Wifi in the garden

[AB]

Just moved into a 350 year old house with no mobile reception. Wifi calling works great, we have six of these throughout the house; https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/de...

But as soon as I step into the garden it drops off. Would be good to get maybe 100m coverage from the house as I've got a few Ring cameras I was planning to put up.

[Arnold Cunningham]

I installed one of these in the spring so I can get wifi in the garden and garage. It’s proven to be very good. Although not sure about 100M range, hopefully this points you in the right direction.
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/business-networking/out...

[Captain_Morgan]

Arnold Cunningham said:

I installed one of these in the spring so I can get wifi in the garden and garage. It’s proven to be very good. Although not sure about 100M range, hopefully this points you in the right direction.
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/business-networking/out...

Those aren’t a bad shout but I suspect 100m is optimistic for a single device, you’ll get a better solution both coverage area & throughput if they are wired back to one of your mesh units via ethernet. Considering you have to get power to them anyway it’s easy to run one ethernet cable to it and use power over ethernet (poe) to also power the device.

If it were me I’d get a drum of external ethernet cable cat 5e is fine, just avoid the cheap cca copper clad aluminium cable, knock up a cable long enough to go from a deco unit to a convenient point about mid way and test how the coverage is from a single unit.

If good throughout just do a permanent install, if it’s not reaching the extremes then it’s two eap225’s at ~1/3 distance each or three 1/4 etc

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Sunday 7th August 10:15

[Arnold Cunningham]

Yes, agree you’d need a bit more than just one. But POE is nice. Here’s mine installed. I must replace that green cable with a white one. Posting this about 30M away from it with decent line of site - can see signal is wavering at 2 bars already, so 100M would be enthusiastic to say the least.

Edited by Arnold Cunningham on Sunday 7th August 09:15

[skeeterm5]

If you are having to run power anyway why not simply use a power line adapter at the termination point?

[Arnold Cunningham]

I know some people love them, but I’ve never got on so well - always found them inconsistent. When I rewired the house, I thought about going that route, but instead for the sake of guaranteed bandwidth and performance I put cat 6 in. Incremental cost of running an extra few wires alongside (sort of) what was already going in was negligible. But I do get proper stable performance everywhere now.

[Captain_Morgan]

skeeterm5 said:

If you are having to run power anyway why not simply use a power line adapter at the termination point?

Because you use poe to provide both power & network connectivity.

[skeeterm5]

Captain_Morgan said:

Because you use poe to provide both power & network connectivity.

But doesnt that limit the power that you can draw at the end of the line? Meaning that you would need to be thoughtful about what other things you might want to plug in?

Or I am misunderstanding POE?

Edited by skeeterm5 on Sunday 7th August 11:37

[Captain_Morgan]

skeeterm5 said:

Captain_Morgan said:

Because you use poe to provide both power & network connectivity.

But doesnt that limit the power that you can draw at the end of the line? Meaning that you would need to be thoughtful about what other things you might want to plug in?

Or I am misunderstanding POE?

Edited by skeeterm5 on Sunday 7th August 11:37

Hard to say, what are your expectations on the types of devices that you’d power via poe?

[AB]

Captain_Morgan said:

Arnold Cunningham said:

I installed one of these in the spring so I can get wifi in the garden and garage. It’s proven to be very good. Although not sure about 100M range, hopefully this points you in the right direction.
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/business-networking/out...

Those aren’t a bad shout but I suspect 100m is optimistic for a single device, you’ll get a better solution both coverage area & throughput if they are wired back to one of your mesh units via ethernet. Considering you have to get power to them anyway it’s easy to run one ethernet cable to it and use power over ethernet (poe) to also power the device.

If it were me I’d get a drum of external ethernet cable cat 5e is fine, just avoid the cheap cca copper clad aluminium cable, knock up a cable long enough to go from a deco unit to a convenient point about mid way and test how the coverage is from a single unit.

If good throughout just do a permanent install, if it’s not reaching the extremes then it’s two eap225’s at ~1/3 distance each or three 1/4 etc

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Sunday 7th August 10:15

Thanks all, I'll take this advice and see how I get on.

[Lucas Ayde]

skeeterm5 said:

Captain_Morgan said:

Because you use poe to provide both power & network connectivity.

But doesnt that limit the power that you can draw at the end of the line? Meaning that you would need to be thoughtful about what other things you might want to plug in?

Or I am misunderstanding POE?

Edited by skeeterm5 on Sunday 7th August 11:37

PoE is only going to deliver 100W at the most ... enough to run most networking kit and a camera or even a regular laptop but it's not enough to provide a power feed to a building.

If there is going to a be a mains power extension running from the house to the outbuilding, powerline would most likely work pretty well over it. But makes sense to run networking cable (PoE rated) at the same time to cover all bases.

[Captain_Morgan]

Lucas Ayde said:

skeeterm5 said:

Captain_Morgan said:

Because you use poe to provide both power & network connectivity.

But doesnt that limit the power that you can draw at the end of the line? Meaning that you would need to be thoughtful about what other things you might want to plug in?

Or I am misunderstanding POE?

Edited by skeeterm5 on Sunday 7th August 11:37

PoE is only going to deliver 100W at the most ... enough to run most networking kit and a camera or even a regular laptop but it's not enough to provide a power feed to a building.

If there is going to a be a mains power extension running from the house to the outbuilding, powerline would most likely work pretty well over it. But makes sense to run networking cable (PoE rated) at the same time to cover all bases.

The thing is that at no time has the op mentioned outbuildings or running of power to them.

They are interested in covering a 100m garden with wifi, hence the suggestion to use poe, as running mains power to random points in a garden, then using powerline adapters, ac to dc power adapters & ip55 rated boxes to house them rather than just running some cat 5e & using poe seems well silly

[somouk]

The Ubiquiti mesh device is okay for a small area but is designed for just that.

If you want to cover a larger area off one AP then look at proper outdoor access points with external high gain antennas.

[jinkster]

Would it be possible to add a external antenna to a Sky Q mini box?

[somouk]

jinkster said:

Would it be possible to add a external antenna to a Sky Q mini box?

No, they don't have ports to do that.

[mikef]

I used to run a Ubiquiti UniFi UAP AC Pro which managed around 60m to 70m outdoors, not 100m though

If you can run an Ethernet cable (I have a duct attached to a fence line with Ubiquiti ToughCable Pro) and then mount a Ubiquiti FlexHD around 80m from the router that should work. Both APs are powered by POE