TP-Link RE500X AX1500 WiFi 6 WiFi Extender Booster WiFi Booster

I upgraded to full fibre broadband but this meant I had to relocate my router. Previously it sat in a cupboard where I had wired up various rooms in the house with ethernet cable, so I had a central location for both WiFi and wired ethernet. There was no way to replicate this so I had to try and connect the router to this wired network in some other way - and of course the new router was in the one room that was not wired up! I initially tried a pair of 1GBit ethernet over the mains adaptors, but only got about 80Mbps with these (I am on 500Mbps broadband) so that was not good enough This P-Link AX1500 Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 Range Extender was definitely Plan B. I initially plugged the adaptor in close to the router and (having read the manual) connected twice using the WPS feature - I needed to connect twice to ensure it used use both the 2.4 & 5GHz bands. This took about about 5 minutes. I then unplugged the adaptor and moved it to the new location, and connected it's ethernet port to the network switch in the cupboard. Back on my desktop I checked the internet speed which was the 500Mbps I have. So my desktop internet connection is: wired: desktop to network switch wired: network switch to TP Link Range extender WIFI: TP Link Range extender to router. This gives me a 500Mpbs connection to the internet. The range extender claims 1Gbps but I'll have to connect another computer direct to the router (with an ethernet cable) and then copy a big file to see if it can deliver the 1Gbps Note that I have not used the WIFI extender feature as the standard WIFI signal is fine for everyone in the house as is Although its only been in use for about a month its been faultless so far, so really pleased. Got it at a reduced Black Friday price as well so even better

So far so good. It’s a decent enough extender and boosts without any criticism but drops signal quite often, and I couldn’t figure out if it was the extender or my router. I reboot it probably twice a week and seems to solve in the moment. Overall happy though

So far so good. Configuring took 5 minutes and provided excellent signal

This works with the BT business hub 3. We jumped from BT fibre to EE fibre and EE sent us a new hub which turned out to be a BT business hub 3. Previously on the old set up we had an early generation ‘black disc’ BT range extender which was plugged into a Cat 5 cable back to the main router and which operated as a wireless access point. When the engineer installed (ie plugged in) the new Hub 3 router we asked if the range extender (some distance away and hanging off a Cat 5 connection back to the router) would work with the new router - he would have known it wouldn’t but he said it would because clearly he couldn’t be bothered / didn’t want to get involved in sorting that out. An hour on the internet and BT forum boards lead me to this product. Arrived next day, plugged it in, used the app to switch it to access point mode and it’s working like a treat. It was also 1/3 of the price of the new upgraded BT black disc range extender and arrived next day (the BT version was a week plus away from being delivered). Buy this.

Utterly useless, as all of these type of extenders seem to be. It's seamless apparently, well that's true as their is no join (geddit?) I bought 3 of these as I have a TP-Link Archer MR600 router so thought, same manufacturer, mesh compatible, should be a breeze. Took ages to setup using the WPS button, logged into the router, couldn't see the mesh devices even though I checked that it was enabled & supported. After about an hour and a half of logging into both the router, the extenders and various re-boots of everything, it was all linked and sort of working. Then we had a power cut a few days later and afterwards everything became un-linked. A bit of messing about and I got 2 of them working although I'm pretty sure only one of them was actually carrying the signal. One of them didn't want to know and was just broadcasting it's own signal but not connected to the internet so I left it disconnected. A few weeks later I plugged it in and afterwards it wiped the other two off the map. Unplugged it, and the other two re-appeared, Decided to re-set the rogue one and re-linked it using the WPS button. It seemed to link, moved it to it's proper location and behold, all 3 were now missing from the map. Utterly utterly useless piece of crap. I can't return them now so they will be getting the hammer treatment to ensure that I don't waste any more of my time trying to set it up again. So I am still restricted to WiFi being available in only half of the house, as I have been for years having tried dozens of these type of useless extenders. Update. 18/05/2023 Before I change my WiFi from 4G to Starlink, I thought I would see if I could get these to work. After half an hour of re-setting , connecting, and trying to get the tether app to actually see what it was connected to (without success) I finally gave up on them. To ensure that I didn't open the cupboard in 6 months time and waste my time again with them , I smashed them up with a hammer and chucked them in the bin! Last TP LInk product that I will ever buy! Utter crap!

Got this a few days ago, after a previous wifi extender just stopped working after a couple of years, and that supplier was pretty inept at offering solutions other than 'contact the seller'! I've tried a number of extenders in the past, many just not acceptable at all, and were returned for refund. It seemed impossible to get this TP-Link to initialise, and I tried various ways. So I sought online for troubleshooting solutions, and one was to download their 'Tether' app to my phone. That worked seamlessly right away, asking for my Wifi network password, and device to connect, and it was all set up in a few minutes. So I moved it to the bedroom where my desk is located. This is the dead area, that CAN connect to the living room router, but not consistently. In the bathroom next door it doesn't connect about 95% of the time. When I CAN connect my laptop to my router, speeds are up to about 140 Mbps. Now with the extender, I can get this speed but more usually it's in the 50-80 range. If the router connection is slower (like at peak times), the extender is always faster than the long connection. Works very well in the bathroom too. So it's an improvement on the inconsistent direct connection and much more accessible. Only niggly thing Is that if my phone connects to it and I move back into the living room, it doesn't always switch back to the direct connection [showing xxxxx_EXT instead of just xxxxx], and even vice versa, so I have to check at times that it's on the nearer one. That might just be my phone. But for the static laptop, this is no problem. If this stops working at any point, I'll come back to downgrade the review. (Oct. 24) Update: 18/11/24. I wasn't getting great results from this. I was due an upgrade on my Wifi from 125 to 250, so I thought that would help. Not that much. While the booster is consistent in providing connection, the speeds were consistently between 20 and 30! Just not enough to make the price of this purchase worth it. Returned for a refund, and the engineer who upgraded the broadband told me to get a mesh instead of a booster; always better, and solves the problem of switching between the main and the extension, as it's all under the same network name. I've done that, and speeds are consistently higher now, over 50 up into the 70s.

I am very happy with this wifi extender - it gives us 2 options and easily supports gaming, working and streaming. Easy to setup / straight from the box - good signal strength. Very glad I bought it.

So this was a huge PITA to get working. (RE500X pictured left of the RE550 it was bought to replace) I set this up by pressing the WPS button on the router, (Virgin Hub 5) and then pressing the WPS button on the extender. It connected and set up. However: - My phone would not connect to the extended wifi at all - My Laptop WOULD connect, but had no internet - Using the wired port would have no internet. - Using the wired connection or the laptop, I was able to access the extender settings (using the assigned IP address of the extender) where it would display that internet was connected. After a 1hr call with tech support running me through their flow chart, the problem still persisted. Even after a hard reset of both the router and the extender. They had no idea and escalated my problem. The next day I had the idea of logging into the extender settings, and changing the IP address of the extender manually, from the assigned 192.168.0.118 to 192.168.0.117 - Making this change somehow brought the extender to life, and it was now able to connect to the internet. My theory is that somehow there was an IP address conflict with something else, or the router just didn't like that IP for some other reason. However, I STILL cannot connect my phone to the extended network, whereas the laptop WIFI and wired connection work fine. Hopefully that helps someone. Now for my review: I got this to replace an RE550, (pictured right) as we recently upgraded to gigabit internet. The RE550 does not have WIFI 6 / 802.11ax which is required to reliably get the full bandwidth of gigabit over wifi whereas the RE500X does have this feature and can get the full bandwidth - in theory. The PC in the studio upstairs gets terrible wifi signal and is unable to connect directly to the router via a cable. So the solution is to run a cable from the PC into this extender in the hallway where WIFI signal is strongest. It acts as a wifi bridge only, connecting the wired PC to the wifi, and we do not use the extender feature. I am unsure of the exact reason, but the RE500X simply cannot achieve the full speed of the internet over WIFI where other WIFI devices placed in the exact same position can. Even though all devices I have tested support WIFI 6/802.11ax and all devices are operating on this band. For example my phone will connect to the full speed and max out the connection at 1010 mbps consistently when placed in the same position as the extender and connected to the same network. The extender however will only reach a max speed of 850 mbps consistently, a sharp difference of 160 mbps or 20 megabytes a second. To put that into perspective, the average internet speed in the UK is around 51 mbps. So somewhere along the line the RE500X is losing over 3 households worth of internet bandwidth compared to other devices!! I have connected multiple different devices to the extender to test and re-test this speed. Wired using both long and short cables, cat5 vs cat6, even entirely different devices such as a laptop with a USB-Ethernet dongle. No combination of devices or configurations can see the speed go any faster than an occasional max of 870-890 mbps. My theory is that the wifi antenna in this device isn't as good as it should be - given that the whole point of this device is to improve wifi connection and connectivity you would think a solid and strong antenna would be top priority. This is clearly not the case. If you have gigabit internet, this is not the device for you. In the end, between the headache of setting it up to begin with, the clueless tech support, and the poor performance, I will be returning the device. Fortunately my landlord has given permission for me to run Ethernet cables through the walls, negating the need for a WIFI bridge to begin with.

Prodotto ottimo. Unica pecca, la presa inglese e quindi ho dovuto comprare un adattatore.

Okay

The TP-Link AX1500 WiFi Extender (RE500X) has proven to be an excellent addition to my home network. The improvement in WiFi coverage is impressive, and since installing it, I no longer experience internet drops anywhere in the house. The extender significantly boosts signal strength, providing stable and consistent connectivity even in areas that previously had weak coverage. In my room, the 5GHz signal was extremely low, but after setting up the RE500X, the signal strength and overall performance improved noticeably. Installation was quick and straightforward using the TP-Link app, which makes the setup process easy even for non-technical users. The device connects seamlessly and starts delivering results almost immediately. Overall, the TP-Link RE500X offers reliable performance, excellent range expansion, and user-friendly setup. It’s a great choice for anyone looking to eliminate dead zones and improve WiFi stability throughout their home.

Funciona perfectamente , es justo lo que buscaba, mi hija está encantada ya que ahora puede jugar en el salón

Parece que funciona correctamente. Lo tengo entre el salón y las habitaciones (pasillo de 8m) y llega bastante bien la wifi. Desde la app puedes programarlo para que se apague por la noche o para que no haga lucecitas. La pega es que no se puede vincular con Alexa, pero por el resto, es funcional.