No help, but agreeing on the last point

Post #445,046 by drook 11/10/24 5:06:34 PM 11/10/24 5:06:34 PM Reply	No help, but agreeing on the last point I don't want to build custom any more. We've been doing this long enough I should be able to buy something and plug it in. No one buying a phone has to ask if it will work in their house. -- Drew
Post #445,047 by crazy 11/10/24 5:41:15 PM 11/10/24 5:41:15 PM Reply	Actually it looks like this one should be able to handle it No cable required. https://a.co/d/4eExwvW I have about 30% signal when I walk 15 ft out the house and then it disappears. Then I have another 100 ft. until I get to the point where I want the Wi-Fi accessible. Everything's outside. I have electricity outside the house and I can put in a little weather enclosure. So I should be able to place a repeater/extender at that point. It's on the edge of the house Wi-Fi so it can talk to that and it's got clear line of sight to the outdoor cameras I want to hook up. No walls so 100 ft should be fine for this. I hope.
Post #445,048 by Another Scott 11/11/24 12:13:24 AM 11/11/24 12:13:24 AM Reply	Dunno. That box makes big claims, but only handles 40 devices?? TP-Link RE615X AX1800 Wi-Fi Range Extender is $70. I don't know how well that works in the real world, but it's probably better than the one you found (though costs more). Hardwired is always better than wireless, but you have to buy and run the cable. Cat ratings are a measure of maximum rated speed. e.g. Cat5e vs Cat6. * If price is the overriding consideration, and there are no intentions of ever requiring Ethernet faster than 2.5GBASE-T, then go with Cat5e * If you are willing to spend a bit more, Cat6 will be the better choice for future growth and versatility * Cat6 cable is the better choice for Power over Ethernet (PoE), as the thicker copper conductors allow for better heat dissipation. This advantage really shows at higher powered PoE applications and with cables that have been bundled together…especially in conduit. Please take a look at Power over Ethernet (PoE) Installation Best Practices for more information about PoE and best practices. * That said, Cat5e is generally the lighter and thinner cable and may be the preferred choice for some applications due to ease of installation in tight spots. Cat5e is typically easier to terminate as well. I wouldn't trust CCA (copper clad aluminum) outside, but that's just a gut reaction (I'd worry about water corroding the aluminum). It's incredibly cheap though. Lowes has 200 feet of exterior Cat6a copper cable for $91. I assume similar prices are available elsewhere. You would need the connectors and a crimping tool if you go that route. If you know the exact length you need, then you can get pre-made cables, of course. I'm a big, big fan of mesh networks (we've got a TP-Link Deco system that's been upgraded over the years): X90 Main, X90 satellite (my office, 5 devices), X95 satellite (family room, 9 devices), X95 satellite (J's office, 1 device), M5 (one bedroom, 1 device), M5 (basement, 2 devices). Presumably you can run the long cable from one of your existing mesh box ethernet ports (or attached network switch) to another mesh box at the end of the outside cable, but I haven't thought about the details in something like this in a while. I know they get complicated trying to do bridging and all the rest... I hope this isn't noise. Good luck! Cheers, Scott.
Post #445,052 by crazy 11/11/24 9:42:41 PM 11/11/24 9:57:51 PM Reply	Thanks. No noise at all. I'm a bit confused about worrying about device count. I can't picture more than 10 devices in my household and three or four down at the shed. Plus my phone as I wander back and forth. But I have no problem spending a few bucks more for something recommended. I will do further research. I already anticipated running a cable the whole distance and throwing an access point out there. That's if the wireless mesh does not work which is a crapshoot. I will not be buying any cable that requires my own termination. I'm not buying the kit and I'm not putting it on and I'm not taking the chance of being the one who screws it up. Those days are long over. Cables are cheap. 30 to 40 bucks looks like it should take care of what I need. Cat5 versus 6 is a good discussion. I will not be using power over ethernet. I have plenty of power throughout the property and the devices I use are charged via USB anyway. I might set up a projector back there and an entertainment center but the bottom line is everything is constrained via gigabit from the internet. And that gigabit is easily 20 times faster than I need for the vast majority of what I use. I have no high-speed servers in the house that need to pump data to the back or vice versa. So cat5 should be more than enough and will happily plug into one of my multiple ports. If I go crazy and need to pump real data, I can actually put a couple of fiber connectors in my local house switch. And then throw a fiber line. I can go big later if I need to. Further research shows I have two eero boxes that were part of my home internet install. They already have some type of mesh and it is incompatible with the box you posted above. Now I know I have to look further and double-check or I will get an additional eero which I'm not that fond of. Or I throw the wire and put any generic access point out there since it's not meshing with the current Network. That's why I ask, and that's why I do further research. Edited by crazy Nov. 11, 2024, 09:57:51 PM EST Expand All History
Post #445,058 by scoenye 11/12/24 8:06:37 PM 11/12/24 8:06:37 PM Reply	Go with the last bit. It is the simplest by far. And the most reliable. You said no PoE, but that does have the advantage that there is no wall wart waiting to get unplugged/kicked/run over/... [We have a WiFi extension about 500' from the house. The setup consists of a PoE switch in the house, Cat5e cable in underground conduit, a PoE repeater midway and a WiFi 6 PoE AP at the end. The cabin at the end is on the grid but the service enters right by the front door, hence going with PoE to avoid the wall wart problem.]
Post #445,064 by crazy 11/13/24 3:47:17 PM 11/13/24 3:47:17 PM Reply	And as I review the PoE stuff I see that it opens up my universe of possibilities for choices. But in my case I would want the PoE coming from the distribution switch at the shed rather than from the initial point of where this long cable is running. At that point I wouldn't bother with Wi-Fi and have a couple of cameras running directly cabled in. Those little power injection/ repeater devices are interesting.
Post #445,075 by crazy 11/16/24 3:54:55 PM 11/16/24 3:54:55 PM Reply	Oh boy, and now I found a possible actual requirement for power over ethernet It's actually a side benefit that drives the main requirement availability. I have a grow shed. It's only about 6x6. The interior walls and ceiling of the grow shed is totally covered with multiple layers of metallicized bubble wrap insulation. It does a pretty good job of blocking Wi-Fi signal but not completely. I'm not trying to block the signal, I'm trying to block the cold. Inside the grow shed I have a whole bunch of steel shelving setup. That in turn is wrapped entirely in additional layers of this insulation. Another layer of Wi-Fi block. I have several Wi-Fi devices inside this area. I have temperature monitoring and I have a smoke detector and I have a Wi-Fi camera. All of these devices work but they all tell me that the signal is very weak. It's barely scraping out of there. My phone won't work in there. At all. And then I just added a new camera to try. It's a whiz-bang high quality tilt-in pan yada yada yada. It works great. Until I place it in the shed, and then it no longer transmits. Okay, what next? I have to run the cable to the shed, that's fine, that's easy and cheap. But what next? Throw another Wi-Fi point inside the shed? I don't like that. It will introduce subnetting and stuff I don't want to deal with. But how about I pop a Poe camera in there? No Wi-Fi required. It will be part of the network base cabling. Network plug-in none Poe cameras are really not highly available. But those Poe cameras are. Sounds like it's time for a Poe camera.
Post #445,076 by Andrew Grygus 11/16/24 8:54:06 PM 11/16/24 8:54:06 PM Reply	Some phone systems requre Power over Ethernet. Yes, phones are going Ethernet too.

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