When I run WiFi to someone's barn, if the barn has power, I just run a point to point link. Get a cheap second router that will run in client mode. Get 2x cheap/free parabolic reflectors (satellite tv dishes aren't tuned for 2.4GHz, but they do usually work.) Attach one dish on each building, pointing at each other. replace one of the router antennae with a pigtail that goes up to the dish focal point. I've easily gotten +500ft (+180m) point-to-point links this way. And it can be almost free depending on where you source your hardware.
@@jamess1787 I've literally never had a problem with a router returning to factory settings. That doesn't mean there ISN'T an issue, it just means that in 20ish years, over hundreds of routers, I've never seen it happen. (Though I HAVE seen all sorts of other weird stuff)
@@markarca6360 I've had luck with quite a few different things as parabolic reflectors. As I stated, I've used discarded satellite Tv dishes (I still pick them up when I see them in the trash. But I have like 8x left over now so I should stop...) I've also used a particular dollar-store wok that I found to be an almost perfect parabola. And various cheap wire-basket cooking strainers. You could also make a yagi if you care. They aren't hard.
i would like to see this test repeated without the antennas being so close to the metal gutter, and the two antennas at 90 degrees to eachother. the reason for the 90 deg angle is so that the two antennas dont overrwhelm and desensitise eachother. diversity reception/transmission should work a lot better, to be thorough, an analysis of the antennas on some cheap VNA like the nanoVNA would be also a useful indicattion if they are actually any good,
I thought the same thing! Assuming the unit wasn't tested off-camera I'd recommend doing some additional testing away from metal objects and playing with the antenna stuff a bit. Ham radio has a lot of material on antennas and the theory they teach might be helpful with troubleshooting this further!
Came to say this as well. While I am sure these things aren't top of the line, they likely perform A LOT better at the intended install site of a remote farm without many other interfering networks. The reason he was seeing the speed test jump all over the place was due to interference from other networks, and possible multipath distortion from all the cars, houses, and other obstacles in the neighborhood. Most enterprise and prosumer grade hotspots have not only higher strength radios but also routines to analyze competing local WiFi networks across all available channels, and dynamically shift to more appropriate channels to minimize interference, which is likely why his Ubiquiti one performed so much better from the same distance.
He has no clue on networking that has to be about the worst spot its literally inside a Faraday cage Low with roof blocking everything above gutter blocking back half who knows its sig to router is Anyway those r common 5db ants and he killed 80% its power
Agreed. Though I think he was just doing what the average consumer might do - which highlights the bad design of the product, having the antennae so close in the first place. I'd bet on it being a better result if they had put the SMA connectors on the sides, rather than the top, opposite each other. The larger gap would help, even if both antennae were parallel. So I think he has the right conclusion overall, but for the wrong reason. If he were to mount it properly (ie, as high up as practically possible, with the antennae clear of surrounding barriers) it'd improve, even if he left them pointing straight up.
I've deployed 8 tp-link N300 LR's across 5 different locations, and they been friggin stellar - surviving torrential downpours, 112 degree heat, all while never encountering a single issue with them, I cant see myself ever using something else (as long as theres no high bandwidth requirement). Used to get them for 37 bucks, probably a little more these days, but worth it - I've got two of these as point to point at my parents place just under a half mile apart, and get about 120Mbps between the two. I couldnt believe it tbh... but we now have 4 video feeds streaming from the barn to the house a half mile away, and I cant argue with that!
@@methanoid they only make one N300 based outdoor long range model. It's called the CPE210, in case you're having a hard time finding it 👍 For anything over 500ft, I've always set them up in linked pairs, though that's honestly probably not necessary unless they're being set up in somewhat crowded locations (e.g. lots of other SSID's available in the area from other users)... I've never had to deal with that though personally, as the locations where I've ended up using them have always been extremely rural with very low population density.
my oldest ubiquity 2.4ghz AP i installed in the shed in my back yard gives me like 150' range easily. worth the money spent. I have newer 5ghz unifi access points around the house and also well worth every bit of the money.
@Kirk Eby that's what I have... very happy with them. 3200 ft/sq coverage over two floors with three UAP AC pro. I used the heat map to plan my layout. I planned for 4 but really only needed 3. Perfect coverage in every room.
Yes, this was my first thought as well. Not saying this product is any good, but if that gutter is metal, it'll definitely affect the performance of those antenna's.
No doubt about it. I was going to say something about it but you beat me to it. The gutter being about an inch from the antennas is DEFINITELY raising their SWR and greatly reducing their efficiency and changing their polar pattern. Get it up in the air and off the ground and keep the antennas at least a foot or two away from metal.
Wait...did you strap it directly to a huge hunk of metal right next to the antennas and not expect WIFI degradation? Hmm...I wonder if it does a search for wifi signal so it doesn't crosstalk with other channels Optimum install would be on the top of an old TV pushup pole ABOVE the roofline...the higher the signal and more line of site = better signal propagation
@@paulmaydaynight9925 A chunk of metal CORRECTLY POSITIONED could indeed act as a ground plane, but random metal near antennas is at least as likely to mostly cancel out the signal in some directions. Basically, if it's not designed to be adjacent to metal, it's a bad idea to juxtapose them. Test it mounted to a non-metallic surface and test again, just in case.
I have had this unit for 2 plus years in southern Ontario (down to minus 30 C). I test from about 100 yards from the antenna tower it is mounted on. It is also on a Ethernet connection of about a100 feet using the POE. The cable is connected to a port on a the third router connected in series to the internet (needed the ports, it works). I routinely get 8 to 10 Mbits. When I visit my friend across the lake (1000 plus feet) I can still get 2 Mbits (it is painful). In all cases it it nearly a clear line of site. (My background it IT and networks). I benchmark the speeds frequently and it is reliable and consistent. When I am 50 feet from the unit I can get much higher speeds (30 plus). Your advice for mounting it high and open is a good start. Not sure why this fellows speed are so terrible but I would most certainly move it away from the metal down spout for a start and retest. I tested it once with it on my starlink connected thru a wireless extender linked to Starlink (only option till they deliver a Ethernet connect) and it ran a 30 Mbit at 100 yards. I was quite surprised. Hope to retest this once Starlink Ethernet arrives and I reduce the number of routers etc.
A plug will definitely fit through the "gasket" at the bottom. If you just pop the gasket out, you will see that the hole in it has a slit over to the side so that you can just slide the gasket/foam over your cord, even if it has an existing plug already on the end of it. (9:00)
My company tried to see if these were useable... We were sadly disappointed. Don't try factory resetting it btw, you'll end up with it in ap mode but still broadcasting dhcp. Also, I love how if you go to adjust the signal strength, full signal is the image of a pregnant woman.
@@yevsey169How are the TP-Link holding up and what's the range like? My friend has a barn 150-200 feet from his house and I'm trying to figure out something not crazy expensive to recommend to him. He has power (solar + battery) in the barn if that changes the suggestion.
I have bought 2 TP-Link EAP225 1 Wavlink 1200 (4G/Wifi) and Wavlink 300 (not yet installed). My initial install was using the EAP225 and a Yaggi Antenna to provide access to some camera about 150m to 300m. The Wavlink is the strongest so far in long distance. I still would like to test the second 300 if it will improve the outdoor connectivity and use the EAP225 indoor. I can see some challenges with WAVLINK as it is not as advanced config as you could have with EAP225 (omada) and some default settings that are not really secured. For a cheap solution I think WAVLINK is good enough. I even noticed my local park in the UK has the WAVLINK for their cctv. I hope it gives you some answer. PS: I can monitor 6 cameras using a 4G connection with the WAVLINK setup which is very good as the site is 4000km away from me.@@WilReid
I'm running Ubiquiti UAP-MeshACs in outdoor scenarios and they're great. 80-100€ usually. TP-Link also offers some equipment in multiple product lines. The Omada ones are a good alternative. If a directional antenna is fine TP-Links CPEs and Ubiquitis Nanostations are awesome for around 50€.
I've been astounded by the UAP-AC-LR that I bought to hold us over until a proper multiple-WAP system could be set up. Over 5 years later, we still just have the single WAP. It's not even mounted properly (it's vertical, on a wall, instead of horizontal) but our devices don't disconnect until we're over 100m away. The signal is a bit _flaky_ at that distance, but still usable!
Metal guttet piper can also block or scadder Wireless signals if a wireless device is attached to it. Another this if your wireless is in back of the house outside and you are in front of the house is can lower the speed of the wireless device being it needs to go through and around the house to get to it. I know this much from wireless testing my-self.
I helped my father-in-law set one of these up to give additional coverage for his backyard shed and motorhome parking pad. It works OK for those uses for him.
Just wanted to comment on this i am also a technical geek and when i got my wavlink ac600 i being so smart i dident need instructions well come to find out after testing and testing i discovered i had the 2.4 antenna on the 5g hookup and 5g on 2.4 side felt so stupid worked great after switching it around. Went from a few feet signal to 200 to 400 feet easy. Also there is a power setting once logged in to the device to turn it up or down i think there is a three power setting just food for thought. Happy testing
The better signal further away is not a surprise. Many cheaper outdoor access points can overload the receiver at short ranges which leads to packet corruption.
I run the wac link 600 unit with openwrt on it, it’s ok for the money and the fact that it’s outdoor/weather resistant. It’s not in the league of the more expensive stuff but you get what you pay for
Good info, I was having issues connecting my detached garage 3 years ago. I ran an outdoor cat6 to a TP-link in and outdoor rated poly box with an extension cord; what an S-show. Then I switched to an ASUS gaming router mesh network, and I am good. I would like to upgrade my antennas and get a bit more coverage.
I have been buying old Apple Airport devices from cash converters and CEX in the UK for about £10 each , and they're fantastic value . Mac loves em and they work great , cheap enough to put in outhouses , garage and the loft . WiFi heaven everywhere baby .
I use compact TP-Link CPE710 (5GHz 867Mbps) directional parabolic antenna to transfer network to a distant location. Working great over a year with full available speed 250 Mbps.
I need for my big and little barn for lambing and calving...better to keep an eye on critters. Have looked at a few videos for different ones, stopped in to watch this, thanks for doing the review!
Wifi is only half-duplex. The 150mbps loss isn't due to overhead. It's due to the radios only being able to send or receive at one time. I'm a Senior Network Engineer that maintains campus networks.
Yeah, somehow the marketing departments are allowed to market HALF DUPLEX speeds over a span of more than 1s.... As speed/bits per second, pretty ludicrous if you as me. Not sure how the lawyers haven't caught on yet.... (I mean, comeon, they went looking for the other 24bits per kilobyte years ago....)
Tell me about it, wifi can be a pain. My boss was running Aerohive, now Extreme WIFI cloud managed access points. They perform all the nitpicky stuff automatically for best throughput.
Yeah I've had the explain to way too many Executives that you can't cram 150 students into a classroom with 4 Cisco 3802's. Just doesn't work. Each student has at least 3 devices.. a laptop, a phone, and a watch or a tablet. So we are talking 450 devices. "But the students are complaining of slowness" okay... Tell them to turn off their phones...
I just set up 3 of these for a client. They were cheap and didn't preform well. For the cost they wanted to spend it kinda works. However, I feel ill he back to replace them with something that works
I took the same product to a campsite, and acted as a repeater to Starlink Mini. It was useable for web browsing to about 150 feet and definitely not 450ft per advertised. I guess this $40 device served its specific use case for now.
Besides the metal rain gutter causing an issue as others have mentioned, your cell phone only has a tiny antenna. Sure the phone can hear the AP's transmissions, but can the AP hear the phone's ACK reply transmissions? Phones and laptops will end up having to transmit at 100% power to "be heard" by the AP. Consumer devices don't like 100% duty cycle. They will be destined to fail, sooner rather than later. Wouldn't this normally be done with a 1-to-1 directional link that exposes an AP on the extension's side? Using something like a Ubiquiti airMAX LiteBeam for the link? If not Ubiquiti, at least the same radio link concept. Those really are omnidirectional antennas trying to do a directional antenna's job.
Not saying this device isn’t terrible but it’s also important to consider other outside interference. No channel selection or planning was done and it’s very reasonable that the AP selected an overlapping channel (since it’s 2.4GHz only). It’s also possible that it choose a non overlapping channel, and when you got further from it, your SnR went into the gutter due to interference from the neighbor where your phone saw a better margin from your home SSID and channel.
I had one but it was the AC1200 one and it did a little better. But it died in a month so it was kinda pointless. I switch to TpLink Omada out door access point and they perform amazing!
I have one of thease wavlinks never had any major issues with mine. if they stop working or loose conection switch them off for more then 20 seconds then back on. the higher you place them the further the signal will go. mine is at 27 feet off the floor and i can get about 80 yards in distance. plus mine is a older model better ui on mine the wizards are crap do a manual setup if you are able everytime. as there are country settings. had mine up for over 3 year south facing in sheffield northern england.. they dont look well after a ccouple of years they turn yellow. and that mounting bracket them plastic clips break after a few times of removal and reinstallation. they are cheap though .
Yeah there is a reason I only buy Ubiquiti when I'm running wireless outside. But I have also bought some cheap APs that worked "okay" for personal use, But I would never install them for my commercial customers. Although Ubiquiti has made some annoying business decisions as of late, such as removing the ability to configure their Nano stations as PTMP for client devices.
3:25 My ISP started storing their batteries and media converters in a box on the pole outside. The first year we lived here after our house got set up the internet went out one day. I walked out and opened their box and it was absolutely inundated with ants; a can of bug killer and canned air to clean it all out and it was all good. Every spring I go spray a liberal coat of spectricide all over the pole and wires around the box to keep insects out and we haven't had any issues since I started doing that.
So I used those access points for nearly 2 years to go about 500 yards it was a different use case I use them to connect to each other when I was living off grid I'm not going to say it was a perfect experience but it did work when other wireless routers wouldn't but shot equality was definitely a problem
The ad at the beginning... You nailed it buddy. I think that's the only entertaining product placement I've seen on a channel that isn't Rich Rebuilds.
I have a feeling, something went wrong here, and i'm not willing to entirely blame these devices, i think you should try a few more mounting positions for it, like maybe higher up, maybe different antenna orientation, maybe away from ductwork. I'm getting better performance out of a garbage TP-Link pocket router that looks like a wall wart and is a wall wart that sits indoors in a steel reinforced concrete building while 400 other APs are also shouting along and work as jammers, that's city life for you. I have my home WiFi while waiting for a bus on the opposite side of an adjoining street separated by gardens.
What I don't understand is there's so many wifi devices out there that claim something like 300Mbps and then only have a 10/100Mbps RJ45 like this one -_- When trying to get internet to my shop on a half acre, I ultimately just got a couple SMA passive outdoor antenna's connected to a linksys wrt1900ac as the transmitter and a wrt1200ac as the receiver. It works good enough to stream YT in HD inside the shop. Back then I didn't know of Mikrotik, so later I will get their point to point antennas if need be.
I expect that radio interference from all the other wireless equipment in your neighbourhood is stifling the data transmission of this device. A remote farm that is situated distant from neighbouring property would alleviate that problem. Back in the early days of wifi I was using 802.11a and 802.11b at distances of 300m from my home, admittedly at not particularly fast speeds, but there was no interference from neighbours (i.e. No one had smart phones with wifi back then). EDIT: Turn off your Ubiquiti kit and try again. Heh.
I ordered two Wavlink outdoor APs and after experience with one they were returned, with the other still unopened. The one I opened could only be configured over wifi and not on the ethernet port. The ethernet port was the only one with some kind of security, physical access required, but couldn’t be used to configure the device. That was enough for me to declare it not fit for purpose.
The placement is bad. Metal gutter, metal overhang, and low. I used to run a wisp (gwisp) and we did testing and could get connections up to 35 miles. Not feet... Here is a few things to note. Pre 2007 hardware has higher power, the .gov limited the power by 90% due to the uptake and the wave noise... (Too many users , too few bands (3)). One of my faves was the Cisco AP's you attach a antenna cable and outdoors antenna. I still have some, the antenna cable has a 4cm dia. And a 8mm2 core. This was then attached to the ap and power dialed in. I also made antennas. (They're easy to make) and ran tests and found that it worked. However the goal back then was a 11mb trans rate. With a backhaul of 150mb (unhread of speeds back then) Antenna, are beasts to deal with, they can cancel themselves, be untunned and cause more problems than they resolve. A cheap, quick and easy WiFi would be to use the ESP32, and get some firmware. At £6 a ap. You can go out there and make a mesh, however the quality is not uniform in the WiFi power. Apparently they have resolved the issue on the new esp. but as they are tiny,a solar powered one works and they fit under light data. I think the price and look is great, however with problems like power signals, then it's not all good. It's a to good to be true. Try again moving the antenna. And bunny those antenna. And move of off of the metal and from the over hang. Don't forget the signal reflects and this cancels or confuses adding to drops and bad packets as well as ping times. And of hand, I think anywhere between the antenna poles is going to be very bad. As a side note I had a ap that was really bad when you were close to it and fantastic far away Try WiFi analysis app. That will show you where signals are best and there are other apps that you can use to plot a site. Obviously check the thing works first lol.
I would love to see you use like 2nd hand enterprise AP's (Ruckus/HPE-Aruba/Cisco/Engenius etc) I use 4 x Ruckus R510's (Unleashed firmware) and i'm amazed by how great they work, the setup/expanding network etc is a breeze. Then there's the build-in tools.... HPE-Aruba also amazing stuff and if you look around you can get them quite cheap, sure they are older but overall they are better compared to newer/more recent consumer stuff. And to give an idea about the power they got, when i drive in my street my phone/tablet/laptop picks up my wifi right away. This at a range of at least 80 meters/ 262 feet. The AP's are by no means positioned to give a good signal outside. If i do need good wifi outside i got a Engenius ENH500 (which i used to setup bridged wifi locations with largest distance being 450 meters/1476 feet.
What would you recommend for a wireless access point for a long distance. Like a football field. Trying to stream. It is based at a lower elevation with some trees etc In path. Any help would be greatly appreciated
I got different results. At 30ft 87.9 mbps in download and 75.0 mbps in upload, with a ping of 2ms. I need to be in direct line of sight though. But it's perfect for my need in my situation.
Buddy uses one of these to get wifi on his camper trailer (from the park provided wifi) as it works well as an external antenna. Runs to an old router to give him wifi around his camper.
Like the other guys have pointed out you probably have a reflection issue. Lots of expensive access points can do beam forming. Cheap ones usually don't and have a big reflector so close is probably degrading it. Lift it up so the antenna's are not shrouded in anythinf
i guess you were too close to the antennae in the first test. Seems to works best between 25 and 50 feet . Maybe that's to do with WAVE LENGTH . . im not sure whether you were using 2.4, 5 or 40 ghz. Wireless does have a hard limit when omnidirectional.
More importantly why is somebody looking over your shoulder while you're setting this thing up? I mean they would've saw you type in your password anyway. I like that they give you one last chance to make sure you memorized it or wrote it down securely although there definitely should be a double confirmation comparison box and they could've added a visibility check box. I saw these things somewhere last week and I was wondering how well they worked.
Hey, what are you thoughts on Mikrotik's CAPsMAN system? I plan on setting up mesh wifi at my place (a 2 story building of concrete construction) and the consumer grade wifi mesh systems dont cut it for me
Honestly I'm a bit disspointed with this test. First off was there any attempt to choose a channel with the least interference? I'll admit that 2.4GHz, with it's only 3 channels in the narrowest channel option isn't great, but it's still something to check. In addition I'm quite concerned about the antennas being left pointing straight up, it's entirely possible that having them at 90 degrees from each other, or at 180 degrees might improve results. Finally, that rain gutter is metal, and it's going to have a HUGE effect on the propagation effects of those antennas. You could be dealing with dead spots. Best to mount it on something non conductive to see if that makes a difference. I don't doubt that these things aren't great, but this test wasn't anywhere near robust enough to draw the conclusion you did.
The wizard should have picked the least used channel in the area. If it didn't, what's the point in having the wizard. The antenna are directional, they radiate the signal perpendicular to the antenna. So if you have them parallel to the ground, you end up with a disc going straight up and down, wasting most of the signal. The point in having 2 is allowing diversity - that is taking the difference between the received signals to remove noise and do wave beaming.
@@Anaerin First off, it appears the initial setup was indoors, not outside, so channel selection may have happened then, and then be fixed. At the very least, mention should have been made. As for the antenna orientation, it's FAR more complicated than you state. You forget that there are always TWO antennas involved, the transmitting antenna, and the receiving antenna (for the purpose of this statement, I'm labeling the AP as the transmitter, and the phone running the speed test as the receiver, I'm fully aware both are actually transceivers, swapping TX and RX duties, but that isn't relevant to this discussion due to reciprocity). Since we are dealing with non circular polarlization, you can't assume the receiving antenna is pointed straight up, perfectly perpendicular to the transmitting antenna. At the very least, the smartphone antenna is probably a multiple antenna in multiple orientations. That means it's generally good practice to have your transmitting side to be a variety of orientations (90 degrees apart allows for full coverage of any receiving orientation). This of course is a massive simplification, and doesn't take into account reflections in the environment. At the very least, attempts should have been made to reorient the antennas to see if it affected speed test results. On the whole, there is ALWAYS a bit of experimentation needed to develop the best positioning of an AP, and how it's antennas are oriented. After all, if that wasn't a needed step, AP makers wouldn't make external antennas adjustable.
all good points. I was also underwhelmed with the test approach and the resulting recommendation Also - did he try walking in different directions from the AP? The poor AP likely chose a different channel from the powerful ubiquity Ap in his lab while he ran the wizard. Very different from the outdoor environment. If he’d happened to walk toward a neighbour using the same channel as the cheap little AP, it would have no chance competing on that channel. These tests and the configuration is best done in situ. If the friend wants Wi-Fi a few hundred feet on his farm, then he likely has very little in the way of other neighbourhood Wi-Fi to contend with. I’d suspect that if configured on site and tested there it would work far better
One thing I learnt, a long time ago. To never buy cheap networking equipment. They either don't work great, or don't work in the heat of summer. At a minimum, pay about £100 ($130USD, I think), and get a decent, low-end product. Anything else will just cause headaches for the end-user, and ask you to fix the problems (that they might blame you for, for not setting up correctly). Can they be overkill? Yes, but they're often better designed, too. Edit: Oh... I love me a stout. Makes me look forward to what I have saving for tomorrow.
you don't put it in a place where someone can reach the cable. But then again wifi APs are usually put on a secondary subnet with limited access to the rest of the network anyway
I wonder if trying good quality antennas might shed some light on why the range and quality of the signals were poor? The load of cheap antennas can reflect a high percentage of the signal back into the transmitter and spoil the results. PS - The deal breaker for me is the lack of a WPA-Enterprise option fed by a RADIUS system.
Do you have any suggestions for bridging an access point wirelessly? Something that can be hung outside with an ideally with a unidirectional antenna to aim at the access point for internet access, and 1 omnidirectional to function as the access point?
In Germany it is allowed to send with higher rates indoors vs outdoors. So to compare an indoor AP with outdoor is may be not fair? Have you looked into advanced settings if theres an option to change this setting?
The p2p unifi works great for long range p2p and local wifi accesspoint.. they are not 30$ though.. a pair is about 350$. Not cheap but I have had them struck by lightning and after changing out the cat5/6 cable function fine. (Milage may vary) .. this was on a 4.5 mile connection across a farm in NC. We even hooked up neighbors to the link up. Very cool devices
hmm is that a metal gutter? also use your LAN for testing not the internet, use a tool like fing for signal strength which might have show if the metal gutter was a prob
I have Starlink and I bought this after watching your video, it worked for a couple days then it started interfering with my Starlink modem, causing Starlink to block wifi access to pretty much every device. Even screwed wired connections. I order a 2nd one just in case but no the same issue. I wonder if you have notice issues with your network after a while
No in an outdoor setting 5GHz is a lot better. It's obstructions that stop 5GHz which works to your favour when using line of sight, less interference. 2.4 is very unreliable outside because it picks up all the home WiFi within 1km. 5GHz does not because it can barely leave the building.
ive got two older (EOL) Ubiquiti Aps set up to run as a mesh with eth backhauls to both. tried tplink and a few other brands but NONE have been as good as these 2nd hand, ebay special Ubiquiti units. slowly swapping out all my switches for Ubiquiti gear as well from a hodge podge of cisco and tplink
Love the festive spin on the manscaping ad
When I run WiFi to someone's barn, if the barn has power, I just run a point to point link.
Get a cheap second router that will run in client mode.
Get 2x cheap/free parabolic reflectors (satellite tv dishes aren't tuned for 2.4GHz, but they do usually work.)
Attach one dish on each building, pointing at each other.
replace one of the router antennae with a pigtail that goes up to the dish focal point.
I've easily gotten +500ft (+180m) point-to-point links this way. And it can be almost free depending on where you source your hardware.
For the parabolic reflectors, you can use a Mikrotik LDF P2P/P2MP.
Until the power bumps reset the router and OOPS, multiple dhcp servers on one lan 😂
@@jamess1787 I've literally never had a problem with a router returning to factory settings.
That doesn't mean there ISN'T an issue, it just means that in 20ish years, over hundreds of routers, I've never seen it happen. (Though I HAVE seen all sorts of other weird stuff)
@@markarca6360 I've had luck with quite a few different things as parabolic reflectors.
As I stated, I've used discarded satellite Tv dishes (I still pick them up when I see them in the trash. But I have like 8x left over now so I should stop...)
I've also used a particular dollar-store wok that I found to be an almost perfect parabola. And various cheap wire-basket cooking strainers.
You could also make a yagi if you care. They aren't hard.
i would like to see this test repeated without the antennas being so close to the metal gutter, and the two antennas at 90 degrees to eachother.
the reason for the 90 deg angle is so that the two antennas dont overrwhelm and desensitise eachother. diversity reception/transmission should work a lot better,
to be thorough, an analysis of the antennas on some cheap VNA like the nanoVNA would be also a useful indicattion if they are actually any good,
I thought the same thing! Assuming the unit wasn't tested off-camera I'd recommend doing some additional testing away from metal objects and playing with the antenna stuff a bit.
Ham radio has a lot of material on antennas and the theory they teach might be helpful with troubleshooting this further!
Take apart the antenna and check it's design... better antennas?
Came to say this as well. While I am sure these things aren't top of the line, they likely perform A LOT better at the intended install site of a remote farm without many other interfering networks. The reason he was seeing the speed test jump all over the place was due to interference from other networks, and possible multipath distortion from all the cars, houses, and other obstacles in the neighborhood.
Most enterprise and prosumer grade hotspots have not only higher strength radios but also routines to analyze competing local WiFi networks across all available channels, and dynamically shift to more appropriate channels to minimize interference, which is likely why his Ubiquiti one performed so much better from the same distance.
He has no clue on networking that has to be about the worst spot its literally inside a Faraday cage
Low with roof blocking everything above gutter blocking back half who knows its sig to router is
Anyway those r common 5db ants and he killed 80% its power
Agreed. Though I think he was just doing what the average consumer might do - which highlights the bad design of the product, having the antennae so close in the first place. I'd bet on it being a better result if they had put the SMA connectors on the sides, rather than the top, opposite each other. The larger gap would help, even if both antennae were parallel.
So I think he has the right conclusion overall, but for the wrong reason. If he were to mount it properly (ie, as high up as practically possible, with the antennae clear of surrounding barriers) it'd improve, even if he left them pointing straight up.
I've deployed 8 tp-link N300 LR's across 5 different locations, and they been friggin stellar - surviving torrential downpours, 112 degree heat, all while never encountering a single issue with them, I cant see myself ever using something else (as long as theres no high bandwidth requirement).
Used to get them for 37 bucks, probably a little more these days, but worth it - I've got two of these as point to point at my parents place just under a half mile apart, and get about 120Mbps between the two. I couldnt believe it tbh... but we now have 4 video feeds streaming from the barn to the house a half mile away, and I cant argue with that!
which ones? they offer a few.. N300 is just the WiFi spec.. whats the model numbers, please?
@@methanoid they only make one N300 based outdoor long range model. It's called the CPE210, in case you're having a hard time finding it 👍
For anything over 500ft, I've always set them up in linked pairs, though that's honestly probably not necessary unless they're being set up in somewhat crowded locations (e.g. lots of other SSID's available in the area from other users)... I've never had to deal with that though personally, as the locations where I've ended up using them have always been extremely rural with very low population density.
my oldest ubiquity 2.4ghz AP i installed in the shed in my back yard gives me like 150' range easily. worth the money spent. I have newer 5ghz unifi access points around the house and also well worth every bit of the money.
@Kirk Eby that's what I have... very happy with them. 3200 ft/sq coverage over two floors with three UAP AC pro. I used the heat map to plan my layout. I planned for 4 but really only needed 3. Perfect coverage in every room.
The metal gutter may be detuning the antennas. Try mounting it on a piece of wood.
Yeah most likely acting as a shield, and height also affects range.
Yes, this was my first thought as well. Not saying this product is any good, but if that gutter is metal, it'll definitely affect the performance of those antenna's.
No doubt about it. I was going to say something about it but you beat me to it. The gutter being about an inch from the antennas is DEFINITELY raising their SWR and greatly reducing their efficiency and changing their polar pattern. Get it up in the air and off the ground and keep the antennas at least a foot or two away from metal.
I was thinking the same, BUT the device is also made for pole mounting. When pole mounted there's about a 99% chance it would be against metal.
add a bunch of the comments together and the unit might actually perform closer to advertised
Wait...did you strap it directly to a huge hunk of metal right next to the antennas and not expect WIFI degradation?
Hmm...I wonder if it does a search for wifi signal so it doesn't crosstalk with other channels
Optimum install would be on the top of an old TV pushup pole ABOVE the roofline...the higher the signal and more line of site = better signal propagation
Unless it's inside a warehouse, then you would use patch antennas pointed at zones
a chunk of metal behind them acts as a ground plain & so makes them more directional.
the slightly more Wavlink dual 600 & 1200 are better test them
@@paulmaydaynight9925 A chunk of metal CORRECTLY POSITIONED could indeed act as a ground plane, but random metal near antennas is at least as likely to mostly cancel out the signal in some directions.
Basically, if it's not designed to be adjacent to metal, it's a bad idea to juxtapose them.
Test it mounted to a non-metallic surface and test again, just in case.
I have had this unit for 2 plus years in southern Ontario (down to minus 30 C). I test from about 100 yards from the antenna tower it is mounted on. It is also on a Ethernet connection of about a100 feet using the POE. The cable is connected to a port on a the third router connected in series to the internet (needed the ports, it works). I routinely get 8 to 10 Mbits. When I visit my friend across the lake (1000 plus feet) I can still get 2 Mbits (it is painful). In all cases it it nearly a clear line of site. (My background it IT and networks). I benchmark the speeds frequently and it is reliable and consistent. When I am 50 feet from the unit I can get much higher speeds (30 plus). Your advice for mounting it high and open is a good start. Not sure why this fellows speed are so terrible but I would most certainly move it away from the metal down spout for a start and retest. I tested it once with it on my starlink connected thru a wireless extender linked to Starlink (only option till they deliver a Ethernet connect) and it ran a 30 Mbit at 100 yards. I was quite surprised. Hope to retest this once Starlink Ethernet arrives and I reduce the number of routers etc.
Some people just like to film themselves and spit their opinions everywhere....😂😂
A plug will definitely fit through the "gasket" at the bottom. If you just pop the gasket out, you will see that the hole in it has a slit over to the side so that you can just slide the gasket/foam over your cord, even if it has an existing plug already on the end of it. (9:00)
My company tried to see if these were useable... We were sadly disappointed.
Don't try factory resetting it btw, you'll end up with it in ap mode but still broadcasting dhcp.
Also, I love how if you go to adjust the signal strength, full signal is the image of a pregnant woman.
In the end, which device did you choose?
@@AlexeyDnepr tplink's outdoor aps
@@yevsey169How are the TP-Link holding up and what's the range like? My friend has a barn 150-200 feet from his house and I'm trying to figure out something not crazy expensive to recommend to him. He has power (solar + battery) in the barn if that changes the suggestion.
I have bought 2 TP-Link EAP225 1 Wavlink 1200 (4G/Wifi) and Wavlink 300 (not yet installed). My initial install was using the EAP225 and a Yaggi Antenna to provide access to some camera about 150m to 300m. The Wavlink is the strongest so far in long distance. I still would like to test the second 300 if it will improve the outdoor connectivity and use the EAP225 indoor. I can see some challenges with WAVLINK as it is not as advanced config as you could have with EAP225 (omada) and some default settings that are not really secured. For a cheap solution I think WAVLINK is good enough. I even noticed my local park in the UK has the WAVLINK for their cctv. I hope it gives you some answer. PS: I can monitor 6 cameras using a 4G connection with the WAVLINK setup which is very good as the site is 4000km away from me.@@WilReid
I'm running Ubiquiti UAP-MeshACs in outdoor scenarios and they're great. 80-100€ usually. TP-Link also offers some equipment in multiple product lines. The Omada ones are a good alternative. If a directional antenna is fine TP-Links CPEs and Ubiquitis Nanostations are awesome for around 50€.
I've been astounded by the UAP-AC-LR that I bought to hold us over until a proper multiple-WAP system could be set up.
Over 5 years later, we still just have the single WAP. It's not even mounted properly (it's vertical, on a wall, instead of horizontal) but our devices don't disconnect until we're over 100m away. The signal is a bit _flaky_ at that distance, but still usable!
As a professional installer I need to point out that the antennas should be in a Y configuration. They are distorting each other right now :-).
I can only test as they delivered.
@@CraftComputing can you retest, including all the optimisations people have suggested in these comments?
I'm considering it, though this video isn't exactly performing well. I might save it for a rainy day next month.
I'm normally an ad skipper, but I do not skip Craft's Manscaped ads, as a personal rule.
Best manscaped ad I've ever seen.
Metal guttet piper can also block or scadder Wireless signals if a wireless device is attached to it. Another this if your wireless is in back of the house outside and you are in front of the house is can lower the speed of the wireless device being it needs to go through and around the house to get to it. I know this much from wireless testing my-self.
I was setting up WiFi at my uncles and considered one of these. I then switched and bought Unifi Flex HD... So much better! Thank god for that
I helped my father-in-law set one of these up to give additional coverage for his backyard shed and motorhome parking pad. It works OK for those uses for him.
Just wanted to comment on this i am also a technical geek and when i got my wavlink ac600 i being so smart i dident need instructions well come to find out after testing and testing i discovered i had the 2.4 antenna on the 5g hookup and 5g on 2.4 side felt so stupid worked great after switching it around. Went from a few feet signal to 200 to 400 feet easy. Also there is a power setting once logged in to the device to turn it up or down i think there is a three power setting just food for thought. Happy testing
Easily the best landscape commercial I think I've seen in a very very long time lol
I just want to say that is the best manscapped add I have ever seen, and I dont have cable, so I have seen a lot
Try grounding the AP's earth\Grnd terminal to the gutter drain. It's absorbing some of the RF from the AP. Mount it to wood instead.
The better signal further away is not a surprise. Many cheaper outdoor access points can overload the receiver at short ranges which leads to packet corruption.
I run the wac link 600 unit with openwrt on it, it’s ok for the money and the fact that it’s outdoor/weather resistant. It’s not in the league of the more expensive stuff but you get what you pay for
Can we please get a booting over the network video?
Good info, I was having issues connecting my detached garage 3 years ago. I ran an outdoor cat6 to a TP-link in and outdoor rated poly box with an extension cord; what an S-show. Then I switched to an ASUS gaming router mesh network, and I am good. I would like to upgrade my antennas and get a bit more coverage.
This manscaping add is GOLD! I hope they have a you bonus for that creativity!
I have been buying old Apple Airport devices from cash converters and CEX in the UK for about £10 each , and they're fantastic value .
Mac loves em and they work great , cheap enough to put in outhouses , garage and the loft .
WiFi heaven everywhere baby .
I use compact TP-Link CPE710 (5GHz 867Mbps) directional parabolic antenna to transfer network to a distant location. Working great over a year with full available speed 250 Mbps.
I need for my big and little barn for lambing and calving...better to keep an eye on critters. Have looked at a few videos for different ones, stopped in to watch this, thanks for doing the review!
Wifi is only half-duplex. The 150mbps loss isn't due to overhead. It's due to the radios only being able to send or receive at one time. I'm a Senior Network Engineer that maintains campus networks.
Yeah, somehow the marketing departments are allowed to market HALF DUPLEX speeds over a span of more than 1s.... As speed/bits per second, pretty ludicrous if you as me. Not sure how the lawyers haven't caught on yet.... (I mean, comeon, they went looking for the other 24bits per kilobyte years ago....)
Tell me about it, wifi can be a pain. My boss was running Aerohive, now Extreme WIFI cloud managed access points. They perform all the nitpicky stuff automatically for best throughput.
Yeah I've had the explain to way too many Executives that you can't cram 150 students into a classroom with 4 Cisco 3802's. Just doesn't work. Each student has at least 3 devices.. a laptop, a phone, and a watch or a tablet. So we are talking 450 devices. "But the students are complaining of slowness" okay... Tell them to turn off their phones...
I just set up 3 of these for a client. They were cheap and didn't preform well. For the cost they wanted to spend it kinda works. However, I feel ill he back to replace them with something that works
I took the same product to a campsite, and acted as a repeater to Starlink Mini. It was useable for web browsing to about 150 feet and definitely not 450ft per advertised. I guess this $40 device served its specific use case for now.
Besides the metal rain gutter causing an issue as others have mentioned, your cell phone only has a tiny antenna. Sure the phone can hear the AP's transmissions, but can the AP hear the phone's ACK reply transmissions?
Phones and laptops will end up having to transmit at 100% power to "be heard" by the AP. Consumer devices don't like 100% duty cycle. They will be destined to fail, sooner rather than later. Wouldn't this normally be done with a 1-to-1 directional link that exposes an AP on the extension's side? Using something like a Ubiquiti airMAX LiteBeam for the link? If not Ubiquiti, at least the same radio link concept. Those really are omnidirectional antennas trying to do a directional antenna's job.
Not saying this device isn’t terrible but it’s also important to consider other outside interference. No channel selection or planning was done and it’s very reasonable that the AP selected an overlapping channel (since it’s 2.4GHz only). It’s also possible that it choose a non overlapping channel, and when you got further from it, your SnR went into the gutter due to interference from the neighbor where your phone saw a better margin from your home SSID and channel.
I had one but it was the AC1200 one and it did a little better. But it died in a month so it was kinda pointless. I switch to TpLink Omada out door access point and they perform amazing!
Those xmas decor look smooth
Go up to the AC600 version and you can re flash with openwrt. Much more flexibility and security.
I have one of thease wavlinks never had any major issues with mine. if they stop working or loose conection switch them off for more then 20 seconds then back on. the higher you place them the further the signal will go. mine is at 27 feet off the floor and i can get about 80 yards in distance. plus mine is a older model better ui on mine the wizards are crap do a manual setup if you are able everytime. as there are country settings. had mine up for over 3 year south facing in sheffield northern england.. they dont look well after a ccouple of years they turn yellow. and that mounting bracket them plastic clips break after a few times of removal and reinstallation. they are cheap though .
on the wave link do have to change the ip address or leave the default if to hook it up to your network using the lan setting
Similar results for myself, I also tried extending a cable at the 70-ft mark and the power over ethernet would not drive the access point.
Yeah there is a reason I only buy Ubiquiti when I'm running wireless outside. But I have also bought some cheap APs that worked "okay" for personal use, But I would never install them for my commercial customers. Although Ubiquiti has made some annoying business decisions as of late, such as removing the ability to configure their Nano stations as PTMP for client devices.
3:25 My ISP started storing their batteries and media converters in a box on the pole outside. The first year we lived here after our house got set up the internet went out one day. I walked out and opened their box and it was absolutely inundated with ants; a can of bug killer and canned air to clean it all out and it was all good. Every spring I go spray a liberal coat of spectricide all over the pole and wires around the box to keep insects out and we haven't had any issues since I started doing that.
last time my cat got outside it was raining... he was an outdoor WAP.
hapve a happy merry and a merry happy!
So I used those access points for nearly 2 years to go about 500 yards it was a different use case I use them to connect to each other when I was living off grid I'm not going to say it was a perfect experience but it did work when other wireless routers wouldn't but shot equality was definitely a problem
The ad at the beginning... You nailed it buddy. I think that's the only entertaining product placement I've seen on a channel that isn't Rich Rebuilds.
You don't watch Ageing Wheels?
@@SianaGearz Okay you win. That guy is ridiculous.
I have a feeling, something went wrong here, and i'm not willing to entirely blame these devices, i think you should try a few more mounting positions for it, like maybe higher up, maybe different antenna orientation, maybe away from ductwork. I'm getting better performance out of a garbage TP-Link pocket router that looks like a wall wart and is a wall wart that sits indoors in a steel reinforced concrete building while 400 other APs are also shouting along and work as jammers, that's city life for you. I have my home WiFi while waiting for a bus on the opposite side of an adjoining street separated by gardens.
The height make all the difference, the best speed coverage is on top of the house or a big pole.
What I don't understand is there's so many wifi devices out there that claim something like 300Mbps and then only have a 10/100Mbps RJ45 like this one -_- When trying to get internet to my shop on a half acre, I ultimately just got a couple SMA passive outdoor antenna's connected to a linksys wrt1900ac as the transmitter and a wrt1200ac as the receiver. It works good enough to stream YT in HD inside the shop. Back then I didn't know of Mikrotik, so later I will get their point to point antennas if need be.
That festive ad-spot was hilarious!
Have you considered channel contention? Is there too much interference from your existing network?
I expect that radio interference from all the other wireless equipment in your neighbourhood is stifling the data transmission of this device. A remote farm that is situated distant from neighbouring property would alleviate that problem. Back in the early days of wifi I was using 802.11a and 802.11b at distances of 300m from my home, admittedly at not particularly fast speeds, but there was no interference from neighbours (i.e. No one had smart phones with wifi back then).
EDIT: Turn off your Ubiquiti kit and try again. Heh.
Would it be better if you wanted it for extended range to get to a workshop about 30 meters away give or take a few
The manscaped ad again perfectly on point .
Would checking the 2.4GHz spectrum up first, be a better approach, while using it at an urban area?
Is it possible that the tiny POE injector is not providing enough juice?
I ordered two Wavlink outdoor APs and after experience with one they were returned, with the other still unopened. The one I opened could only be configured over wifi and not on the ethernet port. The ethernet port was the only one with some kind of security, physical access required, but couldn’t be used to configure the device. That was enough for me to declare it not fit for purpose.
Doesn't the metal from the gutter degrade the signal?
The placement is bad.
Metal gutter, metal overhang, and low.
I used to run a wisp (gwisp) and we did testing and could get connections up to 35 miles.
Not feet...
Here is a few things to note.
Pre 2007 hardware has higher power, the .gov limited the power by 90% due to the uptake and the wave noise... (Too many users , too few bands (3)).
One of my faves was the Cisco AP's you attach a antenna cable and outdoors antenna. I still have some, the antenna cable has a 4cm dia. And a 8mm2 core.
This was then attached to the ap and power dialed in. I also made antennas. (They're easy to make) and ran tests and found that it worked. However the goal back then was a 11mb trans rate. With a backhaul of 150mb (unhread of speeds back then)
Antenna, are beasts to deal with, they can cancel themselves, be untunned and cause more problems than they resolve.
A cheap, quick and easy WiFi would be to use the ESP32, and get some firmware.
At £6 a ap. You can go out there and make a mesh, however the quality is not uniform in the WiFi power. Apparently they have resolved the issue on the new esp. but as they are tiny,a solar powered one works and they fit under light data.
I think the price and look is great, however with problems like power signals, then it's not all good. It's a to good to be true.
Try again moving the antenna.
And bunny those antenna. And move of off of the metal and from the over hang. Don't forget the signal reflects and this cancels or confuses adding to drops and bad packets as well as ping times.
And of hand, I think anywhere between the antenna poles is going to be very bad.
As a side note I had a ap that was really bad when you were close to it and fantastic far away
Try WiFi analysis app. That will show you where signals are best and there are other apps that you can use to plot a site.
Obviously check the thing works first lol.
Used this same wavlink at my parents property for them. Works ok, but had some issues, like the injector overheating and melting lol.
you could use power line if they share the same power meter the 2 buildings that is
I would love to see you use like 2nd hand enterprise AP's (Ruckus/HPE-Aruba/Cisco/Engenius etc) I use 4 x Ruckus R510's (Unleashed firmware) and i'm amazed by how great they work, the setup/expanding network etc is a breeze. Then there's the build-in tools.... HPE-Aruba also amazing stuff and if you look around you can get them quite cheap, sure they are older but overall they are better compared to newer/more recent consumer stuff.
And to give an idea about the power they got, when i drive in my street my phone/tablet/laptop picks up my wifi right away. This at a range of at least 80 meters/ 262 feet. The AP's are by no means positioned to give a good signal outside. If i do need good wifi outside i got a Engenius ENH500 (which i used to setup bridged wifi locations with largest distance being 450 meters/1476 feet.
What would you recommend for a wireless access point for a long distance. Like a football field. Trying to stream. It is based at a lower elevation with some trees etc In path. Any help would be greatly appreciated
I got different results. At 30ft 87.9 mbps in download and 75.0 mbps in upload, with a ping of 2ms. I need to be in direct line of sight though. But it's perfect for my need in my situation.
Why did you do a speed test roundtrip the Internet versus using iperf to test it in your LAN?
Hi , question
What would you recommend for boosting wifi in concrete basement for gaming !
Ugh thanks
I like the TP-Link access points for outdoor. Love the Ubiquiti NanoStations as well.
@Craft Computing can you use iperf to test the max throughput.
is that an optical drive in the background?
2x loco ac(5ghz) does fine as a bridge for 382.96ft~..... don't know if it's able to do ap; loco m2's did and also covered the same distance
Buddy uses one of these to get wifi on his camper trailer (from the park provided wifi) as it works well as an external antenna. Runs to an old router to give him wifi around his camper.
I just want to know where you found the linux mac and windows wallpaper where mac looks like a hipster
Try the tp link omada outdoor access point they have two versions the more powerful version is provides wireless ac
Probably a stupid question but I'll do it anyway: did you update the firmware before doing the test?
Can you swap the antennas out and try again?
Got a 7Links branded wich is exactly similar bad aswell the poe injector..
Like the other guys have pointed out you probably have a reflection issue. Lots of expensive access points can do beam forming. Cheap ones usually don't and have a big reflector so close is probably degrading it. Lift it up so the antenna's are not shrouded in anythinf
i guess you were too close to the antennae in the first test. Seems to works best between 25 and 50 feet . Maybe that's to do with WAVE LENGTH . . im not sure whether you were using 2.4, 5 or 40 ghz. Wireless does have a hard limit when omnidirectional.
Lol that was a great ad 😂
More importantly why is somebody looking over your shoulder while you're setting this thing up? I mean they would've saw you type in your password anyway. I like that they give you one last chance to make sure you memorized it or wrote it down securely although there definitely should be a double confirmation comparison box and they could've added a visibility check box. I saw these things somewhere last week and I was wondering how well they worked.
Hey, what are you thoughts on Mikrotik's CAPsMAN system? I plan on setting up mesh wifi at my place (a 2 story building of concrete construction) and the consumer grade wifi mesh systems dont cut it for me
As long as your religious about firmware updates for security purposes...
@@unmanaged good thing Mikrotik is still pushing updates to devices that are more than 5 years old
You always have the best script for Manscape :)
I seem to be having issues with this Wavlink with mobiles auto connecting to it any tips or help on why? Thanks for your video share!
Honestly I'm a bit disspointed with this test. First off was there any attempt to choose a channel with the least interference? I'll admit that 2.4GHz, with it's only 3 channels in the narrowest channel option isn't great, but it's still something to check.
In addition I'm quite concerned about the antennas being left pointing straight up, it's entirely possible that having them at 90 degrees from each other, or at 180 degrees might improve results. Finally, that rain gutter is metal, and it's going to have a HUGE effect on the propagation effects of those antennas. You could be dealing with dead spots. Best to mount it on something non conductive to see if that makes a difference.
I don't doubt that these things aren't great, but this test wasn't anywhere near robust enough to draw the conclusion you did.
The wizard should have picked the least used channel in the area. If it didn't, what's the point in having the wizard. The antenna are directional, they radiate the signal perpendicular to the antenna. So if you have them parallel to the ground, you end up with a disc going straight up and down, wasting most of the signal. The point in having 2 is allowing diversity - that is taking the difference between the received signals to remove noise and do wave beaming.
@@Anaerin First off, it appears the initial setup was indoors, not outside, so channel selection may have happened then, and then be fixed. At the very least, mention should have been made.
As for the antenna orientation, it's FAR more complicated than you state. You forget that there are always TWO antennas involved, the transmitting antenna, and the receiving antenna (for the purpose of this statement, I'm labeling the AP as the transmitter, and the phone running the speed test as the receiver, I'm fully aware both are actually transceivers, swapping TX and RX duties, but that isn't relevant to this discussion due to reciprocity). Since we are dealing with non circular polarlization, you can't assume the receiving antenna is pointed straight up, perfectly perpendicular to the transmitting antenna. At the very least, the smartphone antenna is probably a multiple antenna in multiple orientations. That means it's generally good practice to have your transmitting side to be a variety of orientations (90 degrees apart allows for full coverage of any receiving orientation). This of course is a massive simplification, and doesn't take into account reflections in the environment. At the very least, attempts should have been made to reorient the antennas to see if it affected speed test results.
On the whole, there is ALWAYS a bit of experimentation needed to develop the best positioning of an AP, and how it's antennas are oriented. After all, if that wasn't a needed step, AP makers wouldn't make external antennas adjustable.
all good points. I was also underwhelmed with the test approach and the resulting recommendation
Also - did he try walking in different directions from the AP? The poor AP likely chose a different channel from the powerful ubiquity Ap in his lab while he ran the wizard. Very different from the outdoor environment. If he’d happened to walk toward a neighbour using the same channel as the cheap little AP, it would have no chance competing on that channel.
These tests and the configuration is best done in situ. If the friend wants Wi-Fi a few hundred feet on his farm, then he likely has very little in the way of other neighbourhood Wi-Fi to contend with. I’d suspect that if configured on site and tested there it would work far better
One thing I learnt, a long time ago. To never buy cheap networking equipment. They either don't work great, or don't work in the heat of summer. At a minimum, pay about £100 ($130USD, I think), and get a decent, low-end product. Anything else will just cause headaches for the end-user, and ask you to fix the problems (that they might blame you for, for not setting up correctly). Can they be overkill? Yes, but they're often better designed, too.
Edit:
Oh... I love me a stout. Makes me look forward to what I have saving for tomorrow.
How would you prevent some random guy from walking up to the access point, unplugging it and using the network cable for their laptop?
you don't put it in a place where someone can reach the cable. But then again wifi APs are usually put on a secondary subnet with limited access to the rest of the network anyway
I wonder if trying good quality antennas might shed some light on why the range and quality of the signals were poor? The load of cheap antennas can reflect a high percentage of the signal back into the transmitter and spoil the results.
PS - The deal breaker for me is the lack of a WPA-Enterprise option fed by a RADIUS system.
Have you ever looked into Yagi antennas? I have one hooked up to a repeater and it gives me just under a quarter-mile of coverage.
Do you have any suggestions for bridging an access point wirelessly? Something that can be hung outside with an ideally with a unidirectional antenna to aim at the access point for internet access, and 1 omnidirectional to function as the access point?
In Germany it is allowed to send with higher rates indoors vs outdoors. So to compare an indoor AP with outdoor is may be not fair? Have you looked into advanced settings if theres an option to change this setting?
The p2p unifi works great for long range p2p and local wifi accesspoint.. they are not 30$ though.. a pair is about 350$. Not cheap but I have had them struck by lightning and after changing out the cat5/6 cable function fine. (Milage may vary) .. this was on a 4.5 mile connection across a farm in NC. We even hooked up neighbors to the link up. Very cool devices
best intro EVER!!! manscape!!
hmm is that a metal gutter? also use your LAN for testing not the internet, use a tool like fing for signal strength which might have show if the metal gutter was a prob
Note also the best manscape ad I have seen
Metal gutter might be affecting the signal, also maybe the antennas aren't as good as they seem? Did you try any others?
Awesome job on this test, but now I'm wondering if the Poe wattage could be at choke for that AP
I have Starlink and I bought this after watching your video, it worked for a couple days then it started interfering with my Starlink modem, causing Starlink to block wifi access to pretty much every device. Even screwed wired connections. I order a 2nd one just in case but no the same issue. I wonder if you have notice issues with your network after a while
No in an outdoor setting 5GHz is a lot better. It's obstructions that stop 5GHz which works to your favour when using line of sight, less interference. 2.4 is very unreliable outside because it picks up all the home WiFi within 1km. 5GHz does not because it can barely leave the building.
I suspect in part you're getting some confusing reflections from the gutter you mounted it against...?
ive got two older (EOL) Ubiquiti Aps set up to run as a mesh with eth backhauls to both. tried tplink and a few other brands but NONE have been as good as these 2nd hand, ebay special Ubiquiti units. slowly swapping out all my switches for Ubiquiti gear as well from a hodge podge of cisco and tplink
Bro, why im unable to get the wavlink site open up? Its a frustrating setup so far.
Thank you for saving my money and time. Amazon seller is using half of your video but they conveniently cut off the performance test.
That last throwaway line made me wonder if you were about to go into a show and tell about your sponsor!