TP-Link RE205 AC750 Universal Wireless Dual Band Range Extender, Broadband/Wi-Fi Extender, WiFi Booster/Hotspot with Ethernet Port, 2 External…

Don’t bother looking at any other wifi booster/extender, this is hands down the best as far as value for money and reliability. Works an absolute treat.

I had lots of doubts before buying this TP Link 1200 Performance product because reviews were mixed. I already had one TP Link range extender, and it had become around three years old. I had given the old range extender the same SSID as the router. Its range was not good anymore and speed was slow even after replacing the antennas.

The placement of my 2.4 GHz Airtel router by Huawei is not perfect. I also read that this range extender needs to be ideally placed within 16 feet of the router to get good speed, and that added to the hesitancy because that would not have served the purpose.

The router is placed on the first floor and my earlier range extender was placed on the ground floor, around 30-40 feet away. There are two doors/walls between the router and the range extender, and the floor was not the same. The old range extender was getting around 50% signal from the router on the ground floor. I bought this product with a bit of hesitancy for around Rs. 2200.

The product I received was sealed very well, and it was manufactured in October 2020. It has been around one week since I have bought it.

It is a small device which can fit into the palm. After receiving it, I plugged it into a socket near the router and used the WPS switch to set it up. After I got blue light for signal, I plugged it into the same socket on the ground floor, where my old range extender was plugged in. I got a blue light for signal after around a minute.

I used my phone to check, and it had created two SSIDs, 2.4 GHz one, which ended with _EXT and the other, which ended with _5GEXT, even when my router only supports 2.4 GHz. I first tried the 2.4 GHz signal, and the range was extended, and I was getting half the speed near the range extender than what I was getting near the router. It was still better than the old range extender’s speed. 2.4 GHz range was reaching everywhere in the home and signal was good even in the same room where the router is placed. Then I tried the 5 GHz signal, and I started getting more speed than the router from the range extender. 5 GHz signal reached everywhere in the house where I needed it. Speed and signal had really increased. All Fire TV Sticks’ YouTube app automatically switched to HD quality.

There are lots of devices connected and there is no problem at all. Phones these days automatically connect to the device which is providing better signal strength, so no problem there. I cannot really provide the same SSID to range extender and the router, as extender is providing 2 signals, and I think it is better to keep it that way.

To sum it up, I am very happy with the device, as it is working very well so far.

Update 1 September 2021: A few days ago, I got my copper Airtel connection replaced with a fiber-optic one. With new Airtel Nokia modem, 5 GHz signal was not picked up by this range extender. As mentioned by many, this range extender only picks up channel like 36 etc. In Airtel Nokia modem, Airtel for some reason, has disabled the functionality to change the channel, and it is fixed to Auto. So I used my computer browser and a simple trick to enable the channel drop-down and changed it to 36 and saved it. It was saved without any error, and the range extender picked up the 5 GHz signal as well, and at the previous distance. 5 GHz signal light is now on and 5 GHz signal is getting extended. I have read that, this trick to enable the channel drop-down in Airtel Nokia modem and saving results in error for some. So it may not work for everyone. But after using it like this, for more than a month, I have realized that, when 5 Ghz signal is picked up by the extender, it very much decreases the extender’s speed. So I have put back Airtel router channel to Auto.

But in any case, if this range extender does not pick up the 5 GHz signal by default, it still makes the 5 GHz signal available, which is good enough. So this may not be the dealbreaker.

I bought recently TP-Link Archer C6 AC1200 Gigabit router for my house and I was looking for a range extender for the first floor as the signal is not great there due to intersecting walls. Whilst I was researching on TP-Link site to look for a compatible range extender, I read about the OneMesh technology where the compatible range extenders could be connected with main router to create a one mesh network. This means you don’t need to have multiple 2.4 ghz or 5 ghz SSIDs for main router and extenders. RE305 Version 3 (EU model) was listed as a range extender that supports Onemesh and compatible with my Archer C6. I was worried initially because only V3.0 of RE305 supports Onemesh and V2 or earlier versions don’t support. So be careful before you order. The Amazon product page lacks this information in the product details and my attempts to try to reach out customer care, the seller and also the manufacturer (TP-Link) only resulted in vain as none of them could provide me or confirm me if the product sold is of V3 (EU) only. Fortunately few of the customer who bought this product did answer my questions that gave me a chance to take a risk and order and thankfully I got the V3 (EU) model of the product. After you establish the connection, please ensure to check the firmware upgrade as I got the latest firmware updated that fixes few wifi signal issues. It is really small and cute in size, pretty easy to plug in as it directly plugs into wall socket, and easy to configure. Just use the Tether mobile app which is quick and easy to install and connect the extender to your main router. Good thing is it will recognize your existing 2.4 and 5 gh wifis and replicates the connection with the same SSID and pwds of the main router. Once done, you enable the Onemesh feature and bang !! you are now in the onemesh network where you get seamless signals across a 2 floor house. This extender boosts up the signal and kills the wifi dead zone in the house. This also supports 802.11a/g/n/ac protocols.

I noticed only one issue on 5 ghz. If you have configured your main router channel number to “Auto” and if it connects to any channel other than 36,40,44 and 48, then the Range Extender RE305 is unable to pickup that 5 ghz. I couldn’t figure it out initially as it kept saying unable to connect to 5 ghz. Then I changed the channel on 5 ghz on my main router to 36. Then it connected. The speed is good and I am pretty happy with its performance. Worth for the price. Please note that though you can configure this TP Link range extender with any other router but if you want to have Onemesh technology then its only compatible with a TP Link router.

This repeater does what it says. Extends the Wi-Fi coverage really nicely. Extremely easy to setup. I have seen certain reviews which mention that this repeater does not support 5GHz network from the main router above Channel-31, which is not true as of now. I have an Airtel fiber connection who’s 5GHz network runs on Channel-116 (or somewhere near this) and the repeater is able to connect to this seamlessly. Previously where I was hardly getting around 10 Mbps speed over 5Ghz network, at the same location I am now easily getting around 70 Mbps speed. Make sure that when you are setting the repeater initially keep it as close to the main router as possible and once the initial setup is done, you can relocate the repeater at a half way distance between the main router and your location where you are not receiving ample signal.