what non apple WiFi extenders will work with an Airport extreme?

Virtually any extender will work with an AirPort Extreme if you connect the extender back to the AirPort Extreme using a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection.

It is highly unlikely that another extender will work correctly and seamlessly with an AirPort Extreme if you are planning to use wireless to have the extender connect. That is because Apple uses a proprietary design for their wireless extend feature.

We've tried products from most of the other major manufacturers and have yet to find a product that will wirelessly extend an Apple network correctly, but it's possible that another user might have discovered something and will post here.

As far as Apple abandoning the business, do you have a link to an official announcement from Apple that confirms this?

once got a hotspot to connect to my extreme and then hook up my tv's ethernet port so the tv was online but not extended as in expand the wifi range. the box died since it was a trendnet tew-638APB it was a pain to get working

it had a WPS button which the documentation said if pressed it could exdend too but didn't work with airports another way to extended it's doc said was to type in some serial number from the main router but non of those on the airport worked

Thanks for the info.

Things kind of work the same way in reverse. By that, I mean that an AirPort Express can wirelessly connect to virtually any third party wireless network.....and it will work for AirPlay and enable the Ethernet port on the Express as well.

But, the Express will not "extend" the wireless signal and provide any additional wireless signal coverage.

Cosman wrote:

I want to extend my Airport Extreme wireless network. Apple is abandoning the router/WiFi business. What non Apple WiFi routers will work with an Apple network?

Apple has made no such announcement. It’s a rumor based purely on speculation over employee moves within the company. All of Apple’s networking products are still for sale in their stores and online. The fact that they haven’t been updated lately doesn’t mean Apple is abandoning them. Same goes for the Mac Mini. It has also been demonstrated that that Apple’s networking products are not susceptible to recent router hack attacks and Apple networking products still receive firmware updates when needed.

To expound a bit on what Ikrupp has provided, most of the confusion is a result of an article in Bloomberg about a possible reorganization of Apple's product planning team.

Within just a few hours, there were any number of other online sites known for rumor and speculation parroting the same "information" and adding their own spin to what this might mean. One went so far as to say that Apple was within only a few days of pulling all of the AirPort products from the Apple Stores to dump product at heavily reduced pricing.

The AirPorts have remained for sale.......at full price.....for months after the so called articles became available. So, unless you have a link to an official statement from Apple about their plans, any other "information" that you might have "heard" is either based on rumor or speculation.

On a site devoted to helping users who are having technical issues with their products, rumors and speculation are not needed.

If you have another technical question to ask, we'll try to help.

I spoke with tier 2 customer support about a wifi issue a couple of weeks ago and asked them about this also because of that rumor from last year. They said Apple has no plans to discontinue their Airport products or wifi development.

any universal wireless repeater should be able to work with the airport wireless.

I used a Xiaomi mi router for ages which worked quite well. Tiny cute little things.

With the following proviso,

All universal repeaters suffer from hiding the extended clients from the main router. You lose ability to see clients.

It also is difficult to the find the repeater on the network so configuration with a static IP is essential.

You might need to reduce the security level below WPA2 personal to WPA1 and 2. This is not huge in most situations but is certainly not preferred. Very recent repeaters will be fine with full WPA2.

In the end the issue is wireless repeating is not a great idea anyway. It can get you out of trouble for a quick fix.. but long term it is not reliable or fast. Don't ever build networks that depend on repeaters or extenders.. the reliability of the whole setup even all Apple is poor.

None that I have found will extend wirelessly, all that I have tried extend with a hardwired connection.