Cascading an Airport Extreme to extend a wireless network

[joshuarobi]

I've tried searching for help on this but I'm lost so I'll just ask here.

I live in a mother in law unit about 30 ft from the main house. I don't have access to the house when no one's there.

The current setup is:
Cable modem into main house router into my AEBS in bridge mode. It creates my wifi network separate from the main house network. I then use an Express in my place to extend my network.


At first this worked fine after the internet was bumped up to 150Mps. Lately however its has slowed way down and become very unstable.

Am I better off extending the original network from the main house and then extend it again with the Express?

How can I optimize this setup?

Sorry for the confusing question.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'm wondering if you might do better using something like Netgear Orbi or a Linksys Velop.

With Orbi, put the router in the house and the satellite in the mother-in-law unit.

Velop, the same (Velop doesn't use router/satellite, all units are "nodes").

I believe either of the above can be set in bridge mode, just keep using the cable residential gateway as "the router"...

 

[snoleppard]

Do you have any cabling whatsoever from the main house to the mother in law unit, by any chance? That might change the answer considerably. (Also, are you the sole user of the cable modem?)

If you consider that the average antenna has a donut-shaped radiation pattern and most of that energy gets wasted, the most efficient wireless solution would be to narrow the Wi-Fi beam width by using a Yagi antenna that aims the Wi-Fi signal right at the guest house. WiFi Expert on eBay and some other e-tailers have lots of these to choose from. That assumes you can put a Yagi antenna in a window in the main unit, or jury-rig a similar solution. $30, versus $300 or $350 - your call.

 

[MrX8503]

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202056

Best solution:

2nd best solution:

The black box, is the modem and should be in the main house. You'll want your strongest router connected to the modem. This router should NOT be in bridge mode. It should be set up as a stand alone router.

Then in your room, you'll want to set up your router to "extend" the network. I don't know if this works with the Express, but you can try. Requires an iPhone, but may work with AirPort utility Mac app too.

1. Do a factory reset. (make notes of any profiles you want saved) https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201945
2. Connect to your main house wifi with your iPhone
3. Plug in your room router
4. Go to your iPhone wifi settings (your room router will pop up).
5. Tap on your room router settings and follow the steps to extend your router.