WiFi in garden

HummuH1

HummuH1

HummuH1

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Joined
28 Mar 2007
Posts
2,498
Location
Edinburgh
Hi all, I need to be able to get an internet connection in my back garden. Virgin router with 50Mb connection lies towards the front of the house, 1950's bungalow type thing. WiFi strength in rooms to rear of house is weak, but useable. As soon as you step out of rear of house, no strength to the WiFi signal.

It's only temporary, so not looking for a "belt and braces" solution, so as I see it I have two options:

1. Run a massively long Ethernet cable from the router out the back windows when I need a connection.

2. Somehow beef up the WiFi signal to rear of the house and hope the outside signal improves.

Any other options? If option 2, what's the best way to boost WiFi strength at rear of house/outside?

Cheers!
 
My Ubiquity LR covers my house and a lot of the garden, however down the bottom the signal does get a little weak.
I ran a long CAT5e down and then mounted one of the Ubiquity outdoor access points (would need to look up the model number). POE, so no need to worry about getting power to it.
Works fantastically well.
 
stoofa said:
My Ubiquity LR covers my house and a lot of the garden, however down the bottom the signal does get a little weak.
I ran a long CAT5e down and then mounted one of the Ubiquity outdoor access points (would need to look up the model number). POE, so no need to worry about getting power to it.
Works fantastically well.
Click to expand...

Thanks, not seen this before. How is the LR powered? I assume there is no ethernet connection to router required, WiFi only? Ta.
 
I am in a 1970's bungalow with router right at front of house. Mediocre signal in back bedrooms and nothing out in garden or in the garage.
I put a Netgear EX6120-100UKS in one of the back bedrooms. £35 from rainforest and now have great signal through the whole house, back garden and in my garage. (would link you to it, but I'll be banned to death no doubt).

It was a doddle to setup but only problem is that it broadcasts on a separate SSID due to being a range extender so you need to specifically connect devices to the SSID of the extender when in your garden if you went with it.

You can also use it as an AP though, but you would need to CAT5/6 it to your router then set it up as an AP. I just done it as an extender as happy to change to a different SSID when out in the garage and it has solved my problem very easily for wifi signal.
 
HummuH1 said:
Thanks, not seen this before. How is the LR powered? I assume there is no ethernet connection to router required, WiFi only? Ta.
Click to expand...

I'll be honest with you, I run cables where I can. Wireless is flaky enough, so I at least like the backhaul to be wired.
So I have the WiFi on my router disabled. Cabled to the router I have a Ubiquity LR which situated quite centrally in my house gives me good coverage to all corners, out into the front garden and a lot of the back garden. This is POE as well, so only a network cable running to it, no separate power.
I then have the outdoors access point mounted on a wall at the bottom of the garden and then the run of CAT5e which goes back, via some internal wiring to my router - again powered POE.

If you trying to avoid wires entirely then as suggested above, repeater is what you are looking at.
If you're willing to run a couple of cables, then the wired-in access points should offer you better performance.
 
We’ve used a mesh WiFi system (TP-Link m5 Deco) to provide garden coverage to my parents house. The third disk (wireless backhaul) sits in the back window and does a great job
 
I'm also looking at getting wifi down to the end of my garden and as I have power down there I was considering using powerline adapters (assuming they work on the cabling out to the garden, then simply plugging in an old router set up as an access point right at the end of the garden. I'm not to obothered about the actual speeds I get as I'm only really going to want to use it to be able to stream music from my network to a chromecast audio which will also be at the bottom of the garden.
 
valve90210 said:
I'm also looking at getting wifi down to the end of my garden and as I have power down there I was considering using powerline adapters (assuming they work on the cabling out to the garden, then simply plugging in an old router set up as an access point right at the end of the garden. I'm not to obothered about the actual speeds I get as I'm only really going to want to use it to be able to stream music from my network to a chromecast audio which will also be at the bottom of the garden.
Click to expand...


Regulations state the outdoor circuit must be on a separate isolator, that won’t do you any favours in terms of powerline. A unifi bullet or similar in terms of price, but realistically much more versatile (if they can be used for ship to shore from a few km out, the end of your average garden shouldn’t be a problem).
 
Look at the unifi LR stuff. I have 2 a.c. pro's. 3 story detached solid internal walls. 1 in the loft and 1 in the kitchen and I get 70% signal at the bottom of my 100ft garden
 
bremen1874 said:
Wouldn't that be far too directional to be used as an access point?
Click to expand...

While they are directional and are more suited to linking buildings etc. i’ve used one as an external directional AP before. I suggested the bullet as it’s likely better suited in this application.
 
bremen1874 said:
Wouldn't that be far too directional to be used as an access point?
Click to expand...
Depends on the use, beaming wifi to a shed at the end of the garden for example would be good, getting the patio covered, less so.

The good thing about them though is it's an all in one package and since used extensively there's always cheap ones popping up on ebay. Could get it all setup for £50.
 
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