Is the Xiaomi router signal amplifier worth buying? Spend 49 yuan to test for half a month, and we'll calculate it clearly for you with three budget tiers

I have a AX3000T in my living room, the master bedroom is separated by a load-bearing wall and a corridor. The signal is always two bars, RSSI is around -72, and I can watch videos every few minutes while lying in bed. I had already ordered a Mesh sub-router, but before paying, I remembered Xiaomi had a 49-yuan WiFi Amplifier Pro, so I bought one with the mindset of 'spending a little money to try it out' and canceled the Mesh order.

After using it for half a month, my conclusion is: this isn't a waste of money, but not everyone should buy it either. I've memorized the numbers. The costs and effects of the three routes are listed below. You can choose based on your own situation.

to get straight to the point: amplifiers don't generate signals

many people think amplifiers are for 'signal enhancement,' but once plugged in, the whole house gets stronger—but that's not true. Its essence is a relay: the main router's signal is already weakened by the time it arrives, so it takes it and forwards it farther away, essentially the second leg in a running race. The WiFi you connect to in the bedroom is actually the amplifier itself, not the main router.

this principle determines two inherent weaknesses. First, it has to be placed where "I can clearly hear the main router and not too far from the bedroom," so blocking it in a blind spot where the signal doesn't work is like a deaf person transmitting messages; Second, the relay bandwidth is cut in half. Wireless communication between the main router and amplifier itself takes up half the empty port, so the speed ceiling measured in your bedroom is about half that of direct connection.

I tried three places for placement and finally settled on the corridor socket: four meters from the main circuit, separated by a lightweight wall, the amplifier side received -60; There were less than five meters left to the master bedroom, and the amplifier signal in the bedroom was -55, fully loaded. If you set it right, forty-nine yuan can do something worth seventy or eighty yuan; If placed wrong, it's just a night lamp stuck in the wall.

measured numbers: three sets of controls from my home

My home uses China Telecom 300M broadband, and my phone supports WiFi 6. At the same location and time slot, I measured three rounds each, taking the median value:

clearly see that counterintuitive part: with an amplifier added, the signal is full, and the speed is 110~130 megabytes; But it's not much faster than a direct 80~90 Mbps connection; full bars and speed are two different things. For watching videos, watching livestreams, and gaming, bandwidth is more than enough, but if you want to drag a Blu-ray disc to your NAS in the bedroom, speeds of forty to fifty MB/s are a real headache.

by the way, don't blame the router for direct connection speeds. At first, I thought AX3000T wouldn't work, but following article about router placement I moved the main router out of the TV cabinet and set up the antenna, climbing direct connection from 60MB to 90MB. Moving machines costs nothing; it's always the first step.

have old routers at home, don't pay for them yet

the second and third lines of the table are two implementations of the same idea: both are wireless relays, with the only difference being the hardware. I dug out an old AX3000T that had gathered dust from a few years ago and switched it to relay mode, placing it in the same corridor. The bedroom can run 170~190MB, half faster than the Amplifier Pro—after all, it's a big machine with a big antenna, and the transmission and reception capabilities are on a completely different level. I once wrote an article about the specific steps for changing an old router to a repeater wireless relay mode settings, the management IP will become the 31.x segment. The pitfalls encountered in that article are not repeated here.

so here's my calculation: the Amplifier Pro has only three advantages—cheap at 49 yuan, space-saving when mounted on the wall, and power consumption of about 2 watts; Converting old routers into repeaters costs nothing and is faster, but they take up an extra socket space, cost over twenty to thirty yuan a year in electricity bills, and have to endure occasional leaks. If you have an unused router, try the old router first; if it doesn't work, buy an amplifier.

what situations should you go straight to Mesh

amplifiers and repeaters solve "from 60 to 80 points." If your problem is "starting from 0 points"—duplex with no signal upstairs, a basement level in the villa, or you need roaming (walking around the whole house with a phone without interruption), then don't even consider an amplifier and just add Mesh sub-routers.

I later bought a Mesh sub-router because although the amplifier lets you watch videos in the bedroom, the two- or three-second switch between the living room and bedroom visibly lags with the phone. Whoever connects the amplifier connects to the main router, the phone switches very reluctantly. Mesh is wired backhaul, and the bedroom can run around 270MB with seamless switching. I've written the full networking process in Mesh in the networking section. If you have pre-installed network cables, just follow the instructions.

one more thing about the biggest difference between amplifiers and Mesh: Amplifiers usually have a WiFi with a separate name (you can also use the same name, but the switching logic is clumsy), while Mesh allows seamless roaming with a single name throughout the house. The former is a patch, the latter is a renovation, with a price difference of 100 yuan. Whether it's worth it depends on your needs.

Six Types of People Taking Matters Personally: Clearly Explain Whether to Buy or Not to Buy at a Glance

Three types of people

should buy an amplifier: those budget stuck at 50 yuan; Renting a place without renovations and multiple outlets on the walls is sufficient; The signal at home was just "a bit close"—if you still had about sixty or seventy points left on a direct connection, you'd have to fill in the last slot.

Three types of people who don't buy amplifiers: have old routers that collect dust (switching to relays for free and faster); The main router is an old machine that's almost five years old (the source signal is poor, and replacing the relay baton with a gold one doesn't help. Refer to the method from the article about weak signal penetration); Pursue seamless whole-house roaming (direct Mesh).

also has a hidden fourth category: broadband itself is only 100M. Your bedroom has 80 Mbps of direct connection, but the amplifier is at most 130 Mbps. The bottleneck is broadband, not signal. Forty-nine yuan wasted nothing.

finally give a decision order

by spending less, from most to most: First, move the main route location and change the channel for zero cost; Second, rerouting old routes with relays at zero cost; Third is the 49-yuan Amplifier Pro, which fills the gap; Fourth, Mesh sub-routing, one-step implementation. My mistake was skipping the first two steps and trying to buy the equipment directly, fiddling back and forth and returning the stock twice.

49 yuan won't cost you a loss, but don't expect it to do 150 or 150 jobs—it's just a patch. Is your network a "breath-short illness" or a "surgery needing it?" Think this through first, and your money won't be wasted.