Year: 2016

Netgear WN3000RP Wi-Fi Range Extender review

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A photo of the Netgear WN3000RP Wifi Range Extender plugged into a wall socket

Today, I’m reviewing Netgear’s WN3000RP Wifi range extender (sponsored link) – a plug-in device to improve your home Wi-Fi network’s range.

You may be thinking, ‘wait a minute, you only reviewed a Netgear range extender a few weeks ago!‘. And you would be right. I was sent a Nighthawk EX7000 Wi-Fi range extender to review, but unfortunately I had to send it back to the PR company after I’d written the blog post.

I still needed a Wi-Fi range extender though, as my BT Home Hub 4 can’t reach the whole house. The WN3000RP model had some reasonable user reviews on Amazon, met my needs and was reasonably affordable, and so I put it on my Christmas list. Santa, or rather my Dad, obliged and so I’ve been using it since Christmas Day.

It’s a much smaller than the Nighthawk and simply plugs directly into a plug socket with no further assembly required. As it’s equipped with Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), configuring it is dead simple – turn it on, press the WPS button, press the WPS button on your router, and then wait a minute or two. A new Wi-Fi network will appear with ‘_EXT’ appended to it and it’ll use the same WPA security key (password) as your router.

That’s probably all most people will need to do, but a few configuration options are available using a web-based control panel. There’s also a port for a network cable to connect a device which lacks its own Wi-Fi connection, although you’ll need to provide your own cable.

The Nighthawk I reviewed in November was a premium model with lots of additional features, such as extra network ports, a USB port for a hard driver or printer and faster connections. This is a much simpler model without the bells and whistles, but it does the basic job well. It has certainly alleviated our wifi signal issues and seems to perform as well as we need it to.

If you’re looking for a simple solution to extend your Wi-Fi router’s reach, at £27 from Amazon, you can’t go wrong with the Netgear WN3000RP. It’s a fifth of the cost of the £140 Nighthawk EX7000 (although Amazon had it for £100 before Christmas) which offers extra features and performance, at a price.

Hello 2016!

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Figureheads

Happy new year!

Christine spent the new year apart for only the second time since we met. Unfortunately, our little poppet had to go back into hospital on Wednesday, and so Christine stayed on the children’s ward overnight. They should be coming back home again today hopefully.

As is traditional, I check to see if I achieved my goals for 2015, and what I expect to do in 2016. So – how did I do?

  • Buy a house – yes, even if it did take most of the year!
  • Pass my driving test and buy a car – yes!
  • Go to the gym more – nope. In fact my gym attendance was even worse last year.
  • Go to two weddings – yes, and they were the two that we were expecting, unlike in 2014.
  • Go on an overseas holiday – no, although I did get to travel abroad for work instead.
  • Visit London and Bristol – we managed London in October, but Bristol eluded us this year.

Not bad, on the whole. I’m hoping that I’ll have time over the next four weeks to go to the gym during the daytime whilst I’m on paternity leave, when it’s a bit quieter, and be able to make it a habit again. We could also do with an overseas holiday, although our baby will need a passport first. We can’t order one until we register her birth, which we haven’t been able to do as the local register office has been closed over the Christmas period. We have an appointment booked for next week though.

Another thing Christine and I both need to do is clear our credit card debts, which together amount to a four figure sum. Once clear, we can start rebuilding our savings. Christine also needs to re-start her driving lessons, which she paused when she got too pregnant, and pass her theory and practical driving tests.

And we need to continue to work on our new house. There’s still quite a bit of painting to do downstairs, for which we’ve already bought the paint for but haven’t had the time to actually apply it to the walls. And we still have a lot of unpacking to do. Once we’ve saved up enough money, we’ll then look into turning our spare downstairs room into a cloakroom with a toilet and basin, and consider re-wiring the upstairs of the house.

But the main thing we want to do is spend us much time we can with our new baby.