Should I get a mesh system or a wifi extender?

These are sold as alternatives at very different prices, and they work in genuinely different ways. Understanding which problem you have — no signal in one place, or weak signal everywhere — decides the answer more than the budget does.

Step by step

1. Work out which problem you have.One room that is bad while everywhere else is fine is an extender problem. Weak or patchy coverage across a whole house is a mesh problem. Slow everywhere including next to the router is neither — that is your broadband.
2. Understand what an extender does.It receives the router's signal and rebroadcasts it. Unless it is a dual-band model with a dedicated backhaul, it uses the same radio to talk to the router and to your devices, which roughly halves throughput for anything connected through it.
3. Know where an extender must go.Halfway between the router and the dead zone, where the signal is still strong. Put it in the weak spot itself and it extends a weak signal, which achieves nothing. This is the most common mistake.
4. Understand what mesh does differently.Several units act as one network with one name, coordinating between themselves and handing devices over as you move. Better units use a dedicated radio for the link between them, avoiding the halving.
5. Value the seamless handover.With an extender you often get two networks and devices cling to the wrong one. Mesh manages that properly, which matters most if you move around the house on a video call.
6. Consider a wired connection first.An ethernet cable to a second access point beats both, costs less, and is completely reliable. If a cable can be run — even along a skirting board — that is the best answer available.
7. Consider powerline adapters as a middle option.They send the network over the mains wiring. Performance varies a great deal with the house's wiring and they must be on the same circuit, but they are cheap and worth trying before buying mesh.
8. Fix the router position before spending anything.Central, high, out of a cupboard, away from the microwave and the fish tank. A great many coverage problems are a router in the hallway cupboard by the front door.
9. Check whether your existing router already does mesh.Many providers supply mesh-capable routers and sell matching units cheaply. Adding a compatible unit is usually better value than replacing the whole system.
10. Count the devices.A household with forty connected devices strains an old router regardless of coverage. If everything is slow when the house is busy, that is capacity rather than range.
11. Buy mesh units with an ethernet port.It lets you wire a unit back to the router later, which turns a good mesh into an excellent one, and lets you plug a television or console in directly.
12. Set it up as one network name.Whatever you buy, use a single network name so devices roam rather than needing to be switched manually. Separate names for each point is how mesh gets configured badly.

Tips

• Test with a speed test in the problem room before and after. Without a before figure you cannot tell whether the money achieved anything.
• A cheap extender in the right position often outperforms an expensive one in the wrong position. Placement matters more than the model.
• Solid walls, foil-backed plasterboard and underfloor heating all block wifi badly. In those houses, wiring is worth the effort more than in most.

Common mistakes

• Putting the extender in the dead zone — It can only rebroadcast what it receives, so a weak signal in equals a weak signal out. It goes halfway, where the signal is still good.
• Buying mesh to fix slow broadband — Mesh fixes coverage, not speed. If it is slow standing next to the router, the problem is the line or the package and no amount of hardware helps.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask