It came in the mail yesterday and I had it up and running in about 15 mins. So installation gets 5 stars. And it definitely works as an extender as I am now getting full signal strength upstairs in my bedroom while the router is in the far corner of the basement. All appeared to be good until I started to do more than surf the internet. I couldn't hold a connection to my company's VPN and I kept losing connection when I tried to download podcasts to itunes. I unplugged it and I haven't seen the problem since, so it has to be the extender causing the issue. It not only causes a problem with my laptop upstairs, but any computer on the network. The D-Link forum has several complaints with the same issue, but D-link has yet to respond to these complaints. The closest I saw to a recommended fix was in their Knowledgebase - they recommended changing the "Preamble" setting to "short" (default is "long") for busy networks or for downloading large files. I will try this when I get home tonight and see if this corrects the issue.
UPDATE: 5/26/2010 - I switched the Preamble to "short" and that did nothing to solve my problem. Back to the ol' drawing board! Next stop, tech support. Ugh!
UPDATE: 6/3/2010 - I emailed customer support a week ago and have heard nothing. Also, they have failed to respond to their own customer forum regarding this same issue. Lame, very lame. They leave me no option but to return this item. D-Link DAP-1360 Wireless N Range Extender
I recently purchased an iPad and was having some connection troubles in my upstairs bedroom. My main router, a D-Link gaming router, sits downstairs about as far away as possible, so I went looking for a device that would extend my network. At first I was looking at buying another wireless router for upstairs and would then just turn off DHCP and set it to be an access node, but then found this little guy and put it upstairs, but about halfway away from my main router.
PROS:
- Pretty simple setup.
- Worked as expected on the first try! (WPA-2 worked no problem.)
- I get a strong connection now to my downstairs router with my iPad and other wireless devices upstairs.
CONS:
- Lack of polish in the interface. One screen in the web interface has some text in Spanish, and there's a variety of grammar/spelling mistakes.
- This may be possible but I couldn't find it: A way to see the strength of the connection the device itself has to the home router, similar to what you'd see in Windows. Like I said, there may be a way to do it, but I couldn't find one.
- The website doesn't have any firmware entries for this device, so I'm assuming 1.02 is the only firmware available, so following the other reviews, be careful about the password stuff. I didn't have any problems with it.
- It's a little pricier than I think it needs to be if you were to compare it to a full-blown Wireless-N router that you could just turn features off on.
Summary: I'd buy this again in a heartbeat though as it works as expected, but I took a star off for the bugs in the web interface, some missing statistics that would seem useful, and the price.
While the above prior review is accurate,the password issue seems to be the ONLY issue. The configuration works well and is simple.
I believe the problem here is if you use a password that is either too long or has special characters.
When you put in such a password, then it does not flag the problem, rather it just takes you back to the login screen... and then you can't login!
I agree the firmware needs a patch for this, but apart from this it works as advertised and very nicely has improved (in repeater mode) the range and coverage of my WiFi.
I've only had it a few days, so can't comment on reliability of failure over long time of use.
Suggestion.. change your admin password when you first get it out of the box, that way you don't waste time configuring it, only to have to do a reset because of the password glitch if you put in one that doesn't work.
Finally.. I've had the same issue with Linksys camera, do don't "dis" Dlink alone on this one. as far as I am concerned, the whole industry including web based banking needs to open up unrestricted passwords with no character limitations and no maximum length (within reason, say at least 24 characters).
I tried to use this is a range extender and failed miserably. Although I am adept at configuring cabled and wireless routers, this one was a stumper. Almost no useful online help. Considering that my router is D-Link (DIR-655) I expected this to work but it does not.
I have returned this item to Amazon (simple and smooth), bought instead a D-Link DIR-628 wireless router, configured it as an Access Point (much better documented, basically disable DHCP and PnP) and I got my range extended! You could do this if you have a couple of wired spots where you could place this Access Point. In my case I has a wired spot on the second floor where I connected the second router (DIR 628) and I now get excellent Wi-Fi connectivity for the iPhone, iPad and Laptops used upstairs.
So two D-Link products, one designed to extend the range and, for me, was a waste of time (I would have given it zero stars if I could). The second is a versatile router that allowed me to extend the reach of my network with a few configuration changes. Both cost about the same... - Range Extender - Repeater - Extender - Wireless'
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