One of the many advantages of rooms with open plan living is having no walls. This not only makes a home appear larger but, it also creates the perfect environment for a wireless network. Fortunately, there are many ways to improve the Wifi coverage and speed up the Internet speed without taking drastic action like knocking down walls or attaching the router to a ceiling fan so, it flings Wifi signals everywhere! Two of those solutions are using a powerline adapter kit like the Magic 2 Wifi next or a Wifi boost extender like the devolo WiFi AC Repeater Plus - seen pictured.
The devolo WiFi AC Repeater Plus is able to boost speeds up to 1200 Mbps by using cross band repeating, which is the same technology used to extend the range of handheld ham radios by having the radio receive signal on very high frequency (VHF) and transmit that signal back out on ultra high frequency (UHF) and viceversa.
Instead of using UHF and VHF radio waves, the devolo WiFi AC Repeater Plus uses 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radio bands to increase transfer rates in the Wifi network, as well as multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) beamforming, which is a neat useful feature to have if you have a lot of wireless devices that demand a lot of bandwidth. MU-MIMO allows you to connect multiple wireless devices to the devolo WiFi AC Repeater Plus at the same time and without slowing down the network.
A lot of Wifi extenders and routers (especially older models) use single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO), which works well when you connect devices for low data applications like browsing the Internet. However, the minute you start streaming videos, the Internet speed drops, causing lag and buffering. MU-MIMO breaks up the Internet bandwidth and pushes it directly to the connected devices, using beamforming technology. This basically means the devolo WiFi AC Repeater Plus projects (literary) the Wifi signal to the connected devices like a laser beam, even if the device is on the move.
With MU-MIMO integration, the devices don't have to wait their turn to connect, which significantly improves the speed of the Internet, making downloading faster and without choppy video streaming. One thing to note about MU-MIMO though, it's that your connected devices have to support MU-MIMO.
Setting up the devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus is straight forward and can be done two ways after the repeater has been plugged into a wall socket. The devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus can be setup using WPS or a mobile app - the devolo Home Network app. Using WPS is the easiest way since all you have to do is press a button on the repeater and then, press the WPS push button on the router to manually pair and connect the devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus to the router. All routers have this WPS function but on some routers WPS goes by different names such as Wi-Fi Simple Config, Push 'n' Connect, PBC or Quick Secure Setup (QSS).
Once connected, you can start using the devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus. To change and access settings, you will need to download the devolo Cockpit desktop software. If you already have the Cockpit software installed from another devolo hardware, the devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus will show up automatically, alongside the other devolo adapters you own, which is a neat way to manage them in one single place.The Cockpit software has a clean and easy to use user interface, using a flowchart design to represent the workflow and current connection speed of the adapter. If you own several devolo adapters, the devolo WiFi ac Repeater Plus will show up on the next page, which can be accessed by clicking on the blue/grey arrow box.