How to improve my wifi in my garage?

[Bill_Bright]

You can buy 100 ft. of cable for $10 on eBay.

The OP is not in the US, and we are talking about Ethernet designed for outdoors, so $10 might be wishful thinking. But it is still pretty inexpensive, nevertheless. But as noted, it is much more reliable. No worries about interference (or wifi hacking) with Ethernet. And using cable is a permanent solution - or at least can give many years of service.

One point that may add to the cost is connectors and a quality set of crimpers. Pulling cables through walls is best done with un-terminated cable. First and foremost, the hole through the wall can be much smaller. Then there's no risk of damaging or contaminating the connectors. And last, you can cut the cable to the proper length instead of using a 100 foot, pre-terminated cable for a 51 foot run.

Still, it is well worth it, IMO, to buy a quality crimper, bulk cable, connectors and make your own cables. I recommend a cable tester too. As seen here, they are very inexpensive and great at keeping blood pressures well within healthy levels. I do recommend sacrificing a few connectors and short lengths of cable to practice a few crimps.

 

[claes]

LOL "Overkill solutions" and then suggesting a power line kit "AND" wifi extender? Using two solutions when potentially one or the other will do is not overkill?

@minstreless - Inside the main home, what is the closest to the garage you have Ethernet?

Also, you said in post #16 that because it gets "utterly cold" in the winter, running a cable is not an option. Why? Exterior grade CAT 6 Ethernet cable is designed for outdoor use. Depending on type, it is totally waterproof and designed to be buried. Other types are designed to withstand direct sunlight. Some can be buried and resist UV exposure. It still meets Ethernet requirements so it still has a functional maximum working length of 100M (~328 feet) before performance degrades. But your garage is only 6 meters away.

There are several MIL-SPEC (military grade) Ethernet cables (and MIL-SPEC connectors) designed for weatherproof scenarios and long exposure to direct sun in all sorts of extreme temperatures (-55°C to 200°C) and harsh environments.

I would recommend burying the cable rather than using a drop or hanging it. This will minimize exposure to the sun but also the constant flexing that would be imposed by the wind. Metal fatigue would eventually damage the cable.

Note sure the availability in your country but I see on Amazon here there are many CAT6 Waterproof Outdoor Direct Burial UV Resistant Ethernet cables in lengths up to 500 feet for less than $100 USD.

Yes, more work initially, but a much more permanent (meaning "one-time") project. It should be buried below the frost line, however.

Other than that, I still think a directional wifi antenna would be worth a try. In looking at the graphic for the OPs home and garage, and assuming north is "up", a directional antenna (as mentioned in Post #30) in the southwest corner of the garage pointing at the router would minimize the number of barriers the signal would need to travel through.

Most phones don’t have Ethernet ports

You are right about the WiFi extender, though. I don’t really know much about PowerLine equipment.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV600-Powerline-WiFi-Extender/dp/B00HSQAIQU

 

[candle_86]

My old hack was to put a USB WiFi receiver inside a deep metal bowl, hold the receiver in the middle of the bowel with a dowel and connect to device with USB extension cable.

Using that I was able to pickup wifi from my neighbors 4 houses down.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Most phones don’t have Ethernet ports

You are right about the WiFi extender, though. I don’t really know much about PowerLine equipment.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV600-Powerline-WiFi-Extender/dp/B00HSQAIQU

Power line stuff is really hit and miss, well, mostly miss imho. I had a kit of "200Mbps" power line adapters and I was getting 10-15Mbps out of them.
It might have something to do with there being a breaker box on each floor in the house. However, as soon as you went through a breaker/fuse box, you were sort of screwed with power line gear, as it really killed the speed. More recent kit isn't supposed to behave like that, but ideally it should be used on the same circuit for best performance.
You might want to read up on the various standards a bit, as the kit you've linked to is using quite old gear inside.

SmallNetBuilder's Powerline FAQ - 2015 - SmallNetBuilder

Check out our freshly-updated Powerline FAQ for all you need to know about how to use your home's power lines to get Ethernet anywhere there's an outlet!

www.smallnetbuilder.com

HomePlug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

G.hn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This might be a better purchase for only $5 more.

Amazon.com: TRENDnet Wi-Fi Everywhere Powerline 1200 AV2 Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless Access Point Kit, Includes 1 x TPL-430AP and 1 x TPL-421E, White, TPL-430APK (Renewed): Computers & Accessories

Buy TRENDnet Wi-Fi Everywhere Powerline 1200 AV2 Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless Access Point Kit, Includes 1 x TPL-430AP and 1 x TPL-421E, White, TPL-430APK (Renewed): Wireless Access Points - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

 

[claes]

Power line stuff is really hit and miss, well, mostly miss imho. I had a kit of "200Mbps" power line adapters and I was getting 10-15Mbps out of them.
It might have something to do with there being a breaker box on each floor in the house. However, as soon as you went through a breaker/fuse box, you were sort of screwed with power line gear, as it really killed the speed. More recent kit isn't supposed to behave like that, but ideally it should be used on the same circuit for best performance.
You might want to read up on the various standards a bit, as the kit you've linked to is using quite old gear inside.

SmallNetBuilder's Powerline FAQ - 2015 - SmallNetBuilder

Check out our freshly-updated Powerline FAQ for all you need to know about how to use your home's power lines to get Ethernet anywhere there's an outlet!

www.smallnetbuilder.com

HomePlug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

G.hn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Miss" has been my experience as well. I had one working pretty well in a small apartment with it's own breaker, but in the house I'm currently in it can barely hit 30mbps.

This might be a better purchase for only $5 more.

Amazon.com: TRENDnet Wi-Fi Everywhere Powerline 1200 AV2 Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless Access Point Kit, Includes 1 x TPL-430AP and 1 x TPL-421E, White, TPL-430APK (Renewed): Computers & Accessories

Buy TRENDnet Wi-Fi Everywhere Powerline 1200 AV2 Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless Access Point Kit, Includes 1 x TPL-430AP and 1 x TPL-421E, White, TPL-430APK (Renewed): Wireless Access Points - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Nice find! I saw that at $120 new and thought it'd be too expensive.

 

[Shou Miko]

Be careful with the power line adapters they use your existing wires in the wall and if you have crappy or old wires I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[newtekie1]

Ok, so first of all, I think it is very dangerous that people are saying to just bury a Cat5e/Cat6 cable between the two buildings. THIS IS A VERY WRONG THING TO DO! Outdoor Cat5e/6 cabling is fine if you are running it along the outside wall of a building. However, if you plan to bridge any gap with it, either above ground between poles or buried, you have to use shielded and grounded cabling(which ain't cheap). If you don't do this, one lightning strike in the right place, and every piece of networking equipment you own can go up in smoke. I'm not just talking burnt out ethernet ports, I'm talking entirely fried. I've seen it multiple times when someone has just buried an ethernet cable between buildings. The aftermath was not pretty! I've seen the ends of ethernet cables melted into the ports on the switches, and into the ethernet ports of the PCs. The PCs motherboards totally fried. It can lead to a real mess. I caution the OP, if you are going to run a cable between the buildings, do it right, and make sure it is a shielded cable with grounding and lightning arresters at both ends. I won't even run cabling between buildings anymore, we only do fiber runs between buildings because of this risk, but that's not exactly a typical home DIY thing.

"Miss" has been my experience as well. I had one working pretty well in a small apartment with it's own breaker, but in the house I'm currently in it can barely hit 30mbps.

My house was build in the 60s, the powerline kit I use runs from inside the house out to my garage, through 2 breakers in the house and a subpanel and another breaker in the garage. I get 30-40Mb/s. I mean, it's a garage, what am I realistically going to be doing in there that 30Mb/s isn't going to be enough. The OP said he's getting zero wireless signal in his garage currently and just wants to improve it. So I'm guessing maybe 1-5Mb/s. Powerline adapters and a cheap access point would likely give him a ~10x improvement in speed and easily give fast enough internet speeds to do anything he needs. That's fast enough to stream 4K video. Unless OP plans to be transferring huge files across his network, I don't see why 30-40Mb/s isn't good enough. It's certainly a heck of a lot better than what he currently has I'm guessing. Plus, it's not that expensive. A wireless N access point can be had for $25 and a decent set of 1000Mbps powerline adapters is $35. You're easily looking at that much to properly run an ethernet cable between the two buildings, and definitely looking at more for point-to-point wireless. And the powerline solution is super easy to setup compared to the others.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Ok, so first of all, I think it is very dangerous that people are saying to just bury a Cat5e/Cat6 cable between the two buildings. THIS IS A VERY WRONG THING TO DO! Outdoor Cat5e/6 cabling is fine if you are running it along the outside wall of a building.

Please, newtekie1! Read what was actually said about burying cable before running around yelling the sky is falling!

I was the first to mention burying cable in post #49 where I specifically noted to use (bold underline added this time),

CAT6 Waterproof Outdoor Direct Burial UV Resistant Ethernet cables

NOBODY said to "just bury" a cable! Using waterproof direct burial cable IS A VERY RIGHT THING TO DO!

Burying cable between building - especially in regions with inclement weather - makes total sense.

 

[Vario]

Well, if really worried about that, bury fiber and put a fiber to ethernet converter at each end.

 

[TheLostSwede]

My house was build in the 60s, the powerline kit I use runs from inside the house out to my garage, through 2 breakers in the house and a subpanel and another breaker in the garage. I get 30-40Mb/s. I mean, it's a garage, what am I realistically going to be doing in there that 30Mb/s isn't going to be enough. The OP said he's getting zero wireless signal in his garage currently and just wants to improve it. So I'm guessing maybe 1-5Mb/s. Powerline adapters and a cheap access point would likely give him a ~10x improvement in speed and easily give fast enough internet speeds to do anything he needs. That's fast enough to stream 4K video. Unless OP plans to be transferring huge files across his network, I don't see why 30-40Mb/s isn't good enough. It's certainly a heck of a lot better than what he currently has I'm guessing. Plus, it's not that expensive. A wireless N access point can be had for $25 and a decent set of 1000Mbps powerline adapters is $35. You're easily looking at that much to properly run an ethernet cable between the two buildings, and definitely looking at more for point-to-point wireless. And the powerline solution is super easy to setup compared to the others.

Out of curiosity, what speed rating does the kit have? Or which technology is it using, as that would be the interested part here for the OP.
As I mentioned above, I haven't tried any of the modern versions of this stuff, but the 200Mbps kit I had, was junk.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Well, if really worried about that, bury fiber and put a fiber to ethernet converter at each end.

Well, fiber is an option, but does not seem very practical here to me. If burying fiber, it still has to be fiber designed for outdoor and underground use. Fiber cable is more expensive than copper. Ethernet to fiber adapters add more to the cost. Terminating fiber cables is more technically challenging. You can buy pre-made cables, but that then forces you to drill bigger holes in the walls to accommodate the connectors. And if you buy pre-made, you also end having to buy a 100 foot cable when you may only need a 51 foot cable.

but the 200Mbps kit I had, was junk.

So much depends on the house wiring. And not just the wire itself, but all the connections from end-to-end. In a brand new house (or a newly and up to code remodeled house), power-line adapters tend to work great. But on older homes, it could be hit or miss. My home, for example, was built in 1960. It originally had 2-conductor aluminum wiring throughout much of the house. I could not get powerline networking to work consistently or reliably from one room to another - and the rooms were on the same breaker. I gave the powerline kit to a co-worker who's home was less than 3 years old and it worked flawlessly for him from upstairs on one end of the house to downstairs on the opposite end - through different service panel breakers too.

I have seen similar other cases with older homes too.

 

[newtekie1]

Please, newtekie1! Read what was actually said about burying cable before running around yelling the sky is falling!

I was the first to mention burying cable in post #49 where I specifically noted to use (bold underline added this time), NOBODY said to "just bury" a cable! Using waterproof direct burial cable IS A VERY RIGHT THING TO DO!

Burying cable between building - especially in regions with inclement weather - makes total sense.

No, it is still the wrong thing to do. Direct burial or not, just burying the cable is NOT THE RIGHT THING TO DO and will not protect against lightning strikes. All the direct burial means is that the cable will not degrade from being in contact with wet soil. It has nothing to do with protecting against lightning strikes. Go do some research. I've personally seen a buried cable, run through metal conduit at that, get struck by lightning, which backfed the lightning into the buildings and fried every single piece of equipment connected to the network. I've also seen it happen even with lightning arrestors at each end, and while the arresters helped, the switches the cables were plugged into at each end still died a horrible death.

I never talked about waterproofing, go back and read my post again.

Well, if really worried about that, bury fiber and put a fiber to ethernet converter at each end.

Yes, this would be the way to do it, but also expensive as hell. And you really have to ask yourself if it is worth it for a garage wifi connection.

Out of curiosity, what speed rating does the kit have? Or which technology is it using, as that would be the interested part here for the OP.
As I mentioned above, I haven't tried any of the modern versions of this stuff, but the 200Mbps kit I had, was junk.

It is a 1200Mbps kit using MIMO technology. But the 1000Mbps kit I had before that with didn't use MIMO gave pretty much the same speeds. I find that with Powerline networking, the speeds you get are the speeds you get, getting a faster kit isn't going to help much when jumping breakers. That said, the older powerline kits were total junk. I've been using them for years, and the early stuff sucked. But even a modern 500Mbps kit I find to be good enough.

 

[candle_86]

You can run it in a metal conduit under ground that is properly grounded, or bury about 10 feet at which point the lightening won't be a threat.

 

[Bill_Bright]

You can run it in a metal conduit under ground that is properly grounded, or bury about 10 feet at which point the lightening won't be a threat.

You can, but metal conduit is not needed. In fact, metal conduit introduces more problems as it can trap moisture and give a place for insect activity to thrive. This is why when conduit is used, it is often sealed, pressurized and run with air dryers and desiccants - a very complex and expensive process. By code, in most states, says 8 feet deep is all you need for grounding rods. But cable just needs to be below frost levels which typically is 5 feet or less for most of the US, and less than 36 inches for much of it. In fact a lot of cable can easily withstand the physical stresses of being buried less deep, but is buried that deep or deeper just to keep home owners from digging it up when planting their personal flower or veggie gardens.

Now I too am out of here but would like to hear what the OP decides to do and how it worked for him.

 

[candle_86]

Gee whiz. Then it sure is a good thing you made sure you informed the OP to make sure the wall outlets, the house's service panel, and the garage's service panel are all wired correctly and properly grounded to a common Earth ground when you recommended using powerline adapters. Oh wait. YOU NEVER DID! Yet you sure jump in there to tell others they are "in fact wrong" when they suggested other methods without all the warnings?

Wow! Yeah right. Because you know all about me? My certs? My formal training? Because antenna transmission lines and radio control cables between radio transmitter sites, receiver sites and air traffic control towers are never buried? Yeah right.

That's good.
You can, but metal conduit is not needed. In fact, metal conduit introduces more problems as it can trap moisture and give a place for insect activity to thrive. This is why when conduit is used, it is often sealed, pressurized and run with air dryers and desiccants - a very complex and expensive process. By code, in most states, says 8 feet deep is all you need for grounding rods. But cable just needs to be below frost levels which typically is 5 feet or less for most of the US, and less than 36 inches for much of it. In fact a lot of cable can easily withstand the physical stresses of being buried less deep, but is buried that deep or deeper just to keep home owners from digging it up when planting their personal flower or veggie gardens.

Now I too am out of here but would like to hear what the OP decides to do and how it worked for him.

My comment was for the overly paranoid.

 

[xvi]

I'd really like to recommend avoiding mesh/repeaters if possible.

If you have the money then go with 2xUniFi NanoBeamAC it can provide a solid connection from point a to b.
Their end models can give internet up to 15km+ so 6meters with clearance shouldn't be an issue.

We have issues with these at short distances. It seems that RSL better than around -40 starts to introduce distortion and, supposedly, has the possibility of burning out the radio. The AC series will even throw a warning up on RSL stronger than about -45. Even with output power as low as it will go, we often see links as short as these at excessive RSL. Our techs will try to intentionally misalign them to bring RSL into acceptable levels, but it usually results in heavily mismatched chains and (relatively) poor performance. Ubiquiti's solution seems to be 24Ghz (or now the 60GHz AirFiber for the relatively cheap $299 per radio), but those get spendy for the home user. MikroTik has an attractive inexpensive radio lineup. Something like this Cube Light60 is an attractive offering for $69 per radio (but I'd consider them a bit on the complicated side).

You mention an older version... so... would Nanobeam M5 16 do the trick for me, or?

Although their capacity is a little less than the AC series radios, the M-series should still work plenty fine. One advantage the M5 has over the AC is that you can disable Ubiquiti's AirMax feature which would allow clients to connect. This kind of leads into what I'd like to add to the discussion. Instead of doing a point-to-point link with Ubiquiti gear, you could just pick up a used Nanostation M2 or M5 off eBay or something (make sure it includes a 24v PoE or grab one yourself) and set it up on the house facing the garage. It has a relatively high gain directional antenna built-in which you could connect to directly. Cost would be the price of a used radio (~$50?) plus however much cabling is needed.

If going this route, keep in mind that the radios only do 2.4GHz (for the M2) or 5.8GHz (for the M5). You'll want to make sure all the devices you plan to connect support the frequency band you chose.

 

[Vario]

Yes, this would be the way to do it, but also expensive as hell. And you really have to ask yourself if it is worth it for a garage wifi connection.

The fiberoptic to ethernet convertors are around $35 on Amazon.

 

[Shou Miko]

I'd really like to recommend avoiding mesh/repeaters if possible.

We have issues with these at short distances. It seems that RSL better than around -40 starts to introduce distortion and, supposedly, has the possibility of burning out the radio. The AC series will even throw a warning up on RSL stronger than about -45. Even with output power as low as it will go, we often see links as short as these at excessive RSL. Our techs will try to intentionally misalign them to bring RSL into acceptable levels, but it usually results in heavily mismatched chains and (relatively) poor performance. Ubiquiti's solution seems to be 24Ghz (or now the 60GHz AirFiber for the relatively cheap $299 per radio), but those get spendy for the home user. MikroTik has an attractive inexpensive radio lineup. Something like this Cube Light60 is an attractive offering for $69 per radio (but I'd consider them a bit on the complicated side).

Although their capacity is a little less than the AC series radios, the M-series should still work plenty fine. One advantage the M5 has over the AC is that you can disable Ubiquiti's AirMax feature which would allow clients to connect. This kind of leads into what I'd like to add to the discussion. Instead of doing a point-to-point link with Ubiquiti gear, you could just pick up a used Nanostation M2 or M5 off eBay or something (make sure it includes a 24v PoE or grab one yourself) and set it up on the house facing the garage. It has a relatively high gain directional antenna built-in which you could connect to directly. Cost would be the price of a used radio (~$50?) plus however much cabling is needed.

If going this route, keep in mind that the radios only do 2.4GHz (for the M2) or 5.8GHz (for the M5). You'll want to make sure all the devices you plan to connect support the frequency band you chose.

Are you running the newest firmware? Because some firmwares are buggy as well, I specially on the Nanobeams I update the firmware only if there is something wrong if not I just leave them alone.

Other UniFi products I update almost with every firmware never had any major issues.

 

[xvi]

Are you running the newest firmware? Because some firmwares are buggy as well, I specially on the Nanobeams I update the firmware only if there is something wrong if not I just leave them alone.

Other UniFi products I update almost with every firmware never had any major issues.

I usually skim through the changelogs and only update if it fixes an issue I'm experiencing or something I'm worried about. Most of the M-series stuff has been solid, although some of the later firmwares seem to be overly sensitive to DFS. The only issues I've had with the ACs are the weird separate radios for PTP and PTMP on the really early units and the distance limitations on Gen 1 gear.

What quirks have you seen?

 

[Bill_Bright]

The fiberoptic to ethernet convertors are around $35 on Amazon.

Yeah, they are not cost "prohibitive" but one has to ask, are they cost "effective"? IMO, to provide access to a couple devices out in the garage, probably not.

Yes, $35 (there are some ~$25 each but you have to make sure they support 1Gbps) is affordable, but you need two - one on each end. Then you need the fiber cable itself, the connectors, and cable cleaver/stripping tool. You don't have to have a pulling eye, but they sure make pulling fiber through walls a lot easier. That may be a lot to invest for one cable. And yes, you can buy pre-made cables but then you have to drill (and seal) ~1/2 in holes in the house and garage walls so the connector can fit through and may end up with many feet of extra cable you have to deal with. You can order pre-made cable at any custom length but those are very pricey.

So here I again agree with newtekie1 and feel going with fiber is too expensive for 1 cable run.

 

[Caring1]

Make sure your Router is set to 2.4Ghz only as it's range is roughly double that of 5Ghz.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Make sure your Router is set to 2.4Ghz only as it's range is roughly double that of 5Ghz.

Ummm, sorry but no. That is not necessary - in fact, doing that would degrade the wifi performance of some of the connected devices because the 2.4GHz band is significantly slower than the 5GHz band - not to mention the 2.4GHz if often crowded.

While you are 100% correct that the 2.4GHz band has a much greater range than the 5GHz band, there is no need to set the router to only use 2.4GHz. The router does not decide which band to use - the connected devices (or their users) do (if the devices even support dual band).

In fact, besides being slower, it would also be a bad idea to disable 5GHz because that would force even those devices near the router to use the already crowded (often over crowded ) 2.4GHz band. Remember, because the 2.4GHz band has a much greater range, wifi performance is often degraded from other neighboring 2.4GHz networks. This is exactly why it is sometimes necessary to use a wifi "sniffer" on our home wifi networks to see which channel is less crowded (or hopefully unused), then set our routers to use that channel instead. While most modern home routers claim to automatically seeks out and use less crowded channels, we have found they don't always pick the "least" crowded.

So if the router supports dual band, for sure, you should use 5GHz for your connected devices that are near the router, and use 2.4GHz for those that are distant. If the router does not support dual band, it is probably time to shop for a new router (or WAP - wireless access point) that does.

I note that "near" is a relative term. 5GHz may work great 20 feet away in the same room with line-of-site (no obstructions) between the router and wireless device. But 5GHz may not work well 6 feet away if there is a wall, floor or ceiling in between. So a little trial and error testing may be needed.

 

[winterwonderland]

So, fellas. I just decided to go for this: TP-Link CPE210. A friendly soul advised me to get this. It's well within my budget and seeing it in action in real life helped me decide the buy. I will report back with how it will work for my situation.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Fingers crossed!