If you’re looking to improve the Wi-Fi signal in your house then you probably searched and considered buying a Wi-Fi booster. Getting a strong Wi-Fi signal throughout a home can be difficult since the Wi-Fi signal waves will have to go travel through walls and long distances so you might have spotty Wi-Fi signals in certain spots of your home.
The NextFi Wi-Fi booster claims to use “next-gen technology” to boost internet speeds through your Wi-Fi signals to provide fast speeds across your entire house. But, looking at the device info on the NEXTFI site, there seem to be a lot of suspicious claims.
I got my hands on one of these devices and you’d be surprised to know what I found. Keep reading to see a review and if this device does live up to NextFi’s word.
Do I Need a Wi-Fi Signal Booster?
A Wi-Fi single booster (or extender) does as the name suggests, it will boost the signal throughout your house, further than your Wi-Fi router can do on its own.
A Wi-Fi booster cannot improve the speeds of your internet that you get with your internet provider but it would improve the speed that you would otherwise get at dead spots around your house if you were using your router on its own without a Wi-Fi booster.
As a general rule, if you require Wi-Fi to cover a large area, a Wi-Fi booster could drastically improve your Wi-Fi signal. It might also be worthwhile looking at the age and specifications of your Wi-Fi router to determine if you should perform an upgrade at the main source of your Wi-Fi or if a Wi-Fi booster will suffice.
Is the NextFi Wi-Fi Booster Legit?
The NextFi page makes multiple claims on their website which starts raising red flags since these are blatantly false such as:
- 700 Mbps Ultra-Fast Download Speeds
- 4K Stream On Multiple Devices
You will not be able to achieve 700 Mbps and 4k stream quality if your internet service plan does not support it. This Wi-Fi booster is simply a Wi-Fi repeater that does not improve the speed but only extends the signal around a house.
To test if the NextFi Wi-Fi booster was a scam, I purchased a single device for $49.95 (with a 50% discount which auto-applied – not sure why) and waited for it to arrive.
Once it arrived, I unboxed the device and found this:
A generic Wi-Fi extender!
If you search Amazon for a Wi-Fi repeater, you’d find many devices similar to this but rebranded and labelled.
To see if the device worked as intended, I setup according to their instructions.
How To Setup A NextFi Wi-Fi Booster?
The following steps detail how to set up a NextFi Wi-Fi Booster:
Choose a Position Where to Put the Extender
Find a place where to place the Wi-Fi signal booster key since you would want it close to a Wi-Fi router to get a good connection to the source, but far enough to cover the dead Wi-Fi spots in your home.
Plug the Wi-Fi Extender Into an Outlet
Once you found an ideal location to place the Wi-Fi extender, plug the device into an outlet. Three lights (Wi-Fi, LAN, and Power) should all be solid and illuminated after a minute. If the lights do not switch on correctly, then factory reset the device using a pin and pressing the reset button for 10 seconds at the bottom of the extender.
Connect Your Device to The Extender Wi-Fi
On your mobile device or laptop, connect to the NextFi Wi-Fi signal booster network with the SSID and default password provided. A browser window should open by default but if it doesn’t then navigate to your web browser and type any URL. You should be redirected t the Wi-Fi extender’s admin panel. My default username and password was “admin”.
Configure the Extender to Connect to Your Router.
In the admin panel, use the configuration wizard to scan and select your Router’s Wi-Fi SSID and confirm your router’s password. Give it a minute or two and the Extender light should be illuminated and successful.
Review of The NextFi Wi-Fi Booster
The NextFi Wi-Fi signal booster did perform fine to cover dead zones around my house. I could get Wi-Fi signal around my entire house but the signal at the furthest point from my router occasionally seemed choppy.
NEXTFI WiFi Booster Summary
If you received the NextFi router, it might work fine for you BUT it’s overpriced and you could easily get something from a more reputable brand for much cheaper on Amazon. As I mentioned above, this looks to be a rebranded generic Wi-Fi extender with no real speed increases and satisfactory performance.
My recommendation is to go with a known brand such as TP-Link which has great support and great product reviews with happy customers. If you need to cover an area of less than 1000 sq. ft, the TP-Link AC750 or Netgear EX5000 will work wonders at a lower price than the NextFi Wi-Fi booster.
For a larger floor area of up to 2800 sq. ft, the TP-Link AC1900 performs well with up to 35 connected devices.
To wrap up, the NextFi WiFi booster looks to be a high-priced rebranded generic WiFi signal booster, however, it does do the basics of what a WiFi signal booster should do. Plenty of other options on the market offer the same functionality at a lower price point.
