What type of device should I be looking for to connect WiFi to existing ethernet? [closed]
I live in a 2 story shared apartment and there's WIFI downstairs. The coverage in my room is very bad, possibly because my desk is partly metal. I have an ethernet port in my room and previously I used an ethernet cable to connect it to my laptop. The downsides of this setup are:
- I take my laptop with me almost daily and due to all this unplugging/plugging the clip on this ethernet cable is kinda broken and even the slightest movement will disconnect it.
- I also want to use my phone. Previously I made a WIFI hotspot on my laptop, which was connected via ethernet, and this worked ok but it isn't ideal.
So the solution would be some kind of extender but my question is how is this called? I don't think it's a WIFI extender because that uses the WIFI signal that's already there. Is it a router? I'm not familiar with the terminology. So I want ethernet -> WIFI but there's already a router downstairs.
You need an Access Point rather than a range extender.
An access point connects to ethernet & can be set to "not be in charge" - so your regular router/gateway can handle such as DHCP, assigning correct IP addresses to anything connected via the WiFi as though it was just a part of the existing home network. Access points are the simplest to set up - all they need is a name & password adding; the device will hand off to your existing router for almost all other functionality.
Many WiFi routers can perform several functions, including setting up as either a range extender or access point, simply depending on what you select at set-up, and adjust their functionality accordingly.
See Linksys - What is an Access Point and How is it Different from a Range Extender? - though, of course, many other companies make access points.