Customer Reviews

NETGEAR WGX102 54 Mbps Wall-Plugged Wireless Range Extender

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I purchased 3 of these devices to set up a wireless network at one of my customers. I have been setting up networks for six years and I have set up many wired and wireless networks. The basic marketing material sound great, like it will work very well. However, the user documentation is woefully inadequate except for the reference guide which you must download from Netgear web site. Once you have the guide, you will find out how to enable WEP encryption or change the IP address on the unit. It all sounds easy, except for one thing, it doesn't work! The software can find the units on the powerline network but is incredibly flaky in connecting to those units. For example, you can ping the device a few times but then it doesn't ping for 5 minutes or so, then it does. If you make changes using the software, changing the units IP address for example, then click on apply, often that is the time it cannot connect. Then you can't ping the old address or the new one. So, you have to press the reset button and start over. The building that I set this network up in was built in the last 5 years, so the electrical wiring is up to code and not creating the problem.

The basic Netgear setup assumes that you don't have more than one device (they all default to the same IP address and it's very time consuming to change the address because the connection is so flaky!)and you don't care about enabling any encryption. Yeah, that's great if you want to give your neighbors wireless access to your computer and your web connection. I don't think most people would want to do that. I worked with 3 units and a wireless bridge device (the required Netgear XE102) for about 5 hours and could get it to work but only on an unacceptably intermittent basis. I would strongly recommend that you not buy this product since it will only create a lot of frustration and suck up lots of your time and then, not work consistently. Or you could just use it without any encryption or security. Uh, wait a minute, you probably shouldn't do that!

I bought this and the WE102 to, of course, extend the range of my quite happy, WEP-protected wireless network. The computer to be added belonged to my wife. I have a series of addresses in the 192.168.1.x range, but the Netgear stuff demands that the network be disabled, and that at least one computer become a 192.168.0.x in order to put a SECOND WEP on the WGX102. This, as everyone probably knows, is completely dependent on whether Microsoft feels up to it. I went through 100,000 ipconfigs, etc. I spoke literally for hours to a gentleman in India who was nice but whose accent was so difficult for me to understand I wished I hadn't waited on hold for an hour to talk to him.

Yesterday it worked for a while, but today, it doesn't any more. I'm not a rank amateur, neither am I a geek with all the time in the world. I'd avoid this like the plague, unlike the other reviewers, none of whom, if I remember correctly, mentioned network security concerns. Long story short--you can't run this setup with a secure network.

There is a whole consortium of people out there working to develop standardized home powerline networking. They've been at it for some time. I don't think they've gotten anywhere, I'm sad to say. I gave one star because Amazon doesn't have a lower rank.

I bought this unit, Netgear WGX102, along with the Netgear XE102 Powerline Ethernet Adapter for my wireless network and the combination work great. I have excellent signal through out the house. The complain I have is the documentation is really bad but once you figure it out it works great.
The unit come with default address of 192.168.0.101 and my Netgear wireless router was set at 192.168.11.1. To get this to work I connect the Netgear XE102 to my wireless router. Set my computer to a fixed IP of 192.168.0.1 to allow me to connect to the Netgear XGX102. Once connected I change the configuration of the WGX102 to set its IP to 192.168.11.2 and set a new SSID. After that I just change my computer back to "Optain IP address Automatically" and configure my computer's wireless network to use the SSID of the Netgear XE102. Now it's working great with excellent signal strength and so far I haven't have any drop connection or interferences from my neighbors.

I couldn't get this product to work with my existing equipment. The Netgear extender had a default IP address of 192.168.0.101. Linksys routers serve IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range. I couldn't get beyond this incompatibility. My search of the Internet for a solution only found more people reporting the same problem. I finally returned the Netgear extender for an equivalent Linksys product which I had no problem getting to work.

I purchased a WGX102 about 18 months ago. The first unit I purchased failed after a few months. NetGear replaced it, because it was under warranty. The replacement unit worked nicely for about 15 months, then it failed too, with pretty much the same symptoms. The unit only has a one year warranty, so NetGear told me I would have to buy another. I'm not going to do that, because the units don't seem to last, and I don't want to have to buy another one every 18 months or so.

I've seen a number of reviews on various sites by other customers who have had the same experience. Be warned.

I bought the Netgear Wireless Kit XE02 and WGX102 because my Apple Extreme wifi does not cover all my rooms through the logs of my log home. This kit however was plug and play. I plugged the XE102 into a wall socket and then into the Airport Extreme via ethernet cable and then the WGX102 into any other wall socket and that room became an instant wifi hotspot. Now both my 2 Macs and my PC (with Aria extreme Airport PCI card) easily find the Netgear signal and surfing I go. I am purchasing a second WGX102 extender to add another far off room to the network. Only one glitch. After 5 months my first WGX102 extender went belly-up. Netgear is sending me a replacement under the 1 year hardware warranty for only S&H

I recently purchased two computers for our home. One was a lap top for my wife and the other was a desktop for my home office. We already had the main desktop computer with dsl internet connection so we needed to install a wireless router so we could both have access. Since my home office was at the opposite end of our home, the wireless signal was very weak. The Netgear wireless range extender was just the ticket to fill the void. Easy to use and very simple, just plug into any electric outlet.

I recently purchased the Netgear wireless range extender system. It was truely plug and play. I didn't have to do anything other than plug it in and start using it.

Excellent job.

I live in an old stone house with stone interior walls with block wireless signal from the router. Plus the solid stone walls mean no way to fish new cable so I gave this a try. Connects quickly and gives strong signal. I like that I can move the receiver unit around the house and get wireless access is less than 10 seconds of plugging it in. I also like to plug the receiver in on the outside deck on sunny days and have wireless all accross the back yard. (I experiemented and got useful signal strength over 400 feet away.) Also, I have taken it to a detached garage, plugged it in and have wireless while working on projects. (So handy, that I have just bought an additional receiver to save the "hassle" of moving it from place to place.)

USAGE CAVEAT: Be careful what devices share the circuit with the units. They seem especially senstive to surge suppressors and to power chargers. For example, I suddenly had great difficulty with wireless in the bedroom where it had worked flawlessly for months. When I checked the unit, my wife had plugged in her cell phone charger into the same outlet next to the netgear. When I unplugged her charger, all access problems immediately disappeared. If a charger or other device "hums" when plugged in, don't place right next to the unit.

Bottom line: works well when wired network is impractical to install

I used XE102 and WGX102 earlier and they worked great until the WGX102 burned out -- I went through that course a couple of times then gave up -- recently, I tried again since I have a house that I can't get signal to certain rooms with Linksys repeater due to distance but this time around I installed brand new units and they didn't work at all -- I tried everything I could to make them work but to no avail -- I couldn't figure out if it didn't work because I have new router (WRT54G) or if it was that new Netgear just didn't work -- finally, I realized that I was plugging the XE102 off of the UPS power panel and the WGX102 off of the non-UPS power panel (the house has two separate wiring systems, with one backed up with Uninterruptible Power Supply) while the other is only supplied by the power company -- when I moved them to the same circuit, everything worked great. Lesson learned is that isolated power wiring systems prevent the units from working properly. I now have Linksys repeaters and Netgear equipment all working fine. (By the way, I would change the rating I gave unit to 5 stars but I can't seem to get back to star rating as I am updating my review)