D-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Range Extender DAP-1720

worse than useless... ZERO Stars – Bought 18/02/23. Had great hopes for this WiFi Extender. INstallation. The packaging and user guide (will get to this shortly) states 3 simple steps using the WPS. As a WiFi extender one would expect for the extended range to carry the same SSID... no it doesn't. So if you followed the instructions and *boom you think you are done... sadly ... NO.… Read more

Yes it connects to the router.. but your devices wont connect to the extended signal as it now as a different SSID.. The manual says your old SSID-EXT & -EXT5G for the 5GHz signal, however, your 2.4GHz SSID will have the same SSID as your 5G (I'm guessing this is a bug). You need to configure via the web browser...

PERFORMANCE... on 2.4Ghz your bandwidth seems to be about 50% (I have 2signal strength on the extender). The 5GHz bandwidth the bandwidth drops by 50-60%. Furthermore the Speedtest runs for a few seconds, then fails. SO i am not so sure how this is going to perform with streaming video.

User Guide. Throw it away. Has no information on configuring all the other parameters.

Firmware update. The device's firmware comes with v1.01 (date 16/6/2017).. clicking the Check for firmware updates, has it checking for a few minutes and then returns no results.. not even whether it the most up to date... given we are in 2023 i would have expected as least one firmware upgrade

Final thoughts... well after i changed the SSID's to match the existing SSID's... my devices seem to be connecting.. as far as performance goes.. well i will have to get back after doing some more tests and running it in for a while. So far, I am unimpressed. AT RRP$229 ... 1* ...for now i have given it 2* as i got it on sale at JBHIFI ..

UPDATE: 1 Connectivity issues.. seems any device that connects thru the Wifi Extender does not have internet connectivity. So i checked the Support website... the device model is DAP-1720 amd despite during the firmware update check non returning any newer version there appears to be a newer version 1.1 (15/07/2020) .. so time to download this... .once again, this is not the plug in, 3 clicks and all done. Now 1.5* instead of 2*

So i downloaded the new firmware and tried to install it but it failed.. see image.

UPDATE 2: So i have been configuring this device to try and get it to work. SO you have to choose a frequency to connect the extender to the router.. 2.4 or 5.0Ghz If i connect the extender to the router using 2.4 Ghz I can connect to the 2.4-EXT network and download but upload fails. I have no internet access thru 5.0-EXT. If i connect the extended to the router via the 5.0GHz freq. When i connect to the 2.4-EXT or the 5.0-EXT i have no internet access.

It really is the 5.0GHz freq that one usually tries to the extend because this is the freq with the higher throughput and the shortest range. I'm also not sure why they would bother having a 2.4 and 5.0Ghz freq because when you connect the router to the extender via 2.4GHz you will only get the max speed of the 2.4 (and not the 5.0).

Which comes to my final point... this extender now gets ZERO stars... it does nothing and whatever it tries to do it fails. There is concern here for misrepresentation and i may be taking this up with the ACCC under the Australian Consumer Laws.