to the end or something like that. Having a separate network like that under the same roof as your main network could potentially cause a small amount of interference, but I haven’t seen any noticeable slowdowns on my main network during any of these tests. And, in most cases, you can rename the extender’s network and password to match your main network, at which point you’ll have a single, seamless network that automatically passes your connection back and forth as you move throughout your home.

That said, keep an eye out for client devices (phones, laptops and so on) that automatically connect to whichever network offers the best signal at the time. If you’ve used a device like that on both your main network and the extender’s network, then it’s possible that your device will jump from one to the other without you realizing it. For instance, if your laptop is on your main network and you move a bit closer to the extender than the router, then your laptop might lose its connection and jump over to the range extender’s network for the stronger signal strength, even though the speeds on that extender network might be slower.

There is no functional difference between a Wi-Fi signal booster and a network extender. Manufacturers use different terms to describe the same products, and all of these devices work the same way — by re-broadcasting your router’s signal through a wired connection (your power outlet). A Wi-Fi repeater is slightly different. It connects to your router wirelessly and re-broadcasts the signal in another room.

In most cases, no. If you’re living in a larger home or if you need speeds that are reliably faster than 100Mbps at range, then it’s probably worth it to go ahead and upgrade to a mesh router with its own range-extending satellite devices. You’ve got more options than ever these days, and just about all of them would likely outperform a stand-alone router paired with a plug-in range extender like the ones tested here.

Wi-Fi extenders are better suited for situations where you’ve just got a single room or maybe two where you’d like speeds to be slightly higher. They won’t work miracles, but in a situation like that, they’ll get the job done.

The best approach is to plug the extender in somewhere close to the dead zone you’re trying to fix, but not within that dead zone. That’s because you need the extender to have a decent connection with your router in order to put out a worthwhile signal of its own.

To find a good spot, grab your phone or laptop, connect to your home network and run some internet speed tests in various spots that are adjacent to the dead zone in question. Once you’ve found a spot near the dead zone that still hits usable upload and download speeds (preferably at least 50% of whatever you’re able to hit up close to the router), then you’re probably in a good location.

Setting up a Wi-Fi extender is about as painless as it gets. Most models support Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS, which is a universal protocol that wireless networking devices can use to connect with each other. Just plug the extender in, wait for it to boot up, press the extender’s WPS button and then press the WPS button on your router within 2 minutes. Voila, connected.

Most Wi-Fi extenders cost well under $100, and our runner-up pick, the TP-Link RE605X, is priced just below that at some retailers. If you’re looking for an ultra-affordable model, the TP-Link RE220 costs under $20 and outperformed almost every other extender in our initial tests. It’s a little outdated at this point — you won’t get Wi-Fi 6 support, for example — but it still gets the job done for a very low investment.

Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linkedin

Related Posts

Leave a Reply