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TP-Link RE605X has full support for the latest Wi-Fi 6 speeds and features.

TP-Link RE605X has full support for the latest Wi-Fi 6 speeds and features.

It doesn’t matter what internet speeds you’re paying for at home — you’re going to need a good Wi-Fi network with plenty of range if you want to put those speeds to work in whatever room you want. Too often, a single router won’t quite cut it on its own, leading to dead zones where you can’t connect.

This is where a Wi-Fi range extender can come in handy. A range extender, or booster, is a compact, plug-in device that uses built-in Wi-Fi radios and antennas to pair wirelessly with your router. Plug one in near the edge of your router’s wireless range and pair it with the network, and it’ll start rebroadcasting the signal farther out into your home. All of today’s top models are less expensive than upgrading to a full-fledged mesh router with its own range-extending satellite devices, they’re a cinch to set up, they’ll work no matter what brand of router you’re using and in most cases it’s easy to give them the same SSID and password as your original router. These three models topped CNET’s testing as some of the best Wi-Fi extenders we’ve found.

CNET TAKE: 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 2022, you should put the TP-Link RE605X right at the top of your list. At $100, it’s far from the most affordable extender on the market (check out the value pick below), 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 our 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 we tested. Throughout the entire 5,800-square-foot-home, among all the extenders we 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.

CNET TAKE: TP-Link takes the top spot in 2022, but the Linksys RE7310 is very close behind it, and would be almost equally as good on most home networks. 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. That’s only 4Mbps behind that top pick from TP-Link. As for the uploads, Linksys finished with an average whole-home speed to our Wi-Fi 6 test device of 124Mbps. That’s only 2Mbps behind TP-Link.

The only thing keeping us from saying that the two finished in a virtual tie is that the RE7310 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 to handle video calls in the Smart Home’s basement dead zones, something we would have struggled with using just the single router we ran our tests on. It’s a bit bulky-looking, but the RE7310 is the best Linksys range extender we’ve tested yet, and it’s an especially great pick if you can catch it on sale.

Best balance of performance and value

CNET TAKE: It was never the speed leader in our tests, but it was never too far behind — and at $65, the D-Link EaglePro AI costs a lot less than the top picks listed above. That’s a good deal, especially on a Wi-Fi 6 model that boasts a newly designed control app on Android and iOS, plus adjustable antennas and a design that automatically syncs up with your router to put out a single, unified network as soon as you first set the thing up. We even appreciate the touch of color with those pale blue accents, a nice break from boring white plastic.

Speed-wise, the EaglePro AI brought up the rear in our tests, but it was still able to return average download speeds of 114Mbps for Wi-Fi 6 devices and 112Mbps for Wi-Fi 5 devices across every room we tested it in, which is terrific for a multistory home with a 150Mbps fiber plan. Uploads were lower, including a somewhat concerning single-digit average of just 8Mbps to Wi-Fi 5 devices in the home’s most difficult dead zone, but we can forgive that given that the 5,800-square-foot Smart Home is a lot bigger than this AX1500 extender was designed to cover. If your home is any smaller than that then the EaglePro AI should do just fine, and it’ll save you some cash, too.

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