Amped Wireless REC15A 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender Review

Amped REC15A: Range Tests

We measured how well the Amped REC15A Wi-Fi Range Extender improved our network connection by setting up REC15A to Extend the 5GHz signal from our Netgear R7000 Dual Band 802.11ac Router. The router was located almost 100-feet away from our Alienware M17XR4 laptop. The Amped Extender was in the same room no more than 10 feet away from where we placed our laptop. We then measured the signal strength with MetaGeeks inSSIDer Wi-Fi diagnostics tool. We isolated the 5GHz Wi-Fi signals from our router and extender and show the results below.

Test Results: We see from the above screenshot that our Netgear R7000 is producing signal strength of -49 dBm and the Amped REC15A Range Extender with a signal -26 dBm. Remember that our dBm measurement is relative signal strength and the closer the signal gets to 0, the stronger the signal measurement. With this in mind, we can see clearly that the Amped REC15A multiplies our routers signal and increases the power.

While these results show that the REC15A has power to amplify a good signal, we really needed a test to show how well the Amped REC15A could work with a poor signal. Most people who are looking to purchase this device have a very low signal to their router and in fact, may not even detect the router that they want to connect to. We wanted to duplicate that sort of scenario for this test. Unfortunately, the router that we were using primarily the Netgear R7000 802.11ac Dual-Band router is one of the best manufactured routers on the market and in a normal sized home or office, the R7000 doesnt really give you dark areas or dead zones.

To solve this problem, we resorted to setting up our laptop and Amped REC15A system in our Legit Van and driving up the street to use a weakened Wi-Fi signal. Specifically, we used our Dell Latitude E6410 with a newly installed Intel 7260 HMW 802.11ac Dual-Band Mini PCI Express combo adapter. The$30 Intel 7260 is rated to work at speeds up to 867Mbps over 5.0 GHz and 300Mbps over 2.4 GHz bandwidths. We expect this to be a very accurate test for those wanting to see what real-world speeds.

We connected our Dell laptop to our Netgear R7000 802.11ac router which was located on a different floor to compare it to the speeds when our laptop is connected to the Amped REC15A Wireless-AC Extender. We ran the application LAN Speed Test (LST) to measure file transfer and network speeds. LST builds a file in memory and then transfers the packet without the effects of windows file caching. It then reports the time and calculates the network speed.

Test Results: We werent really sure what to expect on this test since we pulled the Legit Van so far down the street that our laptops built-in Wi-Fi couldnt even pick up the Netgear R7000 5GHz signal. Total distance to the router was well over 600-feet! Our Amped REC15A found the Netgear signal which translated into fairly slow but usable Wi-Fi speed. We arent going to be streaming HD content with this, but still it is very interesting to see just what the Amped REC15A can do over a 5GHz AC channel.

We moved closer to the house and the Netgear R7000 where we picked up a better signal and repeated our speed test. This time, LST reported speeds that are definitely usable. With 71 Mbps (Write) and 136 Mbps (Read), the Amped REC15A is able to extend our network comfortably past 500 feet from our router. We need to remember that the REC15A isnt designed to give blazing speeds, but rather allows the user to extend their network out tremendously. With this test we could see that the Amped extender could easily double the reach of our Netgear R7000 as the REC15A was able to pick up usable signal almost 2 blocks away!