Should I purchase 6th generation Extreme or use my 5th and buy the Express to extend wifi and improve Netflix streaming?

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Should I purchase 6th generation Extreme or use my 5th and buy the Express to extend wifi and improve Netflix streaming?

I recently had to move my Airport Extreme 5th generation (A1408) six feet further from the office opening. I'm not picking up a strong wifi signal at the other end of the home, the Master. It's dropping and weak. I was thinking about purchasing an Airport Express but then have been wondering if just purchasing the 6th generation Extreme would be a better option for signal strength and streaming Netflix on our most used HDTV. Thank you.

iOS 8.1.3

Posted on Feb 6, 2015 4:27 AM

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Tesserax

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Feb 6, 2015 9:51 AM in response to wiesemkllr

Unfortunately it would be impossible to tell you if using a 6th generation Extreme would work better without a detailed site survey of your environment.

In theory, the latest Extreme provides a much better antenna array so it may perform better in getting the signal to the other end of your house ... and should present itself as a better performance solution vs. using an Express to extend the wireless signal of your current Extreme. However, another option would be to use an Express to extend the network using a roaming network configuration. That would require that the Express be connected to the Extreme via Ethernet ... or by using PowerLine adapters to simulate an Ethernet connection between them.

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Answer 2

wiesemkllr Author

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Feb 6, 2015 1:57 PM in response to Tesserax

Thank you, Tesserax. I would consider a roaming network configuration but my wife will already be upset if the Express is somewhere in the living room/dining room. So cables and adaptors will not work for her. I've decided to purchase the Extreme to see it's capability first. Then will use my 5th generation Extreme to extend the wireless network.

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