Was a bit concerned as there seems to be a few horror stories on setup. I have a WPS button on my (BT Homehub 3) router and so opted to try that method.

- Note that the supplied instructions for WPS setup in the booklet are good.

- Plug in the extender relatively near to your hub/router. Power button is amber at first and then turns green. Don't be tempted to plug it in where you have the reception problem!

- Press the WPS button on the extender. The WPS LED on the extender will flash green

- Then press the WPS button on the router. The wireless LED on the router then flashes orange (this will be router specific but valid for the BT hub in question)

- First time nothing much else happened. After about 2 mins nothing had connected and everything had reverted back to the way it was).

- Repeated the exercise and this time the wireless LED on the router illuminated blue (as it should be in normal use). On the extender the WPS LED was now solid green and the router LED was now illuminated (solid green).

- You can now unplug the extender and move it. Placement obviously depends on your circumstances (and whether you are using multiple extenders) but for one extender then find a socket about half way between your router and the dead zone

- Now this is where it is easy to think job done. I assumed the extender would simply extend the use the same SSID as the hub and authenticate automatically any device that had accessed the hub's wifi. But on each wireless device you want to connect, you have to manually select the SSID of the extender. It will be the name of your hub with _EXT appended to the name. If you forget this step then your devices will simply be trying to connect to the hub as before and so you have achieved nothing! Note this is explained in the instruction booklet. No excuses!

- Enter your normal hub/router password and the device joins the new network

- Remember that the extender and the hub/router wireless operate as two separate WiFi networks and so your device will not see it as one network and connect to whichever has the stronger signal as you move around. In fact for me my extender is very central and so now generally works from anywhere

- If I am connected to the hub's wifi network and then move to the dead zone then I will see my device temporarily lose wifi and then connect to the extender's wifi (so for example on a mobile phone then the wifi symbol reverts to 3G/4G and then about 20 seconds later will pick up the extender

- You can check signal strength (to test for optimal placement) both on your device (e.g. signal strength bars) and at the extender where there is a device LED that should glow green (or amber). If red then move the extender. I guess optimally you want it green

- The extender does take about a minute to restart and reconnect if you unplug it and move it and so if you are experimenting with placement then be patient for it to complete its restart and reconnect

- 5 stars? - well I have only been using it for an hour! We will see

- Not sure what happens if you have multiple of these. Do they each get a new SSID? e.g _EXT, _EXT_1 etc. I presume that Netgear has thought of this!

UPDATE: has been working well for 18 months. Had to set it up on a different router (this time Virgin Media V6 Hub). So first step is to reset the extender by inserting a paper clip into small hole in underside). Took me a couple of goes to force it to reset but you can check it is reset as the SSID reverts to “NETGEAR_EXT”. Then repeat the WPS setup. For me this did not work but then I realised the repeater works with 2.4Ghz only and my router was 5Ghz. So I would either have to turn on 2.4Ghz on the router or use manual setup which does let you repeat any 2.4Ghz WiFi it can see rather than just the one coming from the router. For some reason the manual setup process requires you create an account. No idea why. And each time you do a reset you have to create a new account. The manual process seemed prone to have to repeat some steps but stick with it and it will ask for your SSID passcode. Then the extender appears as before with the name of “your chosen SSID_EXT”.

OK so not perfect but worthy of 5 stars as excellent fix to WiFi black spots for little money.

For the price you really can't go wrong. I'm with EE Broadband, yes it's good but the Brightbox router they supplied me with is trash, I couldn't even get wifi signal upstairs in my house! With this little netgear device, I now have wifi upstairs, downstairs and even out in the garden lol. Buy it, you won't regret it.

We were struggling to get a WiFi signal across the house which resulted in patchy connection for phones, laptops and smart TV's downstairs. Being with Sky, there wasn't the opportunity to use our own router so took a chance on this WiFi extender. The results have been fantastic; now we can get signal everywhere!

It is dual band so works with all of our devices including older computers. It was fairly simple to set up by following the instructions, and can be easily accessed by connecting to the extender as you would any wireless network. It mirrors your network name with a 2GHZ and 5GHZ suffix and also uses your normal WiFi password.

It's definitely been a good purchase and has solved the very frustrating problem of unreliable signal!

I am relatively tech-savvy, but I made the rare mistake of reading and (trying to) follow the installation instructions, which caused me a good hour of headaches and nearly resulted in the unit being returned. Now it is up and running it is great - have it about ten metres from the router in an area where the signal is quite weak due to thick walls in an old house, but it is linked well and provides an excellent signal at the rear of the house and into the garden, all of which was pretty much a deadsport previously.

Following the supplied instructions and trying to install via a browser window (page 10 of manual) I was unable to access the router - the address was not recognised and I kept being redirected to a "support page". After an online "chat" I was given a free-phone number to contact Netgear support - this worked easily enough, but the support was next to useless - told me I would not be able to use the extender without purchasing additional software!!!

I then did what I (and probably 80% of the population) normally do and tried to install it without referring to the manual......2 minutes later all sorted and working perfectly!!!!

Hopefully you will not have these issues, but if you do need any help, here is how I did it;

-Plug unit into socket close to router and power on - orange light will show and after 30 seconds (approx) will turn green.

-Press WPS button on left side of unit - second light on unit will start to flash green.

-On your computer look for available wi-fi networks, the Netgear extender will show, click to connect.

-This will automaticaaly open a browser tab (I had the browser open already) with the login page for the extender.

-follow the on page instructions to enter account and security / logon details. Router light will illuminate on extender.

-when this is complete, unplug extender and position in area of house between router and (as close as possible to) deadspots you wish to eliminate. Unit will power up as before.

-On laptop / phone / tablet etc search wi-fi connections for your newly named network and log on.

-hopefully, as for me, it will now work a treat!

Hope this helps!

Edit 14 October 2017 - Thank you to all for your kind comments, I am so glad my review has been helpful and really appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I apologise for not replying to your individual comments.

I have amended my review from 4 stars to 5 stars as the unit has now been plugged in for nearly 4 months and has performed without fault. It has not had to be unplugged / reset and has given me an excellent signal throughout this time.

This thing for me was totally not worth it, somehow this thing gave off a worse signal and slower speed than my Sky hub does. No matter where I placed it, any device I connected to it was actually worse off than just connecting to my hub.This for me was a waste of money and is now just dumped in the cupboard.

I have a modem/router upstairs and this extender gives you a red light and no connectivity at the bottom of the stairs. The furthest I get a green light is about 12 feet outside the door of the room with the modem. Further than that on the same floor it goes amber. And as I said, at the bottom of a single flight of stairs with no turns you loose connectivity. It does actually connect at a very slow speed even with a red light showing but it's practically useless.

Also it randomly decides that you are on a new network and demands passwords and won't accept the right password until you reset and reconnect it.

I have the extender in a large open hallway and it can barely reach to the bedrooms 20 feet away. I get one bar showing on my devices for connectivity and occasionally two bars for a few seconds but it then drops back to one.

All in all completely unfit for purpose.

EDIT: After using this repeater for several weeks it saddens me to say I returned it as the signal dropped every few minutes making it impossible to use.I’m in a black spot and WiFi’s awful, previously bought 2 repeaters but not good, this little fella was easy to set up and boy I can get full strength in my conservatory whereas before I got nothing with other repeaters I’d say if you want a descent affordable repeater then grab the mini it’s well worth it. X

I've had these extenders before in my house which didn't work, my house has all solid walls. I got this one which gives a 2Ghz and 5Ghz signal with my newly installed BT Broadband home hub, thus far it has worked perfectly and I've had it around a month. I am running 2 Sky Q boxes in my bedrooms and 2 phones from it and we always get a strong signal and high-speed downloads. Highly recommended, wasn't crazy expensive either.

Wi-Fi Range Extender worked for a short period of time before it developed a terminal fault.

Initially, the Netgear technical support person was supportive in diagnosing that the product was faulty and it would have to be returned at my expense under the warranty agreement. Following this, I had difficulty in getting details on the warranty return process from Netgear and where to return the faulty extender to. Eventually, I was requested to return the item to Anovo UK Ltd. I returned the product on the 26th Jan and have not heard or had any correspondence in this regards since that date.

I have made numerous attempts since to contact Netgear support and Anovo and have had no response. The Anovo phone No continually rings engaged and I was not provided with an email address. A further Netgear phone No. that was advised on the support website is no longer in use.

If you are intending to purchase this item please be aware, that based on my experience, the item may be faulty and that follow-up support is effectively non-existent.

At this time, I'm at the financial loss of the extender, the return postage and the time that I have spent in trying to get this resolved.

I would not recommend Netgear products based on this experience.

Having read some of the reviews commenting on set up problems I was a tad apprehensive. Looked like a great bit of gear apart from that so I bit the bullet and ordered it. Took me about 5 minutes to connect it and be up and running. Really easy, just following the instructions in the quick set up guide. I'm using it, via the ethernet connection, to my desktop PC in my home office in the garage. Which is detached from the house and the signal has to go through the house wall (cavity block and brick) and the garage wall (brick and drylined and insulated) with about a fifteen foot gap between the house and garage.
Works perfectly, and gives me a much better connection than the BT 610 Wi-Fi extender which I had before and had started to give me problems.
I cannot fault it so far, and am more than happy with the performance. As an added bonus it is a very small and neat unit, even with the external antennae, and I can use both sockets in the double wall outlet no problem.

I'm just adding to this review as it's almost six months on from purchase, and I'm pleased to report that everything is still working wonderfully. No problems at all and it's been on constantly in that time. Never had to reset or adjust settings. I can thoroughly recommend this item.

For all those, like myself. Who pore over reviews and specs prior to making what I hope will be an informed purchase. This is another update as of November 2021, so over three years after purchase, and it's still working beautifully. I am now on BT's FTTP with their latest Smart Hub2 and it integrated with it perfectly. In my opinion anything electronic at this price point that is still giving perfect service after the best part of four years pretty much continuous service deserves top marks.