WEBVTT

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Have you ever been in a situation where your Wi-Fi doesn't reach far enough and you can't

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run a cable? You could buy a repeater or another mesh node, but those things cost money.

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Fortunately, you actually might be in luck if you or a friend has an old router lying around,

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like this one. This is actually a new router, but many modern wireless routers, even cheaper ones,

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have a feature called Wireless Distribution System or WDS. This essentially allows you to disable

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the features you're not using and deploy the router as a repeater, with the added advantage

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of giving you access to the wired Ethernet ports on the back of those babies. You can think of it

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kind of like running an Ethernet cable, but wirelessly. So how do you set it up? Although

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there's usually a simple on-off option for WDS in your router settings, it's wise to do a little

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bit of configuration work as well in order to ensure it works properly. Start by manually setting

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both your main wireless network and the secondary router to the same channel so they can communicate.

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To keep the connection stable, you'll want to give your secondary router a static internal IP

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address. But how do you do that? Well, on a home network, every connected device is assigned a

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private IP address that typically starts with 192.168. This system ensures any incoming data

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is sent to the correct device. Usually, your router assigns these addresses automatically

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through a system called DHCP. But for WDS, you'll want to give your secondary router

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one IP address it hangs on to permanently, instead of having your main router automatically

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give it a new one periodically, which can cause connection problems. Log into your main router

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and find the place in the settings that will show you a list of all the connected clients.

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Then go back to your secondary router and give it an IP address in the LAN settings

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that isn't currently being used by any of those devices. Make sure you start it with 192.168.0

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or 1 depending on which one your network uses and using a fourth number that's between 1 and 255.

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You can also set the second router's static IP within the first router's DHCP settings by

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finding the second router's Mac Address and putting it in there. After you do this, go ahead and turn

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on WDS. You'll get a prompt asking which wireless network you want to connect to. So pick the right

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one and punch in the password. Make sure, by the way, that you turn off the DHCP feature on the

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secondary router. Your primary router will handle assigning internal IP addresses and having two

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devices on the same network handling DHCP functions, oh that can cause some pretty bizarre

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problems. Get flashbacks. From here, you're all set to use your secondary router. If you're trying

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to connect a wired device, just plug in the Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports. Not the WAN port,

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the LAN ports. If you're trying to connect wirelessly instead, punch in the credentials that

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your secondary router is using to connect directly to it. Although you can also give your secondary

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router the same login information as the primary one to have your Wi-Fi devices switch automatically

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between them. But wait, there's a big caveat with using WDS. Because Wi-Fi is a half-duplex protocol

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that can't send and receive at the same time, WDS tends to be slower than using a single router.

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In fact, if you're connected to the secondary router wirelessly, your speeds will be roughly cut

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in half. Also, keep in mind that you may not want to assign both routers the same login information,

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as client devices tend to hang on to the first access point they can connect to for dear life.

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So your phone, for example, may not switch back to the primary router the way you would like to

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once it's in range. But while WDS isn't perfect, it's a great way to repurpose an old router if

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you don't need the highest possible speeds and can be a lifesaver if you have a wired-only device

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you really need to use. Unless you don't mind tripping over the 100-foot Ethernet cable you've

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snaked all through your house. It's an aesthetic. Dystopian cyberpunk. Cables everywhere. Wow,

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you watched the whole video. Thanks for that, guys. Hey, you know what else you can do?

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Like the video. But if you didn't like it, I dislike it. This is so dumb. Check out our other

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videos. Comment below with video suggestions, and don't forget to subscribe and follow. I'll be watching.