Done with Consumer WiFi solutions...

[photon]

ISP unit is a modem and router and wifi all in one (XB7 from Shaw/Rogers), and yeah wired is fine. My casual use of the wifi has been mostly fine (I did have to reboot it once when it seemed like the wifi didn't work half way across the house, rebooted, and everything was fine).

I didn't see anything detailed for detailed diagnostics. I think I'll just have to get them to test with the stuff that was giving them issues before to see if it's fine now.

[photon]

All my testing is running clean, so probably going to put it back into full use.

Was going to do it today when everyone but me was out of the house but my kid ended up with all classes being put online today (due to the snow?) so will have to wait.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

I have a great Ubiquiti system set up at home with a Dream Machine Pro SE and U6 AP's for inside.

My issue is I don't have eithernet going into the garage and need to boost signal into the garage (it's quite good in the backyard).

I'd like to basically have an access point of some kind in my backyard that can piggyback off of one of the AP's on the main level and boost/send the signal to the garage for connectivity but this access point won't have any ethernet able to connect to it as I don't have ethernet in this part of the house either.

What's my best option here? Can I get a U6 Mesh and connect that outside without ethernet in some way to do what I'm looking for and if so how? Any additional accessories I'd need?

Thanks.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Originally Posted by flamesrule_kipper34

I have a great Ubiquiti system set up at home with a Dream Machine Pro SE and U6 AP's for inside.

My issue is I don't have eithernet going into the garage and need to boost signal into the garage (it's quite good in the backyard).

I'd like to basically have an access point of some kind in my backyard that can piggyback off of one of the AP's on the main level and boost/send the signal to the garage for connectivity but this access point won't have any ethernet able to connect to it as I don't have ethernet in this part of the house either.

What's my best option here? Can I get a U6 Mesh and connect that outside without ethernet in some way to do what I'm looking for and if so how? Any additional accessories I'd need?

Thanks.

Would a U6 Extender work in this scenario? Seems like that may be the best/easiest option.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by flamesrule_kipper34

I have a great Ubiquiti system set up at home with a Dream Machine Pro SE and U6 AP's for inside.

My issue is I don't have eithernet going into the garage and need to boost signal into the garage (it's quite good in the backyard).

I'd like to basically have an access point of some kind in my backyard that can piggyback off of one of the AP's on the main level and boost/send the signal to the garage for connectivity but this access point won't have any ethernet able to connect to it as I don't have ethernet in this part of the house either.

What's my best option here? Can I get a U6 Mesh and connect that outside without ethernet in some way to do what I'm looking for and if so how? Any additional accessories I'd need?

Thanks.

The best option depends on your restrictions/limitations, wifi speed in garage and budget. Because you're using a UDM SE, instead of limited options, you have a plethora of additional options to do what you're trying to do. It's a dizzying amount of options, but it allows you to select the exact solution you need/want to deploy. If you don't know what you need, it's adding a ton of confusion to the situation.

Option 1: Get two bridge units (beam/station units?) to wifi bridge, then add another AP inside garage connected to the bridge unit (3 additional pieces of hardware + POE plug?). Probably most expensive option, but you'll get to continue having very high speeds in garage that you get in house and it's mostly just plugging things in position. It's basically guaranteed to work, but this is probably serious overkill.

Option 2: Get another AP (ie: U6 extender or mesh?) and set it up to the garage or outdoors and which wirelessly connects to an AP in your house (1 piece of hardware + POE plug). You may need to reposition an AP. Not too expensive, you might get stable and passable internet connection, but real speed depends on your internet package, distance to garage, interference etc. I honestly don't know how well these units can communicate and amplify signal, so I don't know if you'll get an answer as to whether it works until you try it out.

Option 3: Buy a more powerful AP/reposition AP to be closer to garage but broadcasting from indoors (1x more expensive AP such as U6/U7 or in wall?); issue is still broadcasting through multiple layers of concrete plus other stuff that decreases signal so it's not guaranteed to work. This is the least amount of work of the options to do, but it's not guaranteed to be the improvement you need.

Option 4: Buy an outdoor AP and install it (1 piece of hardware such as U7 outdoor or swiss army knife, no POE because you have UDM SE, but you may need to pull ethernet line through the walls and drill a hole to install outdoors). Similar to option 3, but you reduce the interference and walls you have to broadcast through. Bonus I guess is you get really good wifi outdoors as well as passable/decent in garage, but it's also the most complicated install of all options. I assume the APs are doing OK broadcasting through one wall, but with 2 walls it's an issue. So an outdoor AP continues that trend of just broadcasting through a single wall and expecting the signal decrease isn't enough to be annoying. You mentioned that your backyard has good wifi, so I believe there is optimism in this option.

I think these options range from $150-600 excluding any additional work beyond wall mounting you may need to do (ie: Pull cable, drilling holes etc.) that may need to be done. For some, upgrading a phone plan at a cost of $10-20 a month and tethering in the garage may make more sense than spending $200+ on additional hardware.

You basically mentioned option 2 via U6 extender or mesh which is probably around $200-300 options, but IMO those are the most uncertain in terms of the current proposed solutions. Option 3 is basically the same as 2 but indoors/positioned closer to garage instead of an AP/extender at the garage or outdoors at a similar cost. You can try and pull ethernet through the walls or buy a 50-100ft premade cable and do what you can to get that AP closer. The issue is that signal can get messed up easily depending on what it's broadcasting through and every situation is unique. I have an AP on the main floor. I can walk 30-40ft further away from the AP upstairs and get 2-3x the speed. I assume the tile and heated floor wiring in the bathroom messes up the signal far more than just wood and drywall in the next room.

Option 1 is probably closer to $500+ in stuff for bridge units plus a U6 lite, but it's basically guaranteed to work with the fastest final speeds in your garage. But if circumstances change, then you have extra specialized equipment you may not be able to redeploy.

I think you can do option 4 for around $150-300 and because you said wifi in backyard is good, I think you can be optimistic about it being what you need and perhaps more, but it needs the most prep work in doing outdoor work and/or pulling cable to the outdoor location.

[Fuzz]

What's the wiring to the garage like? You may be able to just use powerline ethernet adapter, and an AP in the garage.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What's the wiring to the garage like? You may be able to just use powerline ethernet adapter, and an AP in the garage.

Granted, I've only tried on 2 detached garages, but in all those cases, I didn't really find the powerline worked very well. Either didn't work at all due to the wiring, was finicky/slow or wasn't designed for sub-zero temps. That subzero facet is killer on those types of units.

Also, at $50 a pair for a good one, I kinda think it makes more sense now to just apply that amount towards upgrading a piece of equipment that was designed to work outdoors or upgrading to an ethernet to wireless bridge.

Worth trying if you have one lying around or can get a used pair for super cheap, but I wouldn't specifically buy one to try it.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I finally took the plunge into the world of Unifi...the old Velop system was requiring periodic reboots, and with the new 2.5 Unifi gear out, I finally had future proofing to justify the purchase. Upping my content filtering game was a consideration too, with the kids getting older.

Went with the UCG Max, a Pro Max 16 PoE, 2xU7 Pro Wall AP, and a U6Plus (in the garage), and a Flex Mini at a spot a switch was necessary. The latter was a placeholder and wouldn't you know it, 3 days later the new Flex 2.5 was announced... In retrospect I probably could have gone with a non PoE Pro Max switch, but the cost of injectors adds up quickly. Out of necessity, I do have a couple of 2.5 MOCA adapters in the mix, but they seem to work well enough.

Deployment was relatively seamless, although moving all the Ring devices to a new IoT network was a pain. That and a couple of Apple Devices refuse to join the new kids network (with Family Content Filtering enabled). Seems to work fine on a guest network with "Work" filtering enabled well enough. I still have to move to NextDNS or OpenDNS for kid content filtering so maybe that solves that issue.

Pricey stuff, but overall it's been great. I'm impressed at how the two U7's AP's have replaced 5 Velop nodes - my house has horrendous interference. The new UCG Max / Ultras have really made a leap forward for affordability (I have the latter in a simple setup at a vacation property) and a smaller form factor.

[Fuzz]

Some days my wallet is thankful my $150 Netgear can reach everywhere in my house, yard and garage all on it's lonesome! That's quite a list.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Some days my wallet is thankful my $150 Netgear can reach everywhere in my house, yard and garage all on it's lonesome! That's quite a list.

I wish I could have stayed with my dual AmpliFi mesh system. Like I-hate-Hulse, my new place is just full of weird interference.

In my parents house, a single of my old AmpliFi routers on the main floor was better than 3 Deco mesh modules and any other router my brother or I have ever put in there. They get wifi to the edge of their back yard and it detects on the sidewalk from across the street. In my current house, 2 then 3 of those AmpliFi weren't enough to avoid dead/disconnecting zones.

I have a UDM plus 2 AP in my current house. No more dead zones, a few slow but not disconnecting zones, but 20-30 ft from the house? No wifi. Even if the room is right there and I can see the AP from the window. I don't know how they constructed my house, but it honestly feels like they put random things that act as Faraday cages in the walls at times.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I have a UDM plus 2 AP in my current house. No more dead zones, a few slow but not disconnecting zones, but 20-30 ft from the house? No wifi. Even if the room is right there and I can see the AP from the window. I don't know how they constructed my house, but it honestly feels like they put random things that act as Faraday cages in the walls at times.

Just out of curiosity, how do you have your AP's mounted? Ceiling or wall? I've heard this can affect how the signal radiates. I have mine wall mounted as my condo is pretty tall. AP is down on wall of door heading into basement but get a good signal on the top floor and lots of obstacles in between.



But like you, not so much in the backyard despite it passing through through far fewer obstacles. I don't think the metal siding on my house is doing me any favours as well.

[Fuzz]

And if you do have one with external antennas, remember to point them properly. 90° angles, so with 3 you cover all directions.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Just out of curiosity, how do you have your AP's mounted? Ceiling or wall? I've heard this can affect how the signal radiates. I have mine wall mounted as my condo is pretty tall. AP is down on wall of door heading into basement but get a good signal on the top floor and lots of obstacles in between.

But like you, not so much in the backyard despite it passing through through far fewer obstacles. I don't think the metal siding on my house is doing me any favours as well.

Wall mounted as well. One day, maybe I'll consider ceiling mount to make it cleaner and have better positioning. No idea if that solves the outdoor thing though.

The rooms directly above the AP only have around 1/4 of the speed as the family room where its mounted. I assumed it had to do with the wiring from the heated flooring in the upstairs bathrooms.

I saw there's a lot of metal grids in the stucco walls so I've assumed that's what is basically blocking the signal from inside to outside.

I think the previous home owner also attempted to do certain things "fancier" and thus there's all sorts of extra metal in my walls from intercom systems and wiring, straps (vs staples), wiring for heated floors, duct work, lots of indoor fluorescent fixtures/metal box housings that go with those etc.

[Fuzz]

I never really thought about that, but ya, a stucco mesh probably makes a fairly good Faraday cage. My router is below stucco level, so maybe that helps.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Yep, tend to agree. Stucco cage is almost certainly the culprit. Maybe time for an exterior AP?

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I don't know how they constructed my house, but it honestly feels like they put random things that act as Faraday cages in the walls at times.

Aside from having stucco mesh wire on the exterior of the house and detached garage (hence the need for an AP in there), I have a 25' infill. These have limited interior walls, and I have one wall that basically divides the main floor. This wall is packed with water piping and electrical runs and is also structural. That leads to the need for 2 wall AP's - front and back halves of the house.

That and I have a 6 storey condo right behind my house with all sorts of EM interference coming from it. Channels are crowded to say the least - I have about 40 clients at a given time.

I have a theory that Unifi is able to auto-optimize wireless channels in this EM soup I live in far better than my old Linksys Velop, and that's why I can go from 5 AP's to 3.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Aside from having stucco mesh wire on the exterior of the house and detached garage (hence the need for an AP in there), I have a 25' infill. These have limited interior walls, and I have one wall that basically divides the main floor. This wall is packed with water piping and electrical runs and is also structural. That leads to the need for 2 wall AP's - front and back halves of the house.

That and I have a 6 storey condo right behind my house with all sorts of EM interference coming from it. Channels are crowded to say the least - I have about 40 clients at a given time.

I have a theory that Unifi is able to auto-optimize wireless channels in this EM soup I live in far better than my old Linksys Velop, and that's why I can go from 5 AP's to 3.

From what I understand, Unifi and the more consumer oriented AmpliFi are both enterprise adapted systems for consumer (ie: Pro-sumer). I'd assume that not only is the software/firmware on those superior to consumer grade built systems like the Velop, Deco etc. but they're built more robust and their broadcast power is probably a bit higher. I assume enterprise grade stuff is designed with software/hardware improvements to deal with EM interference or structural interference.

I sorta recall this because I've seen broadcast strength as an option in UniFi and AmpliFi system settings before. I've never seen that option (or honestly speaking, tons of options are missing in comparison) in any other consumer grade router or mesh system I've dealt with before. Always grief over the internet at my parents place. Then I gave them my old AmpliFi router and all of the complaints magically went away (I kicked myself for not doing it sooner).

[Josh]

The words "Unifi" and "Enterprise" should not be used in the same sentence. Works fine for small home deployments, for anything larger, its trash.

[Shazam]

Unifi is SOHO stuff.

Having worked with Cisco stuff, yeah, the enterprise stuff is way better. But total overkill for SOHO.

[Josh]

Yep, I work in the industry. Seen it too many times where unifi customers swap out their gear within two years for something from a reputable vendor.

It's downright criminal that in the US that E-rate funds are spent on that garbage in schools. The buyers remorse is almost instant.....