Extending Wi-Fi to an outbuilding

[dr_gn]

All, I have a building about 30m away from the house. I’d like to use a wi-fi security camera (I’ve go a spare one already), but it’s out of range (not checked tbh, but I assume so).

There is a mains supply to the outbuilding (underground), but I understand that the mains wi-fi extenders - not the boosters, the ones that use the wire as a carrier or whatever - need to be on a single circuit?

Is there any way of solving this easily?

Thanks.

[Baldchap]

I've just done this using a building to building radio bridge. It's currently sat at 876Mbps link speed. I now have cams, an access point and PoE in my garages and workshop, but this may be overkill for some.

What the rest of your infrastructure looks like will drive how you connect yours up.

[Leithen]

Powerline adapters might work - £49 for a pair. Alternatively, what’s the ground like to bury some Ethernet?

[benjipeg]

ive used powerline adapters on a seperate circuit and over extension leads with no bother for streaming sky etc in a summerhouse

[manracer]

Ive just installed the below WiFi bridge for £60 to connect an IP camera installed on the far side of a field around half a mile away.

It's worked flawlessly.
Amazon

[Road2Ruin]

Powerline will highly likely work. They do work across circuits etc and will be quick and easy. Get some from Argos then you can easily return them if not.

[Captain_Morgan]

Most options already covered but to reiterate in ascending order of ease/cost.

Powerline adapters, easiest & cheapest buy a powerline wifi extender plug one unit in & connect to your modem/fw/router/switch/accesspoint box, the other in the remote location set up the wifi in remote location & done.

If that doesn’t work you could try a wifi mesh system, more expensive & you’d likely need a three node system, one where your current modem/fw/router/switch/accesspoint box is, one as close to the remote location as possible, one in the remote location as close as possible to the home.
A bit harder to set up but might also improve in home & garden wifi.

Point to point bridge, hardest, they are generally mounted externally, they ideally need line of site between the two wireless devices, the one in the home side needs to be wired back to your modem/fw/router/switch/accesspoint box, potentially meaning installing some long network cables.
The remote end needs to be connected to a accesspoint for wifi in the remote location.
Obviously if mounting externally you need to factor network cable runs & passing cables through the external walls.

I’d start with the easiest option, I’d buy the kit from Amazon prime so if it didn’t work I could send it back & try another option.

[dr_gn]

Thanks very much guys.

Does anyone have a link to a decent plug-in extender (as described on here)?

Also, a decent app for determining wifi strength? I get at least four options for WiFi in my home office, presubably from neighbour's properties, none of which are particularly close by.

Cheers.

[Captain_Morgan]

I try not to recommend products I haven’t actually used myself, I go on Amazon & search for powerline wifi extender, look for something from a company you’ve heard of, make sure it’s actually a wifi extender & you should be fine.

Not sure why you need a wifi analyser but inssider is free & well known.

[shtu]

A set like this would do the job,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-PowerLINE-Etherne...

I use the wired ones at both end of a link and they've been fine for several years, replacing an 85mbps set that I used for a decade.

[Captain_Morgan]

shtu said:

A set like this would do the job,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-PowerLINE-Etherne...

I use the wired ones at both end of a link and they've been fine for several years, replacing an 85mbps set that I used for a decade.

Though those aren’t sold by Amazon but a 3rd party on Amazon marketplace which has a different return policy & they show as having a eu rather than U.K. plug.

Just two things to consider.

[mw1987]

You may be able to get away with your existing setup but on 2.4ghz band as that will travel further than 5ghz.

I have a cabin about 40meters away from my router and it's hopeless trying to connect to the default 5ghz band. But I setup a 2.4ghz under a different network name and my laptop connects perfectly and speed is fine for work, teams call, video streaming etc. This was in the virgin media hub control panel, not sure if this possible with other providers.

[s2kjock]

dr_gn said:

All, I have a building about 30m away from the house. I’d like to use a wi-fi security camera (I’ve go a spare one already), but it’s out of range (not checked tbh, but I assume so).

It may be worth checking.

I have one of my mesh units sitting on an upstairs windowsill (inside) which manages to pick up a wireless IP camera from about 20 metres or so away, and another at the other end of the property picking up another one around 15 metres away.

[GCH]

Powerline, plus an apple airport express.

[dr_gn]

Update - I got a powerline adapter today, which worked perfectly for four hours, then...it's gone intermittent and the camera is offline. It's definitely the adapter because both boxes have their "powerline circuit" leds blinking from time to time, and the wi-fi signal goes from full strenght to nothing. Sometimes, fine, now it's several times every minute.

I couldn't use the WPS binding function for some reason, but all that meant was I was connecting the camera to another Wi-Fi network. Didn't seem to make any difference at all to setup, and I got a very strong signal.

The only thing is it says to avoid connecting via an adapter socket or an extension lead. I have no choice because the socket in the outbuilding is a water resistant one, and the powerline box won't fit inside the casing.

So...it kind of works even on different circuits, but is effectively useless if it's going to be this inconsistent. Really odd though how it immediately worked and was great for a few hours.

Back to Argos I guess.

[Captain_Morgan]

dr_gn said:

Update - I got a powerline adapter today, which worked perfectly for four hours, then...it's gone intermittent and the camera is offline. It's definitely the adapter because both boxes have their "powerline circuit" leds blinking from time to time, and the wi-fi signal goes from full strenght to nothing. Sometimes, fine, now it's several times every minute.

I couldn't use the WPS binding function for some reason, but all that meant was I was connecting the camera to another Wi-Fi network. Didn't seem to make any difference at all to setup, and I got a very strong signal.

The only thing is it says to avoid connecting via an adapter socket or an extension lead. I have no choice because the socket in the outbuilding is a water resistant one, and the powerline box won't fit inside the casing.

So...it kind of works even on different circuits, but is effectively useless if it's going to be this inconsistent. Really odd though how it immediately worked and was great for a few hours.

Back to Argos I guess.

Sounds unclear as to the issue as you say the powerline remains connected but wifi signal strength is variable?

It depends how much troubleshooting you want to do to understand/resolve the issue or is it straight to plan b?

[Griffith4ever]

manracer said:

Ive just installed the below WiFi bridge for £60 to connect an IP camera installed on the far side of a field around half a mile away.

It's worked flawlessly.
Amazon

I use the same ones to go around 300m, through dense trees.

[dr_gn]

Captain_Morgan said:

dr_gn said:

Update - I got a powerline adapter today, which worked perfectly for four hours, then...it's gone intermittent and the camera is offline. It's definitely the adapter because both boxes have their "powerline circuit" leds blinking from time to time, and the wi-fi signal goes from full strenght to nothing. Sometimes, fine, now it's several times every minute.

I couldn't use the WPS binding function for some reason, but all that meant was I was connecting the camera to another Wi-Fi network. Didn't seem to make any difference at all to setup, and I got a very strong signal.

The only thing is it says to avoid connecting via an adapter socket or an extension lead. I have no choice because the socket in the outbuilding is a water resistant one, and the powerline box won't fit inside the casing.

So...it kind of works even on different circuits, but is effectively useless if it's going to be this inconsistent. Really odd though how it immediately worked and was great for a few hours.

Back to Argos I guess.

Sounds unclear as to the issue as you say the powerline remains connected but wifi signal strength is variable?

It depends how much troubleshooting you want to do to understand/resolve the issue or is it straight to plan b?

Yesterday, I followed the instructions for pairing and using my house wi-fi name and password (using the WPS button), but it didn't work. However, just plugging it in without any kind of pairing, and using whatever the default settings were seemed to work (using the adapters default wi-fi name and password).

Today, by pressing pairing buttons for pretty much random amounts of time, I managed to pair it to the router via WPS, so now have the same network name and password in the outbuilding. I also plugged it directly into the weatherproof socket box in the outbuilding using a compact adapter (rather than into an extension lead).

So far so good - the wi-fi strength on the camera signal is at 100% (as it was previously). It did lose wi-fi once after that, but soon re-connected. I'll see what happens today.

Thanks!

ETA the "powerline circuit" led is flashing again, but according to some online research, that's not necessarily a big deal.

[Captain_Morgan]

dr_gn said:

Yesterday, I followed the instructions for pairing and using my house wi-fi name and password (using the WPS button), but it didn't work. However, just plugging it in without any kind of pairing, and using whatever the default settings were seemed to work (using the adapters default wi-fi name and password).

Today, by pressing pairing buttons for pretty much random amounts of time, I managed to pair it to the router via WPS, so now have the same network name and password in the outbuilding. I also plugged it directly into the weatherproof socket box in the outbuilding using a compact adapter (rather than into an extension lead).

So far so good - the wi-fi strength on the camera signal is at 100% (as it was previously). It did lose wi-fi once after that, but soon re-connected. I'll see what happens today.

Thanks!

ETA the "powerline circuit" led is flashing again, but according to some online research, that's not necessarily a big deal.

No worries. Hopefully it will stay stable.

Generally I’d recommend having a different wifi name (ssid) for the remote side, without getting too technical it’s good to be able to confirm if you are connected to the home or remote wifi without assuming from wifi strength. This helps understand if it’s the remote wifi or the powerline link that’s causing the instability.

Obviously strong wifi from the remote ssid but no internet points to powerline issues, no/weak wifi points to the powerline wifi component being faulty.

You might expect that your wifi clients (phones, cameras, etc) are constantly looking for a stronger signal to latch onto but unfortunately they are not, you can often see devices constantly hanging onto weak wifi when there is a stronger accesspoint available.

I wouldn’t go changing things if it’s stable just something to bare in mind if it becomes unstable again.

[dr_gn]

Captain_Morgan said:

dr_gn said:

Yesterday, I followed the instructions for pairing and using my house wi-fi name and password (using the WPS button), but it didn't work. However, just plugging it in without any kind of pairing, and using whatever the default settings were seemed to work (using the adapters default wi-fi name and password).

Today, by pressing pairing buttons for pretty much random amounts of time, I managed to pair it to the router via WPS, so now have the same network name and password in the outbuilding. I also plugged it directly into the weatherproof socket box in the outbuilding using a compact adapter (rather than into an extension lead).

So far so good - the wi-fi strength on the camera signal is at 100% (as it was previously). It did lose wi-fi once after that, but soon re-connected. I'll see what happens today.

Thanks!

ETA the "powerline circuit" led is flashing again, but according to some online research, that's not necessarily a big deal.

No worries. Hopefully it will stay stable.

Generally I’d recommend having a different wifi name (ssid) for the remote side, without getting too technical it’s good to be able to confirm if you are connected to the home or remote wifi without assuming from wifi strength. This helps understand if it’s the remote wifi or the powerline link that’s causing the instability.

Obviously strong wifi from the remote ssid but no internet points to powerline issues, no/weak wifi points to the powerline wifi component being faulty.

You might expect that your wifi clients (phones, cameras, etc) are constantly looking for a stronger signal to latch onto but unfortunately they are not, you can often see devices constantly hanging onto weak wifi when there is a stronger accesspoint available.

I wouldn’t go changing things if it’s stable just something to bare in mind if it becomes unstable again.

Thanks CM. The default ssid for the outbuilding was 100% signal strength according to the device. Similarly, with the house ssid it's the same - there's no way it could try to connect to the house from that far away - I tried it multiple times, and the network isn't available at all if the adapter is switched off.

It's still working, so I'll see what happens. Cheers!