The Best Wi-Fi Extenders of 2026

The TP-Link RE650 is fast enough for several people to browse the web at once, but it is not as fast as some of the other more expensive extenders we tested. It looks kind of like a brutalist teddy bear, with its four antenna arms outstretched to give you a hug. At 6.5 inches tall and 1.5 inches deep, it’s one of the largest of the extenders that we looked at. With the RE650’s antennas folded out, the width of this extender’s footprint is bumped up to eight inches. So it needs a lot of space in order to be set up correctly.

Additionally, it requires a grounded, three-pin power socket. While it can be plugged directly into your wall, its large size makes it better suited to being plugged into an extension cord, so the remaining plug can still be used.

During testing, we measured speeds of around 120 Mbps, which is plenty fast for a couple of computers browsing the web or emailing. It was also quite capable of streaming a 4K video without delay.

That’s because the RE650 supports the fast AC2600 standard and includes multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) radios that can send and receive several signals at once.

We also found it quite simple to install: the router’s built-in software makes it simple to configure using a web browser, and the TP-Link Tether app available for iOS and Android can be downloaded to your smartphone for free.

The EX6110 is the smallest Wi-Fi extender we tested, but it is also rather slow: it will struggle with more than a couple of users browsing the web. Its dimensions are similar to those of many smart plugs. Its feature list is just as diminutive as the extender itself: it only supports the slower AC1200 standard. MIMO and tri-band Wi-Fi are not supported. As such, it isn’t a particularly fast device: we measured the speed of the EX6110’s extended network at an average 30Mbps, making a 4K video a bit more than it could handle.

We found its installation process had a few quirks. Strangely, there is no companion app for this device: Setup is completed through a web browser that provides access to Netgear’s Installation Assistant. The Installation Assistant is designed to take you through the process of picking the network you want to extend and testing its signal strength. However, when attempting to use both an Android tablet and smartphone, we weren’t able to complete the extender’s setup. Partway through the step-by-step process, the NEXT button on the webpage refused to respond. Restarting the setup process, using a laptop, proved successful.

Once the EX6110 is configured, it creates a new network with the suffix _2GEXT and _5GEXT, but with the same passkey as you’d use to access your router. To use the extender, you have to manually connect your devices to its network—a bit of a pain, as you have to remember to do it each time you want to switch from being connected to your home router over to your extended network.

In theory, the X4S should be one of the faster extenders we tested, but we found that it struggled with more than one or two users browsing the web. It supports three Wi-Fi frequency bands (one 2.4Ghz and two 5GHz) and the AC2200 variant of Wi-Fi. The multiple antennas and radios that this requires take up space. As such, the X4S is a little beefier than most of the devices we tested for this guide. Despite its size, we found that it was still possible to plug another power cable into the adjacent electrical socket while the extender was connected.

During testing, we found that the X4S wasn’t especially fast: working with an AC2900 router, we found that we only got about 30 to 40 Mbps of speed. This was fast enough to watch a 4K video without problems, and the signal spread noticeably further than with other extenders, so it could be a good option if you need to cover a wider area and already have a fast router.

The DAP-1610 is a simple, inexpensive extender that is fast enough for two or three users browsing the web or 4K video streaming. It offers a simple setup process and a wired Ethernet port that can be used to connect a single non-Wi-Fi device. This means it can do double duty: connect to an older computer via an Ethernet cable and it will connect it to your extended network, while all of your modern devices can connect to the extender, using Wi-Fi. You should know, however, that its wired connection is only rated at 100 Mbps, which is slower than the Wi-Fi signal the DAP-1610 provides.

We liked the set of three amber or green LEDs on the top of the DAP-1610 that shows your router’s signal strength: a useful feature if you’re trying to find the right spot to place the extender. However, other parts of the design are a little clumsy. The device is about the size of a pack of cards, with two fold-up antennas at the top that partially block the power socket above. This could be a pain if you need to frequently unplug the device using the other socket.

The D-Link DAP 1860 is a mediocre WiFi extender with lackluster performance: it can handle a single 4K video user or a couple of people browsing the web, but it would choke on much more than that. It measures in at six inches tall and two inches deep, it has a fold-out antenna on each of its corners, as well as an Ethernet port on one corner. As such, when the antennas are folded out, they’ll likely get in the way of either whatever is plugged in next to the extender on a power bar or wall socket.

Installing and setting up the DAP 1860 is a rather confusing process. After plugging in the device and connecting your laptop to the extender’s Wi-Fi network, the DAP 1860’s manual instructs you to navigate to one website to complete the extender’s setup. Separately, the Wi-Fi details card that comes included with the device points to a different website. I couldn’t get either website to work and ended up using a third-party app to find the extender’s IP address.

It’s software setup wizard also failed, insisting that there were no local Wi-Fi networks to connect to. I wasn’t able to resolve this issue until I unplugged the extender, hit the reset button, and started it up again. After all of this, we found that the DAP 1860 could only manage a lackluster 35 Mbps. It had no problem handling a 4K video, however.

The Linksys RE6350 Boost is a mid-range Wi-Fi Extender that is about the size of a typical wall-wart power supply. Unfortunately, its weak performance meant we weren’t able to stream a 4K video without it choking. It is easy to set up, though: plug it into a wall socket, run its easy-to-use setup app and it will extend your Wi-Fi network. Unfortunately, it only supports the AC1200 standard, which is one of the slower AC standards out there. If this matched the standard of the router you’re using, that’s fine. However, the RE6350 is a poor choice if your router can handle faster speeds.

During testing, the extender only managed 17 Mbps. That’s lackluster compared to the other devices we tested (including the ones that support the same AC1200 standard). The extender’s pokey performance wasn’t enough to smoothly playback a 4K video: during a four-minute video, it paused and restarted, nine times.