Turning a Router into an Extender/Access point?

Some routers have an "access point" (AP) mode. If it has that, put it in that mode. If it doesn't, at a minimum you will need to turn off DHCP on this router so that it leaves the duty of handing out IP addresses to your main router. You will probably want to give it a different SSID than your main router so you can be sure the doorbell is connecting to the right one. You might also need to manually set the router's IP address, and be sure to plug the ethernet cable into a regular LAN port and NOT the WAN port.

So that's if you are able to run cat6 and hardwire the router. If you can't run a cable, then you will need to check if the router has a "repeater" mode to make it function like a wireless range extender, or some might call it "bridge" mode (though that seems to mean different things to different manufacturers).

So will you be able to run a cable to the netgear? That would be ideal.


And a quick primer on the DHCP and IP address issue:

Most routers use the address 192.168.1.1 for itself, and there is a setting in the config to set the range of addresses that it will hand out via DHCP. The range might be something like 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.254, though these defaults vary and you can change them.

So the two things you should do on the AP mode router (the netgear in your case) is to turn its DHCP server OFF, and to set its IP address manually to one that is NOT inside the range of the primary router's DHCP range. Like maybe set it to 192.168.1.10 if the last number ranges from 100-254.

The reason you should turn its DHCP server off is because whenever a device joins the network, whether for the first time or after a reconnect or reboot, it will send a broadcast to every other device "hey I need an IP address", and any device responsible for assigning IP addresses (DHCP servers) will respond and assign it an address. If more than one server hears the broadcast, they will both try to give it an address and shite is basically fricked. You won't break anything, but things aren't going to work right until you disable the second DHCP server.

And it might not be necessary to assign the netgear an IP address manually, but I would highly recommend it so that you always know how to find it if you need to change its configuration. If you don't, then it'll pick up a random address from the main router's DHCP server, and it might change from time to time. Better to always know the address of the important devices.


Hope this helps!

Yeah if the router can't be hardwired then you're going to have to locate it in the middle where both the spectrum router and the doorbell signals can reach it. And that's assuming the router has repeater mode, which not all of them do. You could probably install 3rd party firmware on it to add the feature, but I really don't think you're ready for all that.

Cheapest bet is to just get a repeater that charter/spectrum recommends.

Less cheap but better option for a house that size is to return the spectrum router and get one of the mesh systems with a base unit plus two extra nodes.

Even less cheap but best option long-term is to hire someone to run some cat6.