hi david yes thats very good one ,even the prize is cut in half. you installed one for me.and my pc is never bin so good and fast.

@d.cochran.... David, I am about to show how dumb I am with this network stuff.... So what exactly does an access point do? I already have a decent router (DLink), so what is it and what can it do for me? How does it connect into a network and if I needed greater wifi range (which I actually do as I want to have some of my bots roam around in my backyard) is this the route to go?....

your router has an access point built into it.

All the access point does is extends your network by allowing wifi devices to connect to your network.

A wifi repeater will extend your wifi network by allowing say this device to sit on the opposite end of your house or by your back door for example. This would extend your wifi to the back side of your house and your back yard. These allow you to boost the signal of your wifi. This allows you to get pretty good coverage, especially outside. They are PoE, which allows you to power them off of a PoE device instead of having to use the provided plug if you so choose to do. I do this because it makes it much easier to mount them in the ceiling. These AP's penetrate building material very well.

It also allows you to setup multiple SSID's at your house. For example, you could setup a ROBOTS ssid that only the robots connect to while giving guests their own SSID and password to use and your network another SSID to use.

You can have this device assign DHCP addresses if you want to. With a little configuration, you could have your wifi network on its own set of ip addresses apart from your normal network. These have been very reliable and have a very strong signal. They are not hard to manage and I normally set the AP's on a schedule to reboot in the middle of the night each night. This allows them to say clean each day.

You can set this up to be on the same SSIS as your existing network and the radios will kindof handoff when you move through the house. Your device will switch between the wifi ap's quickly and it will look seamless as you go from one part of your house to another.

An Access Point takes a wired signal and turns it wireless. It can be used with a wired only router, or as a range extender on a wireless/wired router if you have Cat5 wiring to a distant location from your existing router and plug it in.

Typically, an AP does not provide DHCP or DNS services, but hands off those functions to the router it is plugged into.

When using for range extension, you can set it up with the same SSID and credentials as your main router, and your device will grab the stronger (ie closer) signal and should hand off cleanly between them as you move around.

Also available are wireless extenders that do not require cabling back to the main router. They grab a weak wireless signal and rebroadcast it, again typically relying on the main router for DHCP and DNS services.

Some APs can also work as wireless extenders without a wired connection.

I use a TP-Link TL-WA850RE in order to get a strong wireless signal in my basement, although it is only 2.4 ghz (802.11n) and my new main router does both 2.4 and 5.2 ghz (802.11ac), so I don't get quite as good speed on the extended network, but good enough since I usually only have one or two devices using the extended network.

Alan

@d.cochran.... Dude, you know way too much.... Thanks.... makes sense now... LOL

@d.cochran and I were apparently typing at the same time. I don't think we contradicted each other.

Alan

Hey Alan, thanks for helping out here and no worries I understand you both... So a cat5 to me means a Ethernet cable, right?... So is this a viable scenario or would a repeater be better? I use a long cat5 cable that plugs my access point into my router. I locate my access point in an area to effectively increase wifi range? In my particular situation.... to extend my wifi range deep into my backyard?

cat5 is ethernet

Its up to you how you want to use this. Repeater has higher latency but it can be repeated multiple times from one repeater to another but you would have to run power anyway, so you might as well run a CAT5 and use it as an access point to reduce the latency. If you have power and dont want to run a CAT5, use it as a repeater and you probably will never notice the latency.

This particular AP can do DHCP but by default it is disabled. If you have a huge yard, there are some other AP/Repeaters that this company makes that can go 500 yards or so. the two that I have inside my house service my city block yard without any issue from street to fence in all directions.

Alan, We didn't contradict each other at all.