are poe ap's the way to go for this....

[Thekwango]

i'm looking to extend the wifi in the house - bungalow actually - bedroom signal strength is very poor so thinking a poe ap on the hall ceiling? i'd possibly also be looking to add another out at the corner of the house so the deck at the rear gets wifi.

am i right in thinking that poe ap's are what i should be looking for? and if so any recommendations that won't have my eyes watering price wise?

cheers

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Yeh

 

[Thekwango]

Yeh

why thank you monsieur aide for your measured and articulate response don't suppose you can shed any light on some suitable hardware suggestions?

 

[andy_mk3]

PoE Wireless-APs are definitely a good way to go. Ideally you want a mesh system which means that devices can seamlessly change from one AP to another to keep strong signal to the AP without any drop-outs.

There's lots of choices available, BT have their own system, as well as most networking brands like TP-Link, plus the more prosumer ones such as Unifi.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

why thank you monsieur aide for your measured and articulate response don't suppose you can shed any light on some suitable hardware suggestions?

There’s bloody loads, depends on your budget.

 

[crazyDAJT]

Ideally you want a mesh system which means that devices can seamlessly change from one AP to another to keep strong signal to the AP without any drop-outs.

this is not what a mesh system does. A mesh systems uses a dedicated high bandwidth conection to other transmitters in order to remove dead spots.

kind of like a repeater but much better.

modern wireless will “fast roam” on their own.

I don’t have a mesh system but my devices roam between AP seamlessly.

@Thekwango if you can run cable then AP’s that are connected are going to be the best option.

mesh systems are ok but only as good as the backhall they can setup between them.

 

[Caged]

If you have separate APs and clients are moving between them with no lost packets then that's a quirk of the client, but it's not fast roaming.

 

[Thekwango]

if you can run cable then AP’s that are connected are going to be the best option.

that is my plan, cable in the roofspace to both ap's.

Ideally you want a mesh system which means that devices can seamlessly change from one AP to another to keep strong signal to the AP without any drop-outs.

not really fussed on the dropouts as it won't really apply. the ap in the hall will be for devices in the bedrooms, the one on the outside of the house will be for anyone sat on the decking. if there's a bit of a dropout moving in and out of the house when moving between ap's then so be it.

There’s bloody loads, depends on your budget.

this is where my biggest issue is, i have no idea what the budget should be for a simple use case like my own. does 150quid cover 2 x devices, with 1 being capable of external mounting or am i completely up the left on that and i need to be looking at spending 500 quid, hence the last part of my op

and if so any recommendations that won't have my eyes watering price wise?

 

[gpuerrilla]

I doubled up and used one for an IP camera to record outside movement and two ports to feed the AP's. Cabled up in the loft as you mentioned. I spent around 20 notes as I used them promotional offers on the popular auction site that gives you a fiver off when you spend over ten pounds or whatever it is. Had cable left over from work jobs.

If you want decent AP then most recommend the unifi ones. I got offered a pro for 50 quid off a work colleague so snapped that up to replace the cheap tp-link one I had.

 

[andy_mk3]

not really fussed on the dropouts as it won't really apply. the ap in the hall will be for devices in the bedrooms, the one on the outside of the house will be for anyone sat on the decking. if there's a bit of a dropout moving in and out of the house when moving between ap's then so be it

The issue you may have there is device hanging onto the outdoor AP while going indoors, and having very low signal.

 

[Thekwango]

If you want decent AP then most recommend the unifi ones

Coolio. I’ll have a gander at those.

The issue you may have there is device hanging onto the outdoor AP while going indoors, and having very low signal.

I mistakenly thought modern devices would have auto switched to the strongest signal, take it that is not the case and that that would be why a mesh system works better?

 

[crazyDAJT]

I mistakenly thought modern devices would have auto switched to the strongest signal, take it that is not the case and that that would be why a mesh system works better?

If the device’s support 802.11r (this was standardised in 2008). Then they will be fine. UniFi AP support this.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

this is where my biggest issue is, i have no idea what the budget should be for a simple use case like my own. does 150quid cover 2 x devices, with 1 being capable of external mounting or am i completely up the left on that and i need to be looking at spending 500 quid, hence the last part of my op

@Thekwango you might want to check out Ubiquiti or Unifi POE APs.

You might want to ask in the MM they go on there all the time.

 

[gpuerrilla]

For low cost I dont see why you cant get a unifi AP for the main part of the house, and if your less likely to be out the back garden, wire in a regular AP to cover that section. You can pick up if you look hard enough a PoE switch to put into the loft for under £30 that will do the job just fine.

Do you have equipment already that doesn't need replacing i.e. router, switch, cat cable, tools? You can also repurpose older equipment i.e. I have an old DSL modem netgear unit that is disabled enough to just act as a dumb switch, you know things like that or an old PC that can be used to turn into a pfsense box etc.

 

[Thekwango]

first off, cheers all for the input and advice. genuinely greatly appreciated.

@Thekwango you might want to check out Ubiquiti or Unifi POE APs.
You might want to ask in the MM they go on there all the time.

cheer dude - for some reason i thought ubiquiti and unifi were the same crowd - d'oh!

For low cost I dont see why you cant get a unifi AP for the main part of the house, and if your less likely to be out the back garden, wire in a regular AP to cover that section. You can pick up if you look hard enough a PoE switch to put into the loft for under £30 that will do the job just fine.

please forgive the stupid question - am i right in saying you're suggesting wiring a poe switch in the loft, then run a cabling from that to the 2 ap's? is that just to avoid having 2 cables from the router to the ap's or am i missing a trick?

Do you have equipment already that doesn't need replacing i.e. router, switch, cat cable, tools? You can also repurpose older equipment i.e. I have an old DSL modem netgear unit that is disabled enough to just act as a dumb switch, you know things like that or an old PC that can be used to turn into a pfsense box etc.

all the necessary tools and 'borrowing' some cat cable i got for the office. have a recently replaced talktalk hub. no idea how user configurable that is though, knowing talktalk, not very.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

please forgive the stupid question - am i right in saying you're suggesting wiring a poe switch in the loft, then run a cabling from that to the 2 ap's? is that just to avoid having 2 cables from the router to the ap's or am i missing a trick?

You could do it that way but depends how much bandwidth/throughput you want/have/need.

You really should get away with 1 AP in the centre of the house if it's a bungalow, depends on how big it is of course.

Any drawings of said house layout?

 

[whitecrook]

You could do it that way but depends how much bandwidth/throughput you want/have/need.

You really should get away with 1 AP in the centre of the house if it's a bungalow, depends on how big it is of course.

Any drawings of said house layout?

after about 3 walls though signal strength will degrade pretty heavily.

OP should put a a couple of unifi AP in, set power to low and wire them up on the backhaul, peice of cake if he's in a bungalow. Anything else is just a compromise. A floor plan would be useful, however

 

[Deleted member 77746]

after about 3 walls though signal strength will degrade pretty heavily.

there won't be 3 walls if it's a small bungalow lol it's why I asked for a layout plan.

 

[gpuerrilla]

The PoE switch (unless you have a dedicated injector) will be able to power up to 4 devices (using a small one). If your only using one good AP in the centre (as @Bouton Aide post) then you could just use an injector that comes in the box with the AP.

If you want to do as I suggested, power two AP's, one to the new ubiquiti or whatever you choose, then one going to a cheaper tp-link for example near the decking you mentioned, then you can later on add devices like IP cameras to it also.

The AP nowadays are ceiling mounted if you want that, so they look like a smoke alarm. This is why I mentioned take a cat5 to the loft for the PoE switch, then you can keep all the wires in the loft for your network.

 

[Thekwango]

thanks again chaps for all the input - i'll sort a floor plan out shortly and get it posted up.