[SOLVED] Outdoor WiFi Extenderhelp needed.

[Jibsman57]

I am installing an external WiFi extender for a customer. They have a 1.5 acre square(ish) property with the house in the middle (East to West) and the north side of the property. The network setup is in the basement, so I'll run POE to the roof and attach it there. They currently have several Amazon Mesh extenders throughout the house. They are adding this to help with the WiFi cameras placed throughout the property.

I am trying to determine which to get. I am looking at something like the AC600 Dual Band 2.4+5G 600Mbps Outdoor WiFi Extender,3 in 1 Outside Weatherproof PoE Access Point (AP)/ Wireless Repeater/Router/Internet Bridge Amplifier Signal Booster or the WAVLINK AC1200 High Power Outdoor Weatherproof WiFi Range Extender/Wireless Access Point/Mesh with Passive POE, Dual Band 2.4GHz 300Mbps+5.8 GHz 867Mbps, 4x7dBi Detachable Omni Directional Antenna. Will either of these be sufficient?

Thank you!

 

[kanewolf]

I am installing an external WiFi extender for a customer. They have a 1.5 acre square(ish) property with the house in the middle (East to West) and the north side of the property. The network setup is in the basement, so I'll run POE to the roof and attach it there. They currently have several Amazon Mesh extenders throughout the house. They are adding this to help with the WiFi cameras placed throughout the property.

I am trying to determine which to get. I am looking at something like the AC600 Dual Band 2.4+5G 600Mbps Outdoor WiFi Extender,3 in 1 Outside Weatherproof PoE Access Point (AP)/ Wireless Repeater/Router/Internet Bridge Amplifier Signal Booster or the WAVLINK AC1200 High Power Outdoor Weatherproof WiFi Range Extender/Wireless Access Point/Mesh with Passive POE, Dual Band 2.4GHz 300Mbps+5.8 GHz 867Mbps, 4x7dBi Detachable Omni Directional Antenna. Will either of these be sufficient?

Thank you!

Figure 150ft radius for a single omindirectional WIFI source. The biggest problem will be that the cameras can't transmit back.
Are the cameras 2.4 or 5Ghz? Any foliage or other impediments to a clear line of sight will lower that 150ft radius.
Your better implementation would be four outdoor APs with 90deg directional antennas. One on each side of the house facing outward.

 

[gggplaya]

Since they know where the camera's are located, I would get one where you can add directional antennae to point to each camera.

 

[Jibsman57]

Thank you. The cameras are Amcrest WiFi and require 2.4g. For all my experience with computers networking is my weak spot. What do you mean when you say the cameras can't transmit back?
Since the house is at the edge of one property line I can use 3 pointing out from each side of the house.

 

[gggplaya]

If they're attached to the house, you're fine. I thought the camera's were spread throughout the property.

If they have a separate building they want to have wifi in, you can add a WIFI bridge to add wifi to the other building. Something like 2 of these pointed at each other would work: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-and-ltu/products/litebeam-5ac-long-range

If the other building isn't too far, two Nanostation LOCOs is much cheaper: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-and-ltu/products/nanostation-loco5ac

 

[bill001g]

What the previous posts are recommending is that you use directional antenna. Now putting a unit on each side of the house will help but it really is not much different that putting the unit very high up so all the cameras have direct line of sight.

The problem is the unit you are considering send their signals in all directions. This is ok when then remote site is pretty close. To go longer distance you use directional antenna to concetrat the radio power into a narrower beam. It also reduce the amount of interference getting into the antennas so a weaker signal will work.

Best would be a omni in the center and directional antenna on the cameras. The second best is going to be a number of directional antenna on the center location. It still may have issues if the signal from the camera is not strong enough or if you have strong sources of interference in the same direction. To have the best change you use directional on both ends.

 

[kanewolf]

Thank you. The cameras are Amcrest WiFi and require 2.4g. For all my experience with computers networking is my weak spot. What do you mean when you say the cameras can't transmit back?
Since the house is at the edge of one property line I can use 3 pointing out from each side of the house.

Are these cameras on the house or spread out on the property? Makes a difference. My recommendation was to try to reach remote cameras.
If these are spread, how are they powered?
Cameras have omindirectional antennas. Even if an AP can transmit to them (they receive a signal) they may not have enough transmit to get back to the WIFI AP.
Maybe you can create a quick drawing of what you have, identify the camera locations, any trees, and all buildings. Post that drawing to https://imgur.com and link to it here.
We are guessing at what you have without being able to see it.

 

[Jibsman57]

2 cameras attached to the house. One camera attached to the woodshop, about 20 meters away from the house. Problem is the camera is on the side of the house that is not in direct sight. It does work but the video is choppy. They do have a Google Mesh in the shop so I am thinking of changing the camera from WiFi to POE, with a POE Injector attached to the Mesh Out connector.

So it appears I need Line Of Sight for the best connection between camera and extender no more than 150' away. Using a directional extender would provide more distance to the camera.

Someone asked how these were powered. One thing that really bothered the owner is that they had wired the house with CAT6 and have wires hanging outside the house just for cameras. No matter what I did I could not get connections from the source in the basement to the wires outside the house with either network or POE. My fear is the builders tacked the wires with staple guns and damaged the wires. I have a network cable tester and every cable had no connection on at least one wire. I ended up twisting half the wires into positive and the other half to negative to provide power to the cameras. A real waste.

The owner has a schematic of the property with house and outbuilding placements. I'll get a copy and post it.

 

[gggplaya]

You can still wire for 10 base T or 100base T ethernet with 2 pairs of wires. You might need to get creative with your pinout depending on which wires were dead. But as long as each bundle had 2 pairs, you should still get 100mbps which is plenty for a camera, even 4k cameras.

Here's a link with the pinout for that: https://www.etherwan.com/support/faq/generic/what-poe-power-pins-assignment-mode-b

You might be able to wire it as 100baseT up in the attic area, then install a POE injector in the attic as close to the camera as possible to bypass the broken section of wire.

This product might actually do it for you. Only works in MODE A POE as the link explains in my above pinout link. Not all POE switches operate in MODE A and not all IP cameras operate in Mode A. https://www.amazon.com/IPCamPower-Combiner-Splitter-Adapter-Cameras/dp/B08JS45B89

 

[Jibsman57]

You can still wire for 10 base T or 100base T ethernet with 2 pairs of wires. You might need to get creative with your pinout depending on which wires were dead. But as long as each bundle had 2 pairs, you should still get 100mbps which is plenty for a camera, even 4k cameras.

Here's a link with the pinout for that: https://www.etherwan.com/support/faq/generic/what-poe-power-pins-assignment-mode-b

You might be able to wire it as 100baseT up in the attic area, then install a POE injector in the attic as close to the camera as possible to bypass the broken section of wire.

This product might actually do it for you. Only works in MODE A POE as the link explains in my above pinout link. Not all POE switches operate in MODE A and not all IP cameras operate in Mode A. https://www.amazon.com/IPCamPower-Combiner-Splitter-Adapter-Cameras/dp/B08JS45B89

Wow! Thank you! I will see if this will work!
Cheers!

 

[gggplaya]

Wow! Thank you! I will see if this will work!
Cheers!

I hope it works, but just to reiterate. The cameras need to operate in MODE A, where POE sends power on the same pins as the data lines. Similar to how a tv antenna dc injector works.

If the Cameras operate in Mode B, then you'll need all 4 pairs for it to work. But you could possibly still bypass the broken wire by injecting POE close to the camera in the attic.

 

[Jibsman57]

Thanks everyone for your help. If I have damaged network cables, and I still have 2 pairs working can I use a converter to go from Mode B to Mode A, then at the camera which requires Mode B, use a converter to go from Mode A back to Mode B without loss? The cable length needs to be under 100 meters?

I only found one device that says "converts between both modes..." a Digitus Gigabit PoE Mode Converter, 802.3af" found here:
https://gzhls.at/blob/ldb/9/8/4/1/9cdaa59e7a9606b5c69e647cce4ec4b7cc35.pdf

Hopefully I can ask one more... Amazon has "PoE Mode Injectors" from 10/100/1000mbps to PoE, but doesn't say which mode it supports, or if it supports both?

Cheers!

 

[gggplaya]

If it does what it advertises, then it should work. But I've never used a device like that, so I can't tell you how good it works.

 

[bill001g]

The problem I see using that device is it might fix the PoE issue but when you only have 2 pair of wires it must be 1,2 3.6 to pass the data. This will come up as 100mbps but if you only have the other pairs I don't think it will function at all.

Key to remember is what is important is the wire pairs not the color of the plastic on the wires. Although it is very non standard if you have say orange and blue pairs working you could put orange on 1,2 and blue on 3,6. As long as both ends are the same it will pass data.

If the device really only accepts mode b poe I suspect you will not be able to get this to work. The standard for 802.3af/at says devices are suppose to support both. You generally see mode B stuff on passive poe devices rather than on 802.3a stuff.