Linksys AC1600 Wi-Fi Router Bundled with N600 Wireless Dongle (Refurbished)

This an excellent product especially at this price range. I think most of the people giving it poor reviews, don’t really understand what a range extender is or what it’s capable of. You don’t have to be a genious to make this work, but you do need to understand the limitations of a WiFi range extender and have some idea of how to use your router’s and this device’s advanced settings.First of all it’s not going to “boost” your network speeds; it’s only going to “extend” the range of your existing network. If you have a crappy network with slow transmission speeds now, lots of external traffic on your available channels (from neighbors or other devices), and other WiFi limitations, you’re only going to make matters worse by adding another device to clog up the network bands. I suggest you fix those issues first (Google is your friend here), before expecting this simple little extender to clear up all your problems.Secondly, while you can use the “plug and play” features of the RE6500 extender to get up and running, you should use the advance settings on both your router and the extender to get the optimum performance from it. While the “live” support from LinkSys is seriously lacking (as many have commented about), they do have many excellent on-line articles (got to [...] that will help manually configure the extender.Third, use some sort of network test application, like Acrylic Wi-Fi Home, Wi-Fi Analyzer, and Ookla Speed Test App (all of which are free) to test the network traffic in your area and the signal strength & speed of your existing network before you buy any WiFi extender. If you have too much traffic or terrible signal strength and quality, you may need to upgrade your modem, router, or adapters and/or look at other possibilities (like powerline devices).As for my network, I’m using the RE6500 extender with a EA6500 router. The router is up stairs at one end of a 3,000 ft sq home and the extender is downstairs in the middle of the home. I consistently get 24+mB download and 3+mB upload speeds throughout every location in my home. I have TWC Road Runner service so my network speeds are limited to 20/2mb, but that is more than sufficient to stream HD movies. When there is more UHD content available I might upgrade my plan to 30 or 50 mB. I expect this extender to be able to output those speeds as well.I also have 16 network devices connected to my network, to include a smart TV, four smart phones or tablets, two desktops & one laptop, a network printer, a Xbox & a Wii game system, and several home security cameras. Since this a dual band device and I configured the extender with different names than the router’s SSID, I basically have four separate SSID on my WLAN. The cameras and other B/G network devices are on one SSID that is limited to 144Mps. The laptops and desktops with N network adapters are on another with 300.0 Mps speeds. The smart TV, phones, and devices with AC adapters are divided up between the two remaining SSIDs with speeds of 866.7 and 780.3 Mps. Grouping my devices like this ensures I get the best possible performance from my network provider's plan.I’ve also configured the router and the extender, so that the extender has a DHCP reservation for the extender LAN itself and its two WiFi channels. This limits the possibility that my router drops the extender. I used the WiFi test apps to find the best channels, placement, and other settings for the router and extender. This eliminates or reduces any issues that may interfere with the signal strength/quality. I’ve been running in this configuration since I received the extender and have never have any lag or delays when streaming NetFlix or Amazon Prime with multiple devices on the network at the same time. The only downtime I’ve had is when the cable or electricity has went out.Again for 50 bucks (I paid 49.99 for this a few months back, but looks like the price has gone up since then), you can’t beat the capability of this device. You also don’t have to be an IT guy or a computer geek to get the most out of it (again use Google and some common sense). If you have trouble following some basic instructions or doing things like setting the time on a VCR (if those even still exist), then save yourself some frustration and pay someone to fix your crappy network before you give this device an unfair rating.

This range extender does exactly what I was hoping it would do: boost the range of my wireless router. My house is a large 1926 wood frame home with lath-and-plaster walls, oak floors and framing, and lots of obstacles, which means that the second-floor placement of my router results in poor to nonexistent coverage in portions of the house on the first floor. Moving my router wasn't practical due to a lack of power outlets and my unwillingness to run the coax cable from outside the house through the walls or ceiling for more optimal placement.The first thing you should be aware of is that this range extender comes with the most basic of instructions. I recommend that you find and read the full instruction set on the Linksys website before you do anything else.Initially setting up the device was easy for me, but may not be easy for all. The device defaults to an IP address, 192.168.1.1, that may already be in use on your network, which explains why a lot of users try to log in to set up the device and can't. The easiest way to determine the IP address of the extender is the plug it in and let it boot up, then log into your router and find the IP address assigned using the wireless clients table. Alternatively, you may be able to see the extender as part of your network using a Windows computer and get the IP address from there.In my case, the default setup instructions worked and everything seemed to go well - the extender asks you which wireless networks are yours and you merely sign into them - but things quickly stopped working and it took a lot of research to find a solution. After a few minutes, my wireless devices started reporting no network connectivity or would just hang while trying to load a web page. I tried resetting the extender, rebooting it, moving it around, etc. None of these simple fixes worked, but with some tinkering it will.If you experience the same problems, you need to change settings both in the extender and on your router to ensure that the extender doesn't lose its connection to your router. Ensure that you do the following:1. Set your router to use a fixed channel for its wireless network(s). You typically should use channel 1, 6, or 11 on a 2.4Ghz network. Using the site survey feature of the extender, your router, or using an app on your phone will tell you which of those three is the least congested in your area. The 5GHz network has more channels to choose from but similarly you should determine which is least congested and use that one.2. Set the extender to use a fixed IP address. Additionally, I set my router to reserve the same IP address for the extender as I set in the extender itself. That is, I set my extender, in its configuration settings, to use the IP address 192.168.1.20 and in my router's configuration settings I reserved the same IP address for my extender.3. In the extender's configuration settings, enter the same DNS server addresses (up to three) that your router is using. I happened to change the DNS server addresses in BOTH my extender and my router to use Google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as well as L3's 4.2.2.1.After completing these steps, my Linksys RE6500 maintains a stable and constant connection to my router and has successfully covered the gaps in my home's wireless coverage.