[SOLVED] Recommendations for longer range setup

[StampyDriver]

Hi,

I am looking to add networking to an outbuilding at the bottom of my garden. It's around 100ft from the main house. From the outbuilding I am unable to see my house wifi so I am looking into options. I have tried networking over the powerlines and while just worked sometimes, it was very unreliable needing frequent restarting.

Due to where the router is in the house I am unable to easily run a network cable to the back of the house to plug into an outdoor repeater, so I would be interested in some sort of outdoor wifi extender that can I can rig up somewhere that can cover both the house and the outbuilding, or maybe a point to point where it can connect wirelessly to my existing wifi and directionally talk to similar device on my outbuilding where I can then run a network cable inside the outbuilding.

Are any of these options viable/sensible?

Thanks
Steve

 

[gggplaya]

Ubiquiti sells low cost($50) LiteBeam wifi bridges to go from building to building, but they are typically mounted outside your buildings. They may work pointed through a wall since they're designed to operate for several kilometers, so 100ft might be ok through a wall. The only way to know is if you try it.

You still need to add an access point in the outbuilding. The litebeam only acts as an ethernet bridge over wireless.

 

[kanewolf]

Hi,

I am looking to add networking to an outbuilding at the bottom of my garden. It's around 100ft from the main house. From the outbuilding I am unable to see my house wifi so I am looking into options. I have tried networking over the powerlines and while just worked sometimes, it was very unreliable needing frequent restarting.

Due to where the router is in the house I am unable to easily run a network cable to the back of the house to plug into an outdoor repeater, so I would be interested in some sort of outdoor wifi extender that can I can rig up somewhere that can cover both the house and the outbuilding, or maybe a point to point where it can connect wirelessly to my existing wifi and directionally talk to similar device on my outbuilding where I can then run a network cable inside the outbuilding.

Are any of these options viable/sensible?

Thanks
Steve

What is the possibility of running a cable on the outside of the house to an outdoor AP ?
There is no good solution that doesn't require some kind of wired network to get a radio closer to the outbuilding.

 

[geofelt]

Can you get a larger/stronger directional wifi antenna?
Change to a stronger router?

A general rule of thumb in home networking says that Wi-Fi routers operating on the traditional 2.4 GHz band reach up to 150 feet (46 m) indoors and 300 feet (92 m) outdoors. Older 802.11a routers that ran on 5 GHz bands reached approximately one-third of these distances. Newer 802.11n and 802.11ac routers that operate on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands vary in the reach similarly.

 

[StampyDriver]

Thanks for the advice.

Anyone had any experience with the Wavlink AC1200 outdoor access point? It claims to have "Repeater Mode - Expand the coverage of existing WiFi networks. "

 

[bill001g]

Where do you propose putting it. To work correctly as a repeater you would have to place it on a pole between the 2 buildings. You would still have to figure out how to get power out there.

The ubiquiti solution will be cheaper and likely work better. You just mount a directional bridge on both ends. At that distance you should have no issues. You would need to put some kind of inexpensive router runinng as a ap in the remote building but your total cost for 2 bridge units and a cheap router will be less that the wavelink unit and you will get better performance.

 

[StampyDriver]

but your total cost for 2 bridge units and a cheap router will be less that the wavelink unit and you will get better performance.

ok, maybe I was looking at the wrong products, as the ones I saw were very expensive. I will take another look.

Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

They have a lot of products, I think the nano station loco are the cheapest, I have not spent much time on ubiquiti site lately so they may have new products

 

[gggplaya]

This one is $50, uses TDMA: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-and-ltu/products/litebeam-m5 You need to spend $2 more dollars to get you over $100 for free shipping.

The AC version is $65 and will give better bandwidth: https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-and-ltu/products/litebeam-5ac-gen2

Everything else kind of pushes $85-$100 or more per unit, and you need 2 units.

This guy is running the litebeam a few hundred feet from the road to a machine shed and speeds look pretty good:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VcqfOfWK14