Wireless bridge
Author
Discussion

red_slr

Original Poster:

20,970 posts

220 months

Wednesday 20th March 2019
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I have to install a voip phone that's in a part of the office that has no LAN sockets.
Would a wireless bridge be ok for this? Had a look on amazon and not 100% sure what I need and some of the Chinese stuff looks well dodgey.

BigTZ4M

237 posts

202 months

Wednesday 20th March 2019
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I assume that part of the office has access to wifi? If so then a bridge is exactly what you need. Given it is for very low bandwidth VOIP traffic then it doesn't even need to support modern standards. I've done what you are trying to do with one of these - you actually need to use something called 'client mode' instead of their bridge mode but it connects your wires only device(s) to your wifi:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004UBU8IE/ref=twister...

red_slr

Original Poster:

20,970 posts

220 months

Wednesday 20th March 2019
quotequote all
Cheers ordered one of them

Road2Ruin

6,548 posts

247 months

Wednesday 20th March 2019
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I would of used powerline adapters...cheaper, easier and more reliable hehe

red_slr

Original Poster:

20,970 posts

220 months

Thursday 21st March 2019
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Cheers bridge arrived and working in 2 mins thanks!

red_slr

Original Poster:

20,970 posts

220 months

Saturday 20th April 2019
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As this has been working so well I decided to buy one for home too. This is because on one side of my house the wifi coverage is a bit low. Also I was using a powerline adapter for my smartthings hub and I wanted to use wifi as the powerline is just not reliable enough.

Since using the bridge my smartthings has been much more reliable. However I have been keeping an eye on what wifi devices connect to the bridge and the answer is none...

Any reason for that? I have checked the settings and its all in factory defaults. My wifes ipad seems to struggle with its wifi connection a lot since I put the bridge in. She might get wifi drop out every 20-30 mins. Only way to get it back is to disable wifi and then enable again.

I have power cycled the bridge to see if that helps but seems not?

anonymous-user

85 months

Sunday 21st April 2019
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Road2Ruin said:
I would of used powerline adapters...cheaper, easier and more reliable hehe
I'd counter that. I fine powerline devices slower, and need more reboots, and don't work over long distances.

BigTZ4M

237 posts

202 months

Sunday 21st April 2019
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red_slr said:
As this has been working so well I decided to buy one for home too. This is because on one side of my house the wifi coverage is a bit low. Also I was using a powerline adapter for my smartthings hub and I wanted to use wifi as the powerline is just not reliable enough.

Since using the bridge my smartthings has been much more reliable. However I have been keeping an eye on what wifi devices connect to the bridge and the answer is none...

Any reason for that? I have checked the settings and its all in factory defaults. My wifes ipad seems to struggle with its wifi connection a lot since I put the bridge in. She might get wifi drop out every 20-30 mins. Only way to get it back is to disable wifi and then enable again.

I have power cycled the bridge to see if that helps but seems not?
So in the office you are using it as a bridge. It sounds like at home you are maybe using it as an extender instead? I wouldn’t recommend it in extender mode (or any extender tbh). If you are using it in client mode though then nothing will show as connecting to it because it isn’t acting as an Access Point for things to connect to.

If you are indeed using it as an extender or repeater then it needs to be situated half way between your router and the dead spots for optimum performance. Not sure why nothing would be showing as connected though in this scenario.

A mesh system would have been a better solution to fix WiFi blind spots at home. Different problem to your office required a different solution.

thebraketester

15,839 posts

169 months

Sunday 21st April 2019
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RogerDodger said:
Road2Ruin said:
I would of used powerline adapters...cheaper, easier and more reliable hehe
I'd counter that. I fine powerline devices slower, and need more reboots, and don't work over long distances.
100%

Powerline. Hate power lines.

Proper network bridges are fantastic.