Calling all NJW&W IT Guys: Powerline WiFi adapters?

[Swamp_Yankee]

I seem to recall that there are a few guys in the IT field on this board, so here goes: I am looking to blanket my home and a good chunk of my property (the backyard and porch/patio area immediately adjacent) with seamless WiFi coverage (same SSID and password) as I have a couple of different uses for it.  First, we spend a lot of time on our patio and deck in nice weather so I have an Alexa Input connected to an old Pioneer amplifier and speakers in my tool shed which has electric via an underground feed from the house-I also tend to play music over the speakers whenever I'm working outside.  Right now the Input gets a WiFi signal from the WiFi router provided by our ISP (CenturyLink 10Mbps DSL-we are out in the sticks so that's the best we can get) which is fine most of the time, but every one in a while the signal drops out for some unknown reason.  Usually a reset of the router, Input, or both will fix the problem, but its annoying and I think a stronger signal would likely fix it.  Next, I recently picked up a set of Bluetooth ear protection headphones so that I can still listen to music when I'm mowing, blowing, weedwhacking, etc...so it would be nice to stream Pandora or Spotify via WiFi while doing so.  Finally, we will have a chicken coop in the back which I am considering adding a WiFi camera to so that I can easily monitor for predators, etc...without actually going out there.  The chicken coop, like the toolshed has an underground electrical feed from the house.  The following is a sketch of the property showing the orientation of the various buildings and distances between them:

Obviously the best way to create multiple access points would be to locate maybe two different WiFi routers (one being the ISP supplied router/modem) in the house connected by Cat5 cable, and then by locating WiFi routers in the tool shed and chicken coop (connected by Cat5 as well), but running the Cat5 underground would be a PITA that I'd like to avoid.  The electrical lines that run to those buildings currently seem to be just direct-bury wire, so its not as if there is a conduit I could just fish another line through.  I did find some direct-bury Cat5 online, but again, if I could avoid digging a trench, laying wire, filling it all back in, fixing the grass, etc...I'd like to.  To that end I've been researching powerline adapters quite a bit and the reviews seem to be all over the place with regard to speed and reliability.  I've also heard a lot of conflicting information about how much speed degradation results from the signal having to travel through a circuit on one leg of the panel to a circuit on the opposite leg.  Some users report no issue whatsoever, and some report speeds so slow that the network is unusable.  I'd love to see some real world accounts here since I have built-in electrical infrastructure.  Another thing that I haven't been able to figure out is that assuming I go with a powerline adapter system and end up installing two different access points in the tool shed and chicken coop, will I be able to use the same SSID and password for each in order to create a seamless network?  I know that there are a few other settings that need to be tweaked so that the access points do not conflict with each other.  

Finally, with regard to speed degradation, it should be noted that the network I'm looking to create will really only be used to stream music and so that I can do email while sitting outside and having a drink after work.  Its not as if I'll be trying to stream 4K TV or game online.  That said, since I'm starting with 10Mbps I don't have a lot of speed to lose...  

[megavites]

Wouldn't a plug in repeater/extender work? One in shed, one in coop?

[Fireguy079]

what you are looking for is a mesh Wi-Fi setup. something like the following. or you can get a wifi range extender for a good one and you will need a couple your looking at like 50-70 each one.

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Orbi-Wall-Plug-Whole-System/dp/B072ZN4PSB/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Mesh+WiFi&qid=1565635474&s=gateway&sr=8-4

[Swamp_Yankee]

50 minutes ago, megavites said:

Wouldn't a plug in repeater/extender work? One in shed, one in coop?

WiFi to WiFi repeaters/extenders sacrifice speed for coverage.  That might be OK if you have super fast internet through Comcast or FIOS, but for slow DSL it would likely render our internet speeds unusable. 

[thefirstndsecond]

I have comcast as my provider and I use the xfi pods to create the mesh network

 

You can try using another router as repeater but I prefer the xfi pods.

[Northjerseyoutdoorsman]

Power line adapters work ok but they have to be on the same electrical panel to work and you still need another router at the other end. Extenders are pretty terrible mutliple ssids and they just make an already degraded slow speed go further. Mesh networks are definitely the way to go! Eero is the one I have the most experience with I've installed well over 100 and they work very well. The app is very user friendly. 10mbps is pretty low but for steaming music and general web browsing it is more than adequate. Not a fan of the Orbis posted above they dont work nearly as well as Eero does and they are drastically larger in size.  You can wire two routers together with cat 5e between them and put the second one in bridge / AP mode allowing all do the actual routing to be done by the first router and not creating a double nat. However like the extender you will have multiple ssids. 

 

The only way to have a single ssid is a quality mesh network.

[Swamp_Yankee]

1 hour ago, Northjerseyoutdoorsman said:

 You can wire two routers together with cat 5e between them and put the second one in bridge / AP mode allowing all do the actual routing to be done by the first router and not creating a double nat. However like the extender you will have multiple ssids.   The only way to have a single ssid is a quality mesh network.

This guy says you can have the same SSID/password using that setup:

This just isn't my favorite option because it would require me to run ethernet cable from the second floor of my very old house down to the basement, out the foundation wall, through the yard, and into the toolshed.  It can be done, I was just hoping to use the powerline adapters to avoid all of the cable fishing, digging, etc...

 

[Northjerseyoutdoorsman]

56 minutes ago, Swamp_Yankee said:

This guy says you can have the same SSID/password using that setup:

This just isn't my favorite option because it would require me to run ethernet cable from the second floor of my very old house down to the basement, out the foundation wall, through the yard, and into the toolshed.  It can be done, I was just hoping to use the powerline adapters to avoid all of the cable fishing, digging, etc...

 

Sure you "can" have the same SSID if you wanted to you could line a hundred routers all up next to eachother and name them all the same . Doesn't mean that you should do it and it wont have the potential for issues with your device's getting confused and constantly disconnect and reconnect. It's the same thing when people name their 2.4 and 5 g networks the same exact thing it just doesn't work well.

[Farmshine]

I to have terrible CenturyLink (8meg on a great day)

This gets WiFi to my yard and out buildings and it piggy backs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mattg1500]

I use the Orbi like mentioned above. Id uses a master that gets plugged in to the cat 5 and then slaves that get plugged into regular 120v outlets. It is not an extender it is 2 true modems and i am not losing speed. I have 250mbps and can stream on 3 TVs, kids on xbox and Pandora out in the shed.

[Haskell_Hunter]

Hardwire your WiFi base stations.  Extending WiFi with repeaters is nothing but trouble.  It will drop, they will lose connection, you will get signal degradation.

Your problems won't be bandwidth issues, they will be with tx (transmit) and rtx (retransmit) issues.  There are two common protocols used in networking TCP and UDP.  TCP will transmit a packet of data and wait for the receiving device to ack (acknowledge) that the packet arrived before sending the next one.  UDP doesn't care and just spews packets out to the destination.  If your signal isn't good or your WiFi is weird, that TCP tx will have to hop across several devices and then wait for an ack before it sends another one.  If that packet drops, or if the ack drops, your WiFi will be incredibly slow.  Surfing the web will be slower than a cell connection.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15396

Bury something like that.  Get a flat shovel, push some slits into the dirt, use a small hand trowel to push it under the soil.  Step on the slit to close it up. Done.  Should take you less than an hour to do that.  Crimp both ends (you get get a crimper at Home Depot as well as clips; look online for how to arrange the wires in the clip).

Hardwiring ensures your data will move back to the source without any errors (rtx's).  All industrial WiFi is done hardwired for this reason.  It's reliable.  You can then get something cheap to use as a hub.

https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-range-extenders/EX6150.aspx

Although that's an extender, it has an ethernet port and plugs into an outlet.  Connect the ethernet cable to it and use it as an access point.  It's a fast unit with decent coverage.  If you put it towards the top, front of the chicken coop, it should cover all the way to your house.  Key thing with WiFi is also line of sight.  Solid objects will degrade signals.  Mount this at least 6' to 10' up and you'll get great coverage across the yard.  You could spend significantly more for another WiFi access point for even better coverage.  But the rule of thumb is to mount it higher than your head and with as little solid material in front of it.  That's why you see WiFi hotspots mounted on ceilings like smoke detectors (there also isn't much furniture on ceilings either).

My $0.02.

[Fireguy079]

13 hours ago, Northjerseyoutdoorsman said:

Power line adapters work ok but they have to be on the same electrical panel to work and you still need another router at the other end. Extenders are pretty terrible mutliple ssids and they just make an already degraded slow speed go further. Mesh networks are definitely the way to go! Eero is the one I have the most experience with I've installed well over 100 and they work very well. The app is very user friendly. 10mbps is pretty low but for steaming music and general web browsing it is more than adequate. Not a fan of the Orbis posted above they dont work nearly as well as Eero does and they are drastically larger in size.  You can wire two routers together with cat 5e between them and put the second one in bridge / AP mode allowing all do the actual routing to be done by the first router and not creating a double nat. However like the extender you will have multiple ssids. 

 

The only way to have a single ssid is a quality mesh network.

Never heard of the Eero brand that's why i suggested the orbi i will need to check them out.

[Swamp_Yankee]

10 hours ago, Haskell_Hunter said:

https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-range-extenders/EX6150.aspx

Although that's an extender, it has an ethernet port and plugs into an outlet.  Connect the ethernet cable to it and use it as an access point.  It's a fast unit with decent coverage.  If you put it towards the top, front of the chicken coop, it should cover all the way to your house. 

Thanks for the suggestion-these look like the most affordable option by far.  Would it make sense to put them up in a copula on the rooftop for better coverage?  

I could fabricate something pretty easily out of Azek, etc...that would look nice for each building.  I would think that any kind of metal roofing (as shown above) would be a bad idea though.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Swamp_Yankee

[Haskell_Hunter]

29 minutes ago, Swamp_Yankee said:

Thanks for the suggestion-these look like the most affordable option by far.  Would it make sense to put them up in a copula on the rooftop for better coverage?  

 

I could fabricate something pretty easily out of Azek, etc...that would look nice for each building.  I would think that any kind of metal roofing (as shown above) would be a bad idea though.

That would work.  You’ll need an outdoor access point in that case.  They sell them and most are POE (Power Over Ethernet) but also support a power adapter.  POE is convenient, but you’ll have to buy more gear to support it, and I generally don’t recommend it over long distances.

You can create a metal rooftop, as long as the access point is below the metal roofing.  Surround the base with wood and you’re a lot better off.  Slots will help too.

When I am doing outdoor installations, this is what I usually look at.  Probably not your price point and somewhat more complex, but this is the best that’s out there IMHO.

https://store.ui.com/collections/wireless

 

[hunterbob1]

12 hours ago, Farmshine said:

I to have terrible CenturyLink (8meg on a great day)

This gets WiFi to my yard and out buildings and it piggy backs.


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Century link Sucks,period!