Your old router is faster than mesh Wi-Fi if you wire it correctly

If you've upgraded to a new router, you don't have to get rid of the old one. Instead, you can turn it into an access point or Wi-Fi repeater, or even use it as a secondary network node if you've got two routers from the same brand that both support the same proprietary mesh software.

Turn your old router into an access point and solve your Wi-Fi issues

Beats any Wi-Fi repeater and many mesh Wi-Fi systems

The best course of action is to turn the old router into a wireless access point. This way, you can improve Wi-Fi coverage in parts of your home with poor signal or dead spots.

The old router can use the same or different SSID and password as the primary router and will expand Wi-Fi coverage without the bandwidth loss or added latency you'd get with a wireless repeater, since it connects to the primary router via an Ethernet cable rather than Wi-Fi. The great thing about access points is that you can also plug wired clients into their LAN ports, giving them a fast, low-latency wired connection to your main router.

The good news is that most modern routers support Access Point mode, even those that are getting old in the tooth, so there's a good chance you won't have to do much setting up.

The only thing you'll need is an Ethernet cable long enough to connect the old router to the new one, since you need a wired backhaul to use the old router as an access point. If you cannot connect the two routers directly via Ethernet, you can use a MoCA adapter if your home has coax wiring, or even a powerline Ethernet adapter .

If you know your old router's Wi-Fi credentials, as well as the username, password, and IP address needed to access the settings menu, you can connect to it wirelessly with your phone or a computer, or via Ethernet with a wired client, access the settings menu, and switch it into Access Point (AP) mode.

If you forgot the credentials, you can reset the router and look for the default username, password, IP address, and Wi-Fi SSID and password, which are usually listed at the bottom of the router. As you can see below, my router has them all listed there.

Once you reset it, turn it on and then either connect to it wirelessly (if it emits a Wi-Fi signal by default) or via Ethernet. Then just type the router's default IP address into the browser's address bar, log in, and configure the router's Wi-Fi SSID and password. You should set them to match the primary router. The security and encryption settings should also be the same on both routers. Next, switch the old router to Access Point mode. Confirm the change and let the router reboot.

If you've got a very old router (most routers released in the last decade or so should support Access Point mode), you may need to configure it manually .

Once your old router is configured to work as an access point, connect it to your primary router via an Ethernet cable, and that's pretty much it. If the old router now works in Access Point mode, you can plug the Ethernet cable from the primary router's LAN port into the old router's WAN port, but if you had to configure the old router manually, you should plug the cable into one of its LAN ports instead.

You should adjust some settings to get the best experience

Optimize your new access point

Now, you shouldn't just let your new wireless access point use the default settings, because overlapping Wi-Fi signals can cause issues.

If you're using the same SSIDs on both routers, make sure you also use the same security settings. So, for instance, if you use WPA2 on your main router, use it on the old router-turned-access point too. Another thing you should do is adjust the access point's Wi-Fi channels so they don't overlap with your main router's channels. For the 2.4GHz band, it's best to use two of the following three channels: 1, 6, and 11.

The 5GHz band offers many more non-overlapping channels, so it's best to do a quick Google search for something like "5GHz non-overlapping channels" to find the best combination for your setup. In general, though, it's a good rule of thumb to use one channel in the 36–48 range and the other in the 149-165 range, if possible. 6GHz is the fastest band but also has the shortest range, so your old router working as an access point usually shouldn't interfere with the main router unless the two are very close to each other and not separated by walls.

It's also best to place the access point somewhere it won't interfere too much with the primary router's Wi-Fi signal and where it can provide stable coverage in parts of the home with weak or no Wi-Fi. If there is interference, you can lower the access point's transmit power, which you can adjust in the Wireless settings menu on most routers.

Another potential issue is that some devices may stick to the primary router's Wi-Fi even in parts of the house where the access point offers a stronger signal. On Windows PCs, you can often fix this by adjusting the Roaming Aggressiveness or Roaming Sensitivity setting in Device Manager. It's usually best to set it to Medium-High or High, allowing the PC to switch more quickly to the stronger access point. Unfortunately, you can't adjust roaming aggressiveness on macOS, iOS, or Android. The good news is that the default roaming behavior usually works fine on all three platforms.

Alternatively, if your routers support 802.11r, also known as Fast BSS Transition (FT), you should be able to find an option called Fast Transition or something similar in the settings menu. Enabling it should improve roaming and make it easier for client devices with support for 802.11r to switch between the main router and the access point.

Another option is to create a separate SSID for the access point, but this is less than ideal because devices will have to manually switch between the two wireless networks.

You can also turn the old router into a Wi-Fi extender

Or perhaps even into a mesh network node

If you cannot connect your old and new routers via an Ethernet cable, you can still improve Wi-Fi coverage by turning the old router into a Wi-Fi repeater , which picks up the main router's Wi-Fi signal and amplifies it. The process is similar to enabling Access Point mode.

If the router in question supports Access Point mode, it's likely to support Repeater or Extender mode as well. All you have to do is enable the mode, select the Wi-Fi network you want to repeat, and that's pretty much it.

Now, the speed won't be great—you can expect the repeater to provide roughly half the bandwidth of the main Wi-Fi network—and latency will also be higher when connected to the repeater. But hey, at least you'll have Wi-Fi in parts of the house where you didn't have it before, or where it was so slow it was practically useless.

Another option is to create a mesh-like Wi-Fi network using the two routers, provided they are both ASUS or TP-Link. ASUS routers have included the AiMesh feature for years. If both of your routers are ASUS models with AiMesh support , you can create a mesh network with them. It won't work as seamlessly as a proper dedicated mesh system, but it will be much better than using the old router as a simple Wi-Fi repeater.

TP-Link offers something similar with EasyMesh . If you've got two TP-Link routers that support EasyMesh , you can turn them into a mesh-style Wi-Fi system, similar to what ASUS offers with AiMesh.

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Access point and Wi-Fi repeater are just two roles your old router can play

Aside from turning it into an access point or a Wi-Fi repeater, you can also repurpose your old router as a network switch, a dedicated VPN router, and more . It's worth exploring your options before chucking it out, because there's a good chance you can still use it for something useful instead of turning it into e-waste.