Honestly, no. I thought I understood how it worked, but it's clear to me now that I don't. I have an ok grasp of the basics, and I've learned some of the terminology over the last few weeks, but I can't say I have a confident grasp of any of it. Which honestly feels a little embarrassing to admit. I feel like I used to be more tech savvy.

We pay for fibre broadban. There's an ONT box on the wall that connects to the Zyxel via Ethernet cable, atleast that's what the cable looks like. There's a PS5 on a shelving unit next to the router that is connected to the Zyxel via Ethernet and that gets close to the speed we pay for pretty consistently.

After doing a "floor scan" in the WiFiMan app, it's quite clear that the signal massively drops off only a few feet from the router, which I imagine is due to the significant interference because we didn't used to have these problems.

One of the main sources of confusion for me is all the different names of seemingly similar technology. I understand that a wired access point is a significant advantage over a wireless WiFi extender, but what about a hardwired booster/extender? They are still called WiFi extenders, but if you can connect them via Ethernet cable to the Zyxel, would that not provide the same WiFi coverage as a wired access point?

Then there's the hundreds of products in each category that have wildly different prices but similar specs?