14 DAY TRIAL // Wi-Fi networks need a good router to cover a large area, but walls and furniture can drastically reduce the range, which is why there are such things as range extenders. One such range extender has been released by Amped Wireless.
The company has a really suggestive name really: Amped Wireless. Amplified wireless. It makes perfect sense for it to reveal a range extender, since they're basically signal amplifiers.
And we're not talking about just any signal amplifier. Normally, standard Wi-Fi devices have an output power of just 50 milliwatts (mW), but the new product, called REC15A High Power Compact 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender, reaches much higher.
Specifically, it has a Wi-Fi output power of up to 500 milliwatts (mW), thus eliminating dead spots and extending the range beyond what would otherwise be possible.
And so we reach the main purpose and selling point of the Amped Wireless REC15A High Power Compact 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender: the extra coverage will be of around 5,000 feet, or 460-500 meters.
Clearly, the company isn't cutting any corners here. And since the extra output power would not have done much alone, without ways to maximize precision and signal homogeneity, the REC15A got a dual band antenna and four amplifiers in total.
That's right, you don't have to worry that your dual-band router won't be fully utilized by the newcomer. The range extender repeats both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi signals.
And since this is a 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender, the performance will be higher than on what normal routers can dish out, although not close to what the best ones of today can manage, which happens to be of 1900 Mbps (Wireless AC1900 routers as it were).
According to the product page, Amped Wirelss' newcomer doesn't have AC1900 support, only 150 Mbps over the 2.4 GHz radio and 433 Mbps over 5 GHz.
It's a good thing (for Amped Wireless anyhow) that the company conveniently has another range extender for sale, the RTA30, which uses eight Wi-Fi radios and four high-gain dual-band antennas to manage it. So we suppose the odds are high that the REC15A doesn't quite reach such a performance.
Still, it will enable more than decent wireless transfers for your smartphone, tablet, portable music player, smartwatch or whatever else (PCs, TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles), when you're upstairs, in the back yard, or in a bedroom located particularly far away from the home's primary router.
Amped Wireless wants $99.99 / €99.99 in exchange for the REC15A High Power Compact 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender.