🎄Boost your Wi-Fi with devolo!

Games, streaming, television or teleworking: more and more activities rely on the quality of the home Wi-Fi connection. Although access providers equip their boxes with a wireless connection, it is not always optimal. Lucky for you, Santa and devolo have what it takes to make it better!

The Wi-Fi of internet boxes provides many services, but can sometimes show its limits. This is for example the case if your box is starting to date and does not have fast enough Wi-Fi. Another possibility is that the built-in network components may be of poor quality.

Not forgetting the reduced range of the radio signal which prevents you from taking advantage of your connection throughout the home. Worse still: the problems we encounter are often due to a bit of these three reasons!

To remedy this, the German manufacturer devolo offers different models of Wi-Fi repeaters that are as effective as they are simple to install. All of them have in common the use of Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), a fast and reliable transmission protocol that can reach up to 10,500 Mb/s. It remains to choose the best products according to your needs… Here are some tips based on our tests.

Two operating modes

The Wi-Fi products offered by devolo offer two operating modes. The “repeater” mode allows you to recover the weakened Wi-Fi signal emitted by the box and amplify it in order to extend its range. You must therefore choose carefully where to place it so that it is optimally effective. Of course, this is only useful if the wireless connection of the box is of good quality.

If it uses a protocol that is a little dated – and therefore slow – like Wi-Fi a, b, g, or n, it is a safe bet that the transfer speed will not be satisfactory. In the best case, it will cap at 600 Mb/s in Wi-Fi n, this theoretical maximum speed never being reached. It’s all the more a shame since the widespread use of fiber offers at least between 600 Mb/s and 8000 Mb/s!

It is to remedy this that the “access point” mode exists. It allows you to replace your operator’s faulty Wi-Fi in the simplest way possible by connecting the repeater to your box using its Ethernet port.

Its wireless connection will replace that of the box, with all the advantages linked to Wi-Fi 6 (speed of transmission, signal quality, increased range). Of course, nothing prevents you from adding a second box in “repeater” mode if the area to be covered is really large.

Simplified installation

Devolo products can be configured simply and quickly using the Home Network app that you install on your smartphone. An assistant guides you step by step through the few steps necessary to get started, the operation requiring no technical knowledge.

We conducted our tests in a Parisian home with an area of ​​85 m2. There are exactly two reinforced concrete load-bearing walls as well as a partition between the room where the fiber box is located and the room where we watch television. Or more precisely where we saw an image that most of the time looked like a mush of pixels!

We substituted the antediluvian Wi-Fi of our Freebox Revolution for that provided by the devolo Repeater 5400 configured as an access point (theoretical maximum speed of 5400 Mb/s).

The operation only took a few minutes and there is no need to even change the Wi-Fi network name in the video player. We were finally able to enjoy an excellent quality image in 4K on Netflix and benefit from lower latency when gaming online.

A little slower, but just as effective, you can opt for the Repeater 3000 whose speed is “only” 3000 Mb/s. More affordable than its big brother, it is also significantly more compact.

Finally, let us point out that the devolo Repeater range uses a mesh network: we can therefore integrate other repeaters in order to further extend the range of the network. This can be useful if you want to cover several ponds in a house, for example.

Efficient, simple to install and able to be forgotten, devolo Repeater boxes will help you rediscover the joy of a reliable and fast connection throughout the house.