Continuing the recent theme of dull questions for the Massive.
I’m on BT internet, which comes into the house at about 135 Mb/s at its peak. I have a Netgear gigabit switch plugged into the router.
My garage WFH office is separated from the house by two external walls, two layers of aluminium-faced Celotex insulation and a few feet of air. The supplied BT Halo router barely manages to provide WiFi coverage upstairs, let alone through two brick walls.
I have run a CAT5E cable from house to garage. I want to put a Wireless Access Point in the garage. I have access to a nearby 13A socket or a Power Over Ethernet thingy.
Your WAP recomendations, please.
A few more threads like this and P**nhub are going to be on their knees* begging for their punters back.
(*no change there then, I thangyewwww)
Cardi B had hit a song about Wireless Access Points
Yes, and she makes many references to “access points” generally.
I would recomment a DrayTek 2865 Vigor, or if that’s a bit steep you could pick up a 2862 2nd hand as they’re EOL.
Sorry, I mean the router is in the house and the WAP is going in the garage, connected via a gigabit switch by CAT5e cable.
I don’t need the ADSL router bit, just Ethernet in and WiFi out.
And it needs to be idiot-proof (i.e. simple enough for me to set up).
Ah sorry man, I misread
Just go full on MESH network. Spend as much as you can afford – I have a Fritzbox! setup (having tried BT Wholehome which was slow and slightly flakey) and it’s been pretty much faultless.
Thanks, but the Physics of two external brick walls, both lined with foil-clad insulation, mean the WiFi signal doesn’t escape the house, let alone enter the garage. So a MESH network might provide better coverage in the house, but won’t be any help in my WFH office in the garage.
The (router in the house) and the WAP (in the garage) will have to be connected by a CAT5e cable.
You can Ethernet a MESH point. Doesn’t have to be WiFi.
We’re paying five quid a month extra for a mesh network. It’s still shit.
There’s so much foil-clad Celotex lining the garage walls that it blocks all radio coming in and going out.
I’ll be able to take the colander off my head and still not catch Covid off the 5G.
You want Bill Gates to read your thoughts then? Is that what you want? Cos that’s what’ll ‘appen!
…..and he’ll buy that Bhundu Boys album before you do!
Garage as Faraday cage. Like it.
Eh? I work* in IT and I have no idea what’s being said here.
I can roll my tongue into a tube. If that helps.
* I turn up and log on.
I would love to help, but I only understood the first sentence.
@boneshaker
I’m with you. These threads make my head hurt and my heart sink.
I’ve got a wireless access point in my garage configured as a booster: it connects to the router in the house (garage is connected to house by shared wall, no air gap or insulation) over wi-fi – low strength signal, but usually solid – and then rebroadcasts wi-fi at full throttle from within the garage using a different (amusingly and actionably named) SSID, so that I can network my internet radios out in’t shed and garage, and reliably connect a laptop on the rare occasion of a sunny dry day when I can work from a chaise longue placed decoratively amid the palatial lawns*. It’s bloody freezing out there right now, and I’ve just got back from a four hour drive, but I will look to see what the brand/model is in the morning.
*the bench by the garden table
Maybe the simplest thing from tp-link. They are generally cheap and reliable.
As you’re working in a faraday cage any mesh nonsense will be wasted.
This might well be the way I go – cheap and simple.
Most of my devices will be connected with wires.
Could I ask what I think is a slightly different question? We can’t get fibre optic where we are. We have standard BT Internet. My other half is working from home and the kitchen is the room that gives her the space she needs but the signal in the kitchen is dreadful. What’s my best option to improve the signal in the kitchen. Moving the router isn’t really an option. I’ve read about some boosters but I’m hesitant due to my naivety. Thanks
I’ve got 2 Netgear plug in boosters.
One upstairs for Mrs D’s office, and one downstairs for the TV / Virgin Box.
Cheap, simple to set-up and sorted all my dead spots
Thanks RD. This one?
Yep, that’s the one.
They also have an ethernet port so I can have a wired connection to the TV
Dave – go MESH. A cheap MESH setup will not be much more than boosters and will work much better. Especially as you move about the house and your device clings on to the weak signal from the booster it started with. This would do a great job but there are others.
Tenda Nova MW5G Mesh WiFi System – Up to 3500 sq ft Whole Home Coverage, WiFi Router and Extender Replacement, Gigabit Mesh Router for Wireless Internet, Works with Alexa, Parental Controls, 3 Pack https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YZCZSPW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_V8XTHQAT16E4NE0VTH79
Even though I’ve not done it I agree with @leedsboy
A Mesh is a better, more elegant, solution.
The boosters work for me, so I’m just too lazy to do anything different
If possible, a cable based solution is going to be a better than a wireless one for some time to come yet. Is there any possibility of running a cable from the router, through the wall of the house then back into the kitchen. External rated ethernet cable is reasonably priced these days (30m = £25) and you then just need a couple of sockets and a (cheap) punchdown tool. The main thing about the wired solution is that it’s guaranteed to work.
I agree. I got BT Guaranteed WiFi which is a meshed solution which generally works really well but still can’t quite make it to my music room which is as far from the router as it can be. Also Twang Jr moaned constantly about it for gaming. We ran a CAT 7 cable through into the loft space and down stairs to a little switch then cables to his PC, Xbox, smart TV and on into the Mac in the music room. The whole thing is blindingly fast, miles better than the WiFi and rock solid (except when he brainlessly kicked the mains plug for switch out). While setup cost less than 50 quid and took a couple of hours to set up.
I got a long CAT7 cable and to start with just plugged it into the router and ran it through the house to the MR and connected it as a proof of concept – instantly miles better. So after that it was simply working out how to get it there in a Mrs. T friendly manner.
Cabled is always going to be better than wireless. The only network-connected things that are wireless in my flat are my mobile phone, printer and 2 Kindles. Everything else, that’s TV, 4 laptops, 3 Raspberry Pis and an 8-way Gigabit switch (because the router only has 4 RJ45 sockets) is cabled.
The printer (furthest item from the router) can be a little flaky now and then, so I considered using a pair of powerline adapters that have been gathering dust in a cupboard for the past few years instead of WiFi. A problem with that is a shortage of spare power sockets near the router.
I forgot to add that there’s nothing to configure or maintain.
As Leedsboy mentions above, go for a MESH system and connect one of the satellites via the Ethernet cable. That way you have a solid internet in your garage and improve your house wifi at the same time (although at 135Mb/s incoming, it may be quicker to write down the internet on paper……)
I have the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6 MESH (I only need one satellite in my place) and its been rock solid. One of the main reasons I chose this one over say Google was that it supports WiFi 6 and so is somewhat future proofed.
A quick google search shows this, which looks to be exactly your requirement…..
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Adding-a-wired-Satellite/td-p/1797622
I use a TP-Link AV600 – very simple to set up and works fine.
I can’t use those Ethernet over the Mains Power thingies in the house as my vinyl preamp picks it up and I hear Morse code. Plus, the garage is on a separate power feed, so there’s no chance of it working – it didn’t even work from downstairs to upstairs, which are on different power circuits.
Interestingly (dull-ly) there is no EU/UK standard for those things and they cause all manner of interference problems – it isn’t just me.
I used to live near a hospital and all stereo equipment used to pick up bangin’ beeps from the ambulance radio system, sometimes very loud. It was like having your entire collection remixed by Aphex Twin.
Until recently my Mum lived next door to a RAF relay station. When I lived there during the Golf war, I could hear the flight comms over my speakers, even with my amp switched off.
They gave me a big box of ferrite cores to wrap around my cables.
The Golf war? Mate they weren’t pilots, that was Peter Allis.
Where’s Edith when I need her?
Some (brain dead idiots) would pay for that option.
Do you all live in castles or mansions? Our wifi works everywhere in the house equally well without elaborate interventions requiring a masters in computing. It dies off when we move further out on to the decking but then 4G takes over without a problem or excessive cost. Ah, but you all live in the UK of course. Unfortunate.
Moving to 4G is fine if all you’re doing is browsing the web etc. If you’re accessing any home based services (such as printing, NAS drives etc) you’ll need to have set up port forwarding on your router which is a relatively complicated process.
it’s only 4G if I’m outside and a distance from the house. Otherwise fast wifi throughout in every room.
My house was built 15 years ago and the outside walls are lined with foil-backed Celotex foam insulation, which blocks heat loss and radio signals. This makes mobile phone reception in the house totally crap, not that it is much better outside.
The BT Halo router is by the front door and WiFi reception upstairs is almost non-existent. I can only assume either the ceilings and/or floorboards are lead-lined, or the BT router’s WiFi is crap – I know which my money is on.
Like Twang, a couple of years ago I ran Ethernet cables up into the loft.
Does anyone else find that the number of ethernet ports to a router, not to mention the number of power sockets, is getting out of control. My router is located in the living room with the TV setup, mainly because the Virgin cable comes into the house there. The router has 4 ethernet ports and I’ve also got a network switch to add another 4. With all the things requiring an ethernet connection – TV, Hive, Sonos, Virgin Tivo box, Streamer etc – it’s becoming difficult to manage. I did consider getting an Eero mesh system which would connect to my Virgin router in modem mode, but that means I could only have one ethernet port connected to the Virgin router (ie from the Eero) which would just exacerbate the problem.
First world problems I know but still…..
‘out of control’ is a bit harsh. I’d rather as much as possible is hard-wired rather than wireless so it’s kind of an occupational hazard. I’m lucky enough to have my house Cat6 wired so I have a 16 port switch in the cupboard under the stairs. I still ‘need’ another 8 port switch in the living room and one in the office. I expect I could have got away with an 8 port and a couple of 4 ports but why rely on wireless unnecessarily?
As any Fall fan kno, Totally Wired is the way to go.
WiFi in inherently a bit crap – passwords, drop-outs, etc – and the one lot of (lower) bandwidth is shared between every device in the house (and possibly your neighbours’ houses).
….with WiFi you’re always worried…
WiFi only uses a small number of channels on each band, so the chances are that if you have a lot of close neighbours using it, one or more of them will be on the same channel as you at least some of the time. That can cause a hit on your connection speed if they do a lot of streaming. The best modern routers and devices will switch to the least-congested channel available automatically, but where general usage is really heavy it’s not going to be at it’s best.
Wireless security is fairly high on modern routers, but if you’re doing something that a dedicated hacker is interested in looking at, it’s not foolproof.
I hate wires. They make the house look untidy. I have a few things plugged into router or MESH devices (Sonos, printer, NAS) but everything Elise works really well off the WiFi. Whilst I’m sure I can get faster speeds with Ethernet connections, I can’t pick up my laptop, take it into the kitchen and make a cup of tea whilst keeping a Teams call going if I have an Ethernet cable plugged in. That’s not to mention that most of my devices don’t have an Ethernet port. What would I use the extra speed for?