Cheap Router for Small Apartment

I've been using the same TP-Link Wireless-N router for the last six and a half years, but it has about as much range as Indiana Jones does with his bullwhip. Maybe it's not that bad, but if you're ten meters away from the router, it's an iffy proposition. I'm done with that - I've got permission from the wife to get something that will serve the whole 850 sq. ft. apartment. The router moves around as it's on a rolling desk, but the furthest it will ever be from any point in the apartment is roughly 50 feet walking around the walls, 40 feet through a single concrete wall, or 30 feet through two concrete walls.

I'm in China, so the deals might be different and there are probably different brands on the market here versus other countries, but I'm looking for a cheap router that can cover my apartment. Speed is of zero concern, because our internet is slow enough and our needs humble enough that even Wireless-N speed still outstrips our internet service several times over, and any speed needs like game downloads on Steam or streaming video happen on the desktop, which is directly connected to the router via ethernet. Low-end N routers here can go under $10, so I'm hoping to keep the price in the low double digits (US dollar-wise). Does anybody have suggestions on cheap routers that will cover a small apartment or specs I should be looking at to determine if a router will fill my needs?

By the way - the devices this will be connecting to are a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, a Samsung Galaxy S4, and a Huawei Ascend P6, if that makes a difference.

 

Go with TP-Link again they make good and affordable routers. They do have versions for Chinese market that are not available anywhere else and I have no idea how much anything costs in RMB so it's hard to make a specific recommendation. Not being able to navigate their Chinese website properly doesn't help either.

Keep in mind that range is achieved thanks to good power amps on each radio ad these cost money, so you can't really get a good range for peanuts.

 

If low cost is the goal, I would just get one used. Routers are not something that breaks a lot so I won't have any worries.

Many vendors on Taobao offer modded 2nd-hand routers with after market antenna, larger ram/flash and DD/Open-WRT or Tomato. The basic models usually go below 10 USD even with shipping. Such a device should be enough for anything you might want it to do, now or in the future (assuming you can live with USB 2.0).


At least for people who need to reach the outside world, Chinese Internet slowness can be funny at times (through a American VPN):



I'm browsing through this crap right now. Poor me.

 

I'll check TP-Link's website and Taobao, then; hopefully I can figure out how to check the specs on the power amps for range. I've never searched for modified electronics on Taobao; @Mr.Koala, any idea of the relevant vocabulary to find a long-range-modded router?

My VPN works well when it works. Reliability is maybe a 6/10, but speed is 9/10. I use Astrill and I jump servers when it starts getting sketchy - I've got access to maybe 70 servers in 40 countries, so I can usually find something that works.

 

Just ordered this one: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=43400065376&tracelogww=ltckbburl

I tried some searches with different combinations of 二手， 远程， and 路由器 - respectively secondhand, long-range (or long-range-modded), and router on Taobao, only ever found one item and it was running 100 RMB plus shipping. I've admittedly never shopped for secondhand items on Taobao so I probably should have started in some other part of the site specifically for secondhand goods, but either way, I found a new router with long-range features, and the seller was pretty certain it was overkill for my apartment. They offer a no-questions-asked return or trade-in policy in the first week after it arrives, so if it turns out I still have some dead spots I can swap for a three or four antenna model without much trouble.

Not sure how much routers cost in the States these days, but I'm always amazed how they start around $5 here and you can get quite a nice router for well under $20. The last time I bought a router in the US it was $80 and it was the cheapest model I could find. Then again, my current router cost almost that much six and a half years ago, so maybe they're cheaper than dirt everywhere now.

 

"远程" is unecessary. That word usually refer to industrial long-distance bridging equipment with range measured in miles, if not some remote management software function carried over existing connection (as advertised for the one you ordered). A 850 sq. ft. apartment is not exactly long-distance. "大功率 路由器" should be more than enough.

Your bullwhip ranged TP-Link is likely a bad sample. Most home wireless routers with external antennas should cover that distance just fine. There's no need for something special. I have this dongle which can cover more than that for a few different devices (with no load-bearing walls). Though I won't put much trust into someone who's trying to sell you stuff in the first place, I do believe what you ordered is an overkill. If it turns out that one is still not enough, your client devices are probably to blame.

 

I got 远程 from some Taobao listings, wasn't sure if it was really what I needed because technical vocabulary gets so specific sometimes and I'm still painting in broad strokes with my Chinese. I didn't know to search for 大功率 either.

The TP-Link was better years ago, but lost range after years of use. It was never super long-range, but did fine in our bigger apartment in the past. I just figured six and a half years of use had deteriorated some components or something. The new one has longer range than the old router, but unfortunately doesn't get me across the apartment all that well. The router's on a rolling wire shelving unit that I use as a standing desk for my desktop computer, which is connected to the TV in a bundle of cables that also includes the LAN cable for the router (along with the power strip for the whole rolling setup). We like to keep the desk off in the far corner of our living room, which is about as far as you can get from our bed (where we do a lot of pre-bedtime browsing on our phones) without leaving the apartment, as the bed is off in the opposite corner of the apartment. It's very possible that there are tweaks I can make to get it working better, but for now, we still have to roll the desk over toward the other end of the living room to get steady service in our bedroom. I'm gonna fiddle with it a bit in the next couple days before seriously considering a three- or four-antenna model. I haven't really figured out the setup yet - the documentation only gives instructions for setting up their iPhone or android apps, which seem to have little control over the router (can't rename it or set a password as far as I can see, for example), and the typical 192.168.1.1 just gives me a China Telecom page with a password-protected login - nothing for the router.

One more edit here: looks like as long as I angle the desk properly so the antennae are facing roughly the direction of the bedroom, reception's decent across the apartment, though it cuts out from time to time on our phones.

 

Or the EM environment is getting more noisy.

Sounds like there's at least a wall between the router room and bedroom.

How many WiFi bars do you have on your phone? If it's not too low the downlink is good. But the phone's signal might be too weak to go back.

If you don't mind a bit of there i fixed it style:

 

After an evening of browsing before bed, the experience was once again spotty. The laptop does fine with the router in the far corner of the living room, but the phones are spotty. I ended up moving the router across the living room and still had some spotty service. You're probably right about the phone not getting back to the router - the phone usually has 1-2 out of a maximum 4 wifi bars and often simply can't get a site to open, like the router hasn't been informed that I want to open the site.

The router is in the living room, then there's a left turn into a hallway, maybe two meters long, then right into the bedroom door. On a direct line, there are a couple corner walls that the router signal would be going through, but nothing that's not easily walked around if a wifi signal can take the path of least resistance. I like the idea of the antennae you showed, and the latter might be an option I could attach to the rolling desk somehow, but the easier one - the soda can - isn't gonna work: the router's within reach of children, and though we don't have our own, we have friends bring their kids by at least once a week so we can't have sharp soda can edges sitting around like that.

I think for my next attempt, I'm going to see if there's another active ethernet socket in our apartment. I'd never thought to look before because we need wifi in our living room for our daytime use, but if there's a socket in or near our bedroom I should be able to plug in the old router and have wifi wherever we want it. Swapping for a multiple-antenna router is also a possibility if that doesn't happen - would that theoretically solve the problem or would I have the same issues with the phones because they're the source of the problem?

 

The soda can and scoop pictures were more of a joke than a real suggestion.

Switching to another router with more antennas should be an improvement. However even if MIMO has perfect effectiveness going from two antennas to three or four doesn't give you much gain. Using a directed antenna would be a much better choice. Again, there are plenty of cheap ones on Taobao ("定向天线").

Or just get a scoop if you really don't mind.