TP-Link AC1200 Wi-Fi Dual Band Range Extender

In the days of COVID... this is how the story begins. Let's set it up. Combine the elements of Work from Home, quiet space at a premium, available enclosed semi-outdoor space, and awesome weather, and you have a situation where the enclosed patio becomes not just ideal for the day-to-day work schedule, but it becomes AWESOME! Only problem is the wifi is on the other end of the property with a solid home construction bulkhead in between along with a sheer wall and other means of interference. I was dropping Zoom meetings, getting late messages, I had a solid 4-5 seconds of speech delay, and my phone would not alert me to anything. At that point I thought, maybe the router just isn't strong enough. It's only about 40 feet away but still. So I took a chance on a reasonably priced and well-featured (this one) version of a wifi-extender and I am now at full speed. No drops, no lagging, full speed even through a VPN connection. I wasn't sure this was going to be the answer to my speed issues since the base connection isn't terribly fast, but it absolutely worked. I do need to bring up a quick caveat... the word "extender" may be misleading. The means of extension is by acting as a relay. Thus in order to connect to the home network via the extender, you actually need to connect to the extender instead. If you are prone to moving about the house/property/office, and you need the strongest available connection, you may find that you need to manually switch back and forth to whichever is strongest in the particular location you are at in relation to either the wireless router or the extender. For my purposes this was fine since my work computer stayed put... I just had to switch wifi networks on my phone when I worked in that location.