Now that many of us are working from home, cellular dead zones aren’t just annoying, they’re mission-critical. If you have a weak or no cellular signal in your home, a cellular signal booster can really help.
The basic principle behind signal boosters is simple: A big antenna is better than a small one. Instead of relying on the tiny antenna in your phone, they capture cellular signal using a large antenna in your window or outside your house (or car), then pass that signal through a device that cleans and amplifies it, and out through a rebroadcaster inside your home.
That’s the basic plan, at least. Booster makers have to use various tricks to detect the best signal from surrounding towers and then amplify the signal without messing up the carriers’ systems. That’s why you need to stick with boosters primarily from the big four companies: Cel-Fi, HiBoost, SureCall, and weBoost (we’re also including one from Wilson for a special use case you can read about below). Cheaper boosters available from Amazon often aren’t FCC-certified, which means they can cause trouble with surrounding cell sites and networks.
With that in mind, these are the best boosters for homes, apartments, and cars. Read on for our top picks, followed by everything you need to know when shopping for a cellular booster.
SureCall Flare 3.0
Best for Homes
Our pick for home cellular boosters, the SureCall Flare 3.0, is affordable at $299.99; supports AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; and uses a directional antenna outside but an omnidirectional antenna inside. That lets you fiddle with the outside antenna to get the strongest possible signal, place the inside antenna anywhere you want, and still get coverage. It covered three indoor rooms in our tests.
PROS
- Simple setup
- Flexible placement
- Boosts multiple carriers
CONS
- Doesn’t boost T-Mobile bands 41 and 71
weBoost Drive Sleek
Best for Cars
Our pick for in-vehicle boosters, the weBoost Drive Sleek ($199.99), has an excellent, secure cradle for pretty much any kind of phone, with a USB-A port so you can charge your phone as well as boost it. In testing, we got about 17–18dB improvement on T-Mobile and Verizon, which was enough to keep our in-car navigation going for just that extra mile we needed.
PROS
- Improves signal on all carriers
- Secure phone cradle
- Easy to use
CONS
- Only boosts one device
- No band 41 or 71 support
weBoost Home Studio
Best for Small Spaces
The weBoost Home Studio ($349.99) is a two-piece booster with a particularly small, low-key indoor emitter, so it won’t crowd up an already crowded room. Like other weBoost products, it relies on a directional antenna you mount on a pole or roof outside to capture the best possible signal. Within the room it covers, the device’s boosting potential is about the same as the larger SureCall Flare 3.0. But because it’s compact, it offers a bit less range inside the house than the Flare and much less range than a whole-home system like the weBoost Home Multiroom.
PROS
- Quick to install
- Directional antenna is good at capturing signal
- Small emitter is easy to place
CONS
- Emitter covers two rooms at most
- No built-in signal strength indicator
Cel-Fi Go X
Best for Very Weak Signals
Most home boosters claim around 70dB of signal improvement. If you need more because you’re very far from the tower you’re trying to reach, you need to get Cel-Fi’s specially tuned boosters. Cel-Fi’s lineup promises 100dB of signal improvement, but it does so by only boosting the frequencies of one carrier, so you can’t switch carriers without switching your booster. The company’s premier home booster, the Go+/Go X, also costs $900, much more than most consumer home boosters.
Cel-Fi Pro
Best for Apartments
For apartment dwellers who need a very aggressive booster solution, the Cel-Fi Pro ($699.99) can boost signals far more than the SureCall EZ-4G (100dB compared with 72dB) and doesn’t require an exterior antenna. Simply plant the antenna unit inside a window facing in the right direction and you should be good to go. There are downsides, of course. Cel-Fi’s solutions only support one carrier rather than all of them and this booster costs a lot more than SureCall’s $299.99 product.
HiBoost 15K Smart Link
Best for Large Areas
Most consumer signal boosters cover a few thousand square feet at most. The $899.99 HiBoost 15K Smart Link covers up to 15,000 square feet, making it the broadest-coverage consumer booster we could find. HiBoost’s lineup also has a unique and cool feature: LCDs on the front show signal strength for each of the covered bands. With a large home installation, you’re probably going to want to use a splitter and additional panel antennas—one panel isn’t going to cut it for 15,000 square feet.
SureCall Fusion2Go 3.0 RV
Best for RVs
RV boosters are sort of halfway between car boosters and in-home boosters. SureCall’s Fusion2Go 3.0 RV ($449.99) uses an omnidirectional outdoor antenna—useful because your RV is always moving around—and offers two antenna options inside. It isn’t as powerful as a home booster (it offers 50dB of gain) but it still performs better than small car boosters. The trick with this one is to place the indoor and outdoor antennas properly, which can be challenging, because they need to be as far apart as possible.
WilsonPro 710i
Best T-Mobile Low-Band Booster
The FCC hasn’t approved any consumer boosters for band 71, the frequency T-Mobile uses to improve its range and in-building coverage. This can be a real problem for T-Mobile users in rural areas, where band 71 predominates. If you want to improve reception on this band, you can go with a passive antenna or with one of two commercial boosters: the Wilson 710i ($1,500) or the SureCall Force8 ($6,999). We haven’t tested either of them, but Wilson is a reliable name and the lower price is definitely compelling. Keep in mind that you must hire a professional installer to set up either booster.
WeBoost Installed Home Complete
Best for Technophobes
Most home boosters require some DIY work to place the exterior antenna. If that scares you, WeBoost offers a professional installation solution for $1,199.99. The Installed Home Complete device has the same directional antenna and 72dB of signal improvement as most other boosters, but you can be assured of absolutely optimal indoor and outdoor antenna placement if you go this path.
Buying Guide: The Best Cell Phone Boosters for 2022
Do Cell Phone Boosters Really Work?
Boosters help the most when you have weak, but not absolutely no signal. Whereas your phone shows bars, wireless industry folks measure signal in -dBm. A number higher than about -90dBm (like -80 or -70) is a strong signal. Get down below -110dBm and it’s definitely a weak signal; below -120dBm and you are likely to have trouble holding onto any signal at all. Apps like CellMapper(Opens in a new window) can show you the signal you’re receiving on your phone.
There is one key trick you can try before investing in a home booster. All of the wireless carriers have Wi-Fi calling now, so you can hook your phone up to your home Wi-Fi network to make phone calls.
How Do Cell Phone Boosters Work?
Boosters generally have three main components: an external antenna that sits outside your home; a booster that cleans and amplifies signal; and an antenna you keep inside your home. A coaxial cable connects them all.
Some of SureCall’s products combine booster and indoor antennae into one unit. That makes SureCall’s boosters easier to install and place, which is part of why the SureCall Flare 3.0 is our top pick for in-home boosters. But if you own a larger home and are willing to run some coax cable, you can greatly extend the boosters’ range throughout your home by getting a three-part solution, some splitters, and multiple panel antennas. This can get complicated, so, at that point, you may want to get a professional installer to set the system up (especially to reduce interference between multiple, in-home antennas.)
Recently, weBoost came out with its first two-piece booster for small homes and apartments, the weBoost Home Studio (linked above). It’s small and convenient but only covers one or two rooms in your home.
Most boosters handle bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 17, and 66. That includes base coverage bands for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The important missing band is 71, T-Mobile’s 600MHz rural coverage band. Because it took a while for TV stations to get out of that band, the FCC hasn’t approved any consumer boosters for band 71. If you really want to boost that band, you need to get a professional industrial booster such as the WilsonPro 710i or SureCall Force8.
Most home boosters also boost between 64 and 71dB of signal. Once again, that’s due to FCC regulations. If you need more of a boost than that, you need to move up to Cel-Fi’s single-carrier booster line, which can get to 100dB by boosting only the frequencies from one wireless carrier at a time.
The booster store Waveform has a comprehensive guide to how boosters work(Opens in a new window) on its site.
What Is the Best Cell Phone Booster for Cars?
Boosters for your car are similar to in-home boosters, with one exception: You can get single-device, in-car cradle boosters. These are much less powerful than in-home boosters (the ones we tested boost by 23dB instead of between 65 and 75dB) but are less expensive, take seconds to install and remove, and don’t radiate beyond the cradle that grips your phone. We like the weBoost Drive Sleek as a single-device booster.
The little fin on top of the car shows that a booster is in use
(Credit: Sascha Segan)
RV owners and people who need to boost multiple devices in a vehicle can get in-car boosters with small radiating antennas that can handle several devices. These can be tricky, though, because of how close the output antenna is to the input antenna.
How Do You Install a Cell Phone Booster?
You can install all retail cellular boosters by yourself without any drilling, although ideally, you should hide the cables against your baseboards. You also need to find the optimal antenna position outside your home.
Recommended by Our Editors
Both SureCall and weBoost have options that let you lean on a professional installer to handle the tricky bits like sticking the antenna on your roof and orienting it properly. SureCall works with Dish subsidiary OnTech(Opens in a new window) to install any of its boosters at an extra fee. weBoost has a specific product, the Installed Home Complete (linked above), which comes with OnTech installation. The installation costs $200 for the weBoost product (it varies for SureCall products) so whether it’s worth it really depends on your budget and DIY ability.
Can You Boost 5G Signal?
Cellular boosters generally can’t boost the “good parts” of 5G networks. AT&T and Verizon carry a small amount of 5G signal on the old cellular bands 2 and 5. Boosters handle that, so a booster may summon you a 5G icon, but that signal doesn’t give you an experience that’s different from 4G. The fastest 5G networks for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are currently on bands n41, n77, n260, and n261; no consumer boosters support those bands.
There is a sneaky way around this. While no powered boosters work with these bands, passive antennas can still improve signal on bands 41 and 71. They may only get you 10dB to 20dB of gain as opposed to 70dB, but that isn’t insignificant (and even just the fact that the antenna is outside can help). Meanwhile, Waveform’s Griddy parabolic antenna(Opens in a new window) and MIMO panel antennas(Opens in a new window) improve signal on the new 5G band n77. Connecting an outdoor cellular antenna(Opens in a new window) to a Wi-Fi hotspot that has a TS9 connector, such as the Netgear Nighthawk M5, can turn an outdoor cell signal into an indoor Wi-Fi signal.
(Credit: Sascha Segan)
Don’t Forget to Boost Your Wi-Fi Signal
Cellular signals aren’t the only ones that can benefit from a boost. Check out these quick tips to improve the wireless signal from your router, extend and optimize your Wi-Fi coverage, and speed up your surfing. Or go right to our roundups of the best USB Wi-Fi adapters and the best range extenders.
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