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got a crappy Wi-Fi signal you might be wondering why can't you just add a

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second router to your network and get twice the coverage it turns out you

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actually can although it takes a little bit of effort and there are some caveats

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that you should be aware of before we dive in we'd like to thank our good friend Joel crane for helping us out

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with this walkthrough Step Zero it's actually important to know what your

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typical Wi-Fi router does it not only

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emits a Wi-Fi signal it's also responsible for moving traffic between

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internet and your home which is the actual routing part as well as ensuring

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that the right traffic goes to the right device so a video you're trying to watch

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on your phone in bed won't instead get sent to your TV in the living room this

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job of sending data to the correct place is typically handled by a feature in

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your router called the dynamic host configuration protocol or DHCP how DHCP

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does this is by assigning every gadget on your home network a private IP

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address usually starting with 192.168. something but why do you need

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to know this in order to add a second router well regardless of exactly how

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many routers you have only one of them should have DHCP turned on if more than

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one router tries to assign private IP addresses they'll often end up

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conflicting with each other and assigning different addresses to the same device which can cause all kinds of

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Errors when that device tries to communicate so how do you ensure that

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this does not happen we'll tell you right after you thank lenode for

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at the the link below start by hooking up your second router to a PC with an

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Ethernet cable just use one of the Lan ports and manually assign it an IP

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address in your router settings make sure it is not something that's already

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being used by another device in your network you can check by going to your

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primary router setting page and looking for a list of connected devices or

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clients just pick an address that is not on this list for example if your primary

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router is using 192.168.1.1 try giving the second router

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an address of 192.168.1.2 if nothing else is using

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that reboot your second router and once it's back up go back into the settings

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and disable DHCP leaving it enabled only

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on the one router that's actually connected to your modem some routers

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call this AP mode where AP stands for access point essentially you're telling

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that second router just to emit a Wi-Fi signal while leaving all the actual

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routing to the primary router after you've done this connect your primary

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and secondary routers via their Lan ports not the one import very important

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not that one and configure the second router to use the same network name or

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SSID and password as your existing Wi-Fi network that way any devices in your

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home should roam between the two routers locking on to whichever one has the best

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signal but for that to work the physical placement of these routers needs to make

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sense put your second router somewhere far enough away so there isn't a bunch

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of signal overlap which you can roughly measure with a smartphone signal

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strength app but not so far away that you're leaving a big dead zone in

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between them you want a healthy Venn diagram this process can obviously

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involve some trial and error and to make matters more complicated many smart

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devices are quite stupid in the sense that they'll stay connected to a weak

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access point for longer than they really should if you're finding that this is

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the case when using a second router you might just want to name it something

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different and just connect to it manually of course if this all just

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sounds like a huge pain it is a bit easier just to get a Mesh networking kit

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off the shelf if you need better Wi-Fi coverage but if you really do want to

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use that second router you just have laying around anyway this guide should

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at the very least beat strapping a clothes hanger wrapped in tin foil to

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your phone we all have our embarrassing past so thanks for watching guys if you

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like this video hit like hit subscribe and hit us up in the comment section

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with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future