WiFi Boosters - How do they actually work?

[Jayded]

Hoping that I can find someone on here with advanced knowledge of how Sky WiFi Boosters actually work...

So, I have recently moved into a new house. Fibre Optic has been installed but the entry point is right at the front of the house - therefore my Sky Hub also lives at the front of the house. All well and good, but this means my WiFi doesn't really stretch to the far reaches of the rear of the property. Problem.

Here's the good news: The previous owner of this house went to great pains to install wall-mounted Ethernet ports in every room of the house. These ports are wired back to a Switch in the garage. Using the Ethernet port closest to the Sky Hub, I have now connected the switch to the Sky Hub via Ethernet.

So, the WiFi problem. I am currently in possession of one of those white rectangular Sky Wifi Boosters (sent by Sky) and i'm trying to use this to boost my WiFi signal to the rear of the house. I know these are generally supposed to boost wireless signal only - but on the booster, there is an Ethernet port. So here's my question:

If I plug an Ethernet cable into the Booster and connect it to the wall-mounted Ethernet port - which connects back to the main Sky Hub via Switch - will the Booster act as a de-facto WiFi Access Point and broadcast the WiFi signal coming through via the Ethernet? Do these WiFi Boosters even work this way?

If not (and I suspect it is a No), are there any third party devices (TP-Link, Asus etc) that do this job successfully?

Ideally I want something that clones the SSID so that devices can "roam" between access points. Would that mean investing in a Mesh system of some kind?

Lots of questions - hopefully somebody has some answers!

Thanks!

Andrew

[Chrisee]

@Jayded most Sky boosters will act as an Ethernet to WiFi bridge its not that unusual set up. However to extend the Sky WiFi the booster needs to be the correct model for the hub. If you have the newer white Sky hub older boosters are not suitable these units need the dedicated pids that can come as part of the Sky WiFi Max bundle. 

The older SE210 boosters which look like a white version of the Sky Hub 4.2 aka SR203 are matched and will deliver a basic mesh network especially if you have Sky Q boxes. However from your description if you donr have Sky Q boxes I would buy a third party WiFi mesh set up, configure that in WiFi AccessPoint  Mode and use that fed by ethernet from the Sky hub withits own wifi disabled. I have a somewhat similar set up using a basic TP-Link Deco4 3 unit system which is cheap (around £80 last time I looked).