Looking to replace an older Airport Extreme. Want to be able to continue using an Airport Express and Airplay to stream music to a receiver. Are there any routers capable of doing that besides a new Airport Extreme. I’m fine going with that but interested in some options if there are any. Thanks
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Airport Extreme
- Thread starter emacnewbie
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
All Airport devices can join a network using Ethernet, and provide a WiFi hotspot in bridge mode (vs router mode).
All Airport Expresses should be able to join a WiFi as a client to connect airplay devices.
AirPort Extreme\TimeCapsule can join a WiFi or ethernet to share Time Machine disks.
I am doing all of the above on a Synology router network.
The only thing that might be a problem is wirelessly extending a network, that is using WiFi to connect the Airport to a network, then providing hotspot for client connections. In my experience, some routers need to designate access points to extend the network, and this may or may not support other vendor products (I ran into this many years ago with Belkin routers in the 802.11g days).
So, I would expect you can achieve your goal with just about any router. The Express should be setup in Client Mode on the network tab, this allows it to join the WiFi as a wireless client, just like a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. You may have to enable UPNP on the router, some don't natively support the bonjour protocol that Airplay uses to discover airplay devices. You would have to read the router manual, or forums, but I suspect most modern routers support bonjour out of the box given the popularity of Apple products.
All Airport Expresses should be able to join a WiFi as a client to connect airplay devices.
AirPort Extreme\TimeCapsule can join a WiFi or ethernet to share Time Machine disks.
I am doing all of the above on a Synology router network.
The only thing that might be a problem is wirelessly extending a network, that is using WiFi to connect the Airport to a network, then providing hotspot for client connections. In my experience, some routers need to designate access points to extend the network, and this may or may not support other vendor products (I ran into this many years ago with Belkin routers in the 802.11g days).
So, I would expect you can achieve your goal with just about any router. The Express should be setup in Client Mode on the network tab, this allows it to join the WiFi as a wireless client, just like a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. You may have to enable UPNP on the router, some don't natively support the bonjour protocol that Airplay uses to discover airplay devices. You would have to read the router manual, or forums, but I suspect most modern routers support bonjour out of the box given the popularity of Apple products.
Thanks for the information techwarrior. A few days ago one of my Airport Express would no longer extend my wifi network. Tried doing so on the others switching from joining to extending and no luck with them either. Figure it could be a sign of something going wrong with the nine year old Extreme. Started with looking at options for a new router but was unable to find anything regarding keeping my current Express set up. This included a call to Apple. I just want to be sure I can send songs in my iTunes library from the iMac to the Express and out to the receiver for the outdoor speakers. I’ll start by looking at Synology routers and go from there. I might just get a new Extreme to make things simple for a non-tech person like me. Thanks again.
Very doable. I now use Synology RT2600AC for my router. I have two AP Expresses configured as "clients" joining my WiFi and have Airplay enabled on them. One connects to a receiver, one to an aux cable to a bluetooth speaker I use outside on the patio. In essence, the Expresses are just Airplay adapters. I also have a Time Capsule with WiFi off, it connects via Ethernet to the Synology to provide Time Machine backups and Back to My Mac file sharing over the internet.
I may use powerline adapters and turn WiFi back on to extend the range of my network to some spotty locations like the garage and parts of the patio, but the Express on the patio is well within range for the limited bandwidth needed to stream audio. For Whole House audio, I use iTunes on Mac + AppleTV (2) + AP Express (2) and the entire house is in sync with no perceived delays. I typically use iOS the iTunes Remote app to control the music and outputs.