Powerline ethernet wifi AP will this work?

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

TL/DR: Will powerline ethernet actually work over a 20m length of SWA armoured cable plugged into an internal wall socket? Don’t care about speed, just want reliability.

I have a wifi temperature monitor in my greenhouse, a ”UbiBot WS1 pro” to be precise. It works well, giving me remote readings of inside/outside temperature, inside humidity, light level, and via an additional probe it can tell me the temperature inside my propagator so I know my cactus seeds are at the right temperature. All of this goes to a cloud server so I can check up on it from anywhere.

The problem is, it’s at the bottom of the garden about 15m away and it struggles for wifi strength, especially now the tree leaves and blossom are coming out. It currently receives wifi from an Apple AirPort sitting in an upstairs window, but modern double glazing has a metallic coating that seriously attenuates wifi and Bluetooth signals.

The greenhouse has power, via a DIY kit I bought some time ago. This kit consist of a 20m length of SWA armoured cable, pre-terminated at both ends into two weatherproof junction boxes that convert it to regular 13A flex. At the house end the box is mounted on the outside wall and the flex goes through a hole to an inside socket. Likewise at the greenhouse end, the box is screwed to the outside and a flex goes through a small hole to a weatherproof socket inside. The house CU is fully populated with RCBOs so I haven’t bothered with a separate plug-in RCD (which are a pain if you turn off the house power and forget to reset the RCD to restore power).

My question is, could I buy a powerline kit like this one and plug the ethernet box into a wall socket in the house, and plug the wifi access point in the greenhouse? Both would be on the same CU circuit, but obviously the access point would be on the other end of a long armoured cable with junctions at each end. The AP would also have to be plugged into a four-way adapter in the greenhouse; I’m aware that this is contrary to the installation instructions.

The greenhouse is electrically heated, so intermittently that cable is carrying about 2kW, if that makes any difference. Speed is unimportant because the data isn’t huge, but I’d want reliability.

Would it work adequately well?

Edited to add: Just realised that the kit I linked to is no good, as I think it’s just a booster, not an access point. I’d need a pair of ethernet powerline boxes, and an access point. But the principle remains the same: would the pair of ethernet powerline adapters work?

Edited again: Having read the manual, I actually think it does work as an Access Point, even though they don’t use that terminology.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 23 March 08:08

[LooneyTunes]

Probably. I ran data to my office over a similar length of SWA, but the thing with power line is they you never really know until you try it.

It wasn’t as good a proper
Cat5/6 but was good enough for what was needed.

I used the Devolo (sp?) ones.

[worsy]

I run a Devolo Magic2 powerline from a socket in my boiler room which is then picked up in the garage which is detached from the property. I then use that to run a Unifi AP which services my smart garage door devices, smart garage/outdoor lights, an alexa, TV, Running machine (with google map downloads).

Magic2 can do wifi as well but I have unifi throughout the house.

[Murph7355]

It depends on a lot of factors. In two older properties I've never had it work well enough to be useable.

Buy it online, try it as soon as it arrives, send it back if it doesn't work.

And you will care about speeds

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Thanks guys!

I think you’re right; ultimately I’ve just got to suck it and see.

The TP-Link kit describes itself as an “extender”, and i originally interpreted that to mean that it relies on receiving the existing wifi and re-broadcasting it, which would be no good. But then what is the point of it receiving the powerline ethernet signal? But reading more widely it seems “extender” can mean a device that receives ethernet and broadcasts an independent wifi signal (which can be configured with the same SSID and password as the rest of your network). To me, this is called an “access point”, but it seems the terminology is looser than that in practice. “Extender” means different things to different people!

At £38 on Amazon I might just get it and find out what it does.

[xeny]

Have you dismissed the option of a weatherproof AP on the house , or one in the loft nearest the greenhouse? Would give you decent WiFi for the garden as a bonus.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

xeny said:

Have you dismissed the option of a weatherproof AP on the house , or one in the loft nearest the greenhouse? Would give you decent WiFi for the garden as a bonus.

That's true, and if the greenhouse access point idea doesn't work then that's another option to consider.

The major downside is that I hate heights, so putting it up won't be fun!

I suspect the greenhouse access point, if it works, will also give fairly good wifi throughout the garden.

[miniman]

Yes this worked for me, “sender” in the house, “receiver” at the end of the garden via SWA to the garage CU then 20m SWA to an outdoor socket.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

miniman said:

Yes this worked for me, “sender” in the house, “receiver” at the end of the garden via SWA to the garage CU then 20m SWA to an outdoor socket.

That's encouraging, as yours is a more complex route than mine, especially with the extra CU. Thanks!

[Condi]

I've always found TP Link powerline adaptors to work well even across circuits. Some people have had poor performance, but suggest you have a go and see how you get on. They're cheap and cheerful, and you can have 5 or 6 across the house/garden.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Condi said:

I've always found TP Link powerline adaptors to work well even across circuits. Some people have had poor performance, but suggest you have a go and see how you get on. They're cheap and cheerful, and you can have 5 or 6 across the house/garden.

Indeed, this kit is marked down to £38 on Amazon at the moment, and I’ve got a couple of TP-Link’s other extenders around the house.

I’ve ordered the kit, and supposedly it’s arriving within the day! Unfortunately I had abdominal surgery yesterday afternoon so bending down to plug things in is out of the question at the moment. I’ll report back on how I get on, but it might have to wait a few days.

Thanks for all the advice and experience; it’s encouraging to hear that TP-Link stuff tends to work in this kind of setup.

[Lucas Ayde]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Thanks guys!

I think you’re right; ultimately I’ve just got to suck it and see.

The TP-Link kit describes itself as an “extender”, and i originally interpreted that to mean that it relies on receiving the existing wifi and re-broadcasting it, which would be no good. But then what is the point of it receiving the powerline ethernet signal? But reading more widely it seems “extender” can mean a device that receives ethernet and broadcasts an independent wifi signal (which can be configured with the same SSID and password as the rest of your network). To me, this is called an “access point”, but it seems the terminology is looser than that in practice. “Extender” means different things to different people!

At £38 on Amazon I might just get it and find out what it does.

Yeah, Powerline can be very good but it is very much a case to case thing, especially with older houses that maybe don't have the best wiring.

Luckily, you can 'abuse' Amazon's returns policy to test it out and send it back if it won't work in your setup.

I've run Powerline in two seperate houses and not had an issue, myself. I would note that now Wifi is really coming on in terms of both speed and coverage (with Mesh networks) and in fact, I'm finding that my current WiFi is actually faster than a G.hn (latest fancy powerline standard) pair that I have set up. I can see that the G.hn link is topping out at 250mbit/s for downloads on my docked Steamdeck via ethernet .. but using WiFi is giving me >400mbps (broadband is 900mbps fibre, I get >820mbps on my directly wired main PC).

It's still worth having for Game streaming owing to rock solid stability.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

It works!!!

The UbiBot thingy now reports wifi strength of -50dBm, rather than -88dBm. That’s a heck of a difference.

I hadn’t realised that this extender only appears to do 2.4GHz, which is a slight pity - but the UbiBot device doesn’t support 5GHz wifi anyway. It just means that only 2.4GHz wifi is reliable at the bottom of the garden, but hey-ho. It was a cheap kit so I’m not complaining.

[FMOB]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

It works!!!

The UbiBot thingy now reports wifi strength of -50dBm, rather than -88dBm. That’s a heck of a difference.

I hadn’t realised that this extender only appears to do 2.4GHz, which is a slight pity - but the UbiBot device doesn’t support 5GHz wifi anyway. It just means that only 2.4GHz wifi is reliable at the bottom of the garden, but hey-ho. It was a cheap kit so I’m not complaining.

Hope you don't have any ham radio operators nearby, they are probably doing their nut right about now, power line networking can be a nightmare for interference because the AC mains wiring makes a really horrible antenna.

Worth checking that your AM and FM radio reception is still okay.

Whoever thought up the idea of connecting a radio transmitter to AC mains wiring needs a good smack. These things are the spawn of the devil.

[thepritch]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

TL/DR: Will powerline ethernet actually work over a 20m length of SWA armoured cable plugged into an internal wall socket? Don’t care about speed, just want reliability.

I have a wifi temperature monitor in my greenhouse, a ”UbiBot WS1 pro” to be precise. It works well, giving me remote readings of inside/outside temperature, inside humidity, light level, and via an additional probe it can tell me the temperature inside my propagator so I know my cactus seeds are at the right temperature. All of this goes to a cloud server so I can check up on it from anywhere.

The problem is, it’s at the bottom of the garden about 15m away and it struggles for wifi strength, especially now the tree leaves and blossom are coming out. It currently receives wifi from an Apple AirPort sitting in an upstairs window, but modern double glazing has a metallic coating that seriously attenuates wifi and Bluetooth signals.

The greenhouse has power, via a DIY kit I bought some time ago. This kit consist of a 20m length of SWA armoured cable, pre-terminated at both ends into two weatherproof junction boxes that convert it to regular 13A flex. At the house end the box is mounted on the outside wall and the flex goes through a hole to an inside socket. Likewise at the greenhouse end, the box is screwed to the outside and a flex goes through a small hole to a weatherproof socket inside. The house CU is fully populated with RCBOs so I haven’t bothered with a separate plug-in RCD (which are a pain if you turn off the house power and forget to reset the RCD to restore power).

My question is, could I buy a powerline kit like this one and plug the ethernet box into a wall socket in the house, and plug the wifi access point in the greenhouse? Both would be on the same CU circuit, but obviously the access point would be on the other end of a long armoured cable with junctions at each end. The AP would also have to be plugged into a four-way adapter in the greenhouse; I’m aware that this is contrary to the installation instructions.

The greenhouse is electrically heated, so intermittently that cable is carrying about 2kW, if that makes any difference. Speed is unimportant because the data isn’t huge, but I’d want reliability.

Would it work adequately well?

Edited to add: Just realised that the kit I linked to is no good, as I think it’s just a booster, not an access point. I’d need a pair of ethernet powerline boxes, and an access point. But the principle remains the same: would the pair of ethernet powerline adapters work?

Edited again: Having read the manual, I actually think it does work as an Access Point, even though they don’t use that terminology.

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 23 March 08:08

I’d say yes it would based on my setup (but no guarantees!) We have an annexe and it’s over 20m away, properly wired up with its own circuits but fed from the main house.

Internet (v fast fibre) pipes through via a power link to a wireless box and speeds are pretty good and reliability excellent. We use a tolink device.

[Condi]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

It works!!!

The UbiBot thingy now reports wifi strength of -50dBm, rather than -88dBm. That’s a heck of a difference.

I hadn’t realised that this extender only appears to do 2.4GHz, which is a slight pity - but the UbiBot device doesn’t support 5GHz wifi anyway. It just means that only 2.4GHz wifi is reliable at the bottom of the garden, but hey-ho. It was a cheap kit so I’m not complaining.

If you need to (and the kit has a ethernet port, I assume it does) you could always turn off the Wifi bit of the extender, and plug a router into the ethernet port to give you a full range of frequencies.