On The Bench

LINKSYS AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender

  

I can honestly say that this is one of few range extenders that I would recommend to a friend, it has been both easy to set up and has a good range of settings/features. The pass-through outlet is a key feature and the bonus of being able to stream music to this device (a powered set of speakers with a 1/8th jack needed, although I have it connected to the input of my shop stereo instead) is a huge PLUS as far as I am concerned.

Streaming your music to this is easy enough in Windows and Mac, there are many options for the front-end. You can stream to this device in Linux, although you need to know the ins and outs of the Pulse Audio server settings, I was able to get it set up with a small amount of messing around, so it is certainly worth the effort if this feature is something you are looking for and run Linux. The update to the latest firmware went without a hitch.

Another Plus I liked about setting this extender up is that you can assign it a different SSID, it makes identifying the device much simpler when looking for it on a wireless device. The extender interface (through your web browser) has a section called site survey, a wonderful tool that lets you see what wireless networks it sees.

  

Perhaps the only couple hits against it that I have is that it does not have removable antennae, I guess that is not a large strike, but I do like that option in all my wireless equipment, on the up side, at least they are external to the device and are movable. Also it does not allow configuration of using only one of the bands and not the other, this would be extremely helpful if you are setting this up in an area that has extreme congestion of one of the bands and allow you to make full use of the more open band. Perhaps this is supposed to be “smart” enough to figure it out, but I personally like the option to set it that way myself.

Over all a useful extender, but I still consider units that are placed away from an outlet to be a better choice if you have the room to place yet another wireless device on limited horizontal surfaces. It doesn't take a lot of common sense to figure out that the farther away from any electrical interference you can place a device like this the better it can perform. Someone looking for an unobtrusive alternative to a desktop extender would find that this would fit the niche.