Awesome, thanks for all the info! Appreciate your time!

-K

It’s a bit complicated at the moment — the makers of USB Wi-Fi adapters (and the chipsets that go into them) don’t seem to be in any hurry to release drivers for MacOS 12. I don’t exactly know why that is: maybe Apple has made the process more difficult in the latest OS version, maybe it’s just too new, maybe it’s both. Whatever the story is, at the moment you’re basically left with the unofficial drivers I mentioned earlier, but since they don’t support M1 MacBooks, they’re not a lot of help for your situation either.

So, the only real option you’ve got right now is an external booster like the Netgear EX6120 mentioned in the article, that plugs into the wall. It’s not as compact as the USB ones, but on the upside, it boosts the signal for all the devices you’re using, not just your laptop. It’s not super-expensive either, so it’d be worth trying it out to see if it meets your needs – you can always return it if it doesn’t.

Ah gotcha, thank you! Is there anything you would recommend to boost WiFi connection for the Macbook Air M1 while traveling?

Thank you! 🙂

There’s no official driver for the T3U on MacOS 12 yet. There’s an unofficial third-party version at https://github.com/chris1111/Wireless-USB-Big-Sur-Adapter, but it only works (so far) on an Intel Mac running MacOS 12, not those with an M1 chip.

Do you know if the TP-Link Archer T3U works with Mac OS 12? I’ve read that some only work with older Mac software.

Thanks,
Kaitlyn

The ones that plug directly into your laptop work just like the one inside it, so you’ll have no problem with hotel login pages.

Some of the standalone ones also have a mechanism for logging into these captive or portal pages as well, but not all.

I would like to ask a quick question regarding the wifi extender, as most of the hotel nowadays required a webpage login access to the internet, do those models you suggested above will have this function available? for example, if a direct connection from a PC, once you connected to the hotel wifi, the hotel webpage will pop up and ask for your user name and password, not sure if I connected with the wifi extender and the extender can do the same to allow internet connection. thank you for your help.

If the average traveler is searching for something to extend the range of the wireless network in their hotel, they’re not going to be looking for a “network adapter” even if that’s the generic name for the gadget that will do the job.

I’m aiming to provide useful information to the people looking for it, so I’ll continue to call these things wifi extenders, wifi boosters, range extenders, or something similar, since they are the most useful terms to convey the value that a traveler will get from them. As I say, feel free to call them something else if you like.

“Your wireless router can’t do everything, and Wi-Fi dead spots are unavoidable in most homes. The quickest solution to wireless coverage woes is to add a Wi-Fi extender, which is a specialized repeater that boosts the wireless coverage to those portions of your home that your router just can’t reach.”

” A WiFi repeater or extender is used to extend the coverage area of your WiFi network. It works by receiving your existing WiFi signal, amplifying it and then transmitting the boosted signal. With a WiFi repeater you can effectively double the coverage area of your WiFi network – reaching far corners of your home or office, different floors, or even extend coverage to your yard.”

Why to use something what already mean something else? Better word for them would be example just be a network adapter.