Extending Wifi to the Pool Area

[salty87]

Apologies if this has been discussed. I searched and only saw threads on outdoor speakers/stereos. We have Sonos and are thrilled with it so this is a question about wfi extenders & options only.

Currently our in-house wifi is very spotty more than 20' from the house. Our walls are concrete and rebar reinforced. Love it but things like this and hanging frames become a bit more complicated than good ole stick-built walls (2x4's, etc.).

I'm not incompetent tech wise but researching the various products and their capabilities/limitations is confusing. The pool & pergola are about 60' from the house. We currently have to walk in range in order to skip songs and whatnot.

POE looks interesting but I don't know if the pergola addition will accommodate. It is wired into the house's main electrical panel.

Any guidance is welcome!

TIA

 

[woodyp]

How about just a wifi repeater plugged in and sitting on a window sill inside?

 

[Azmp1]

60' is pushing it with conventional repeaters, unless you're ready to throw at is some $$$ with pro stuff.
I should really consider running an Ethernet line to your pergola and setting up an access point there.
I'm at the similar situation with our new house we're starting the pool build there, I will be running the cat6 line to the pool house.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[txnole]

It's overkill for you application, but the Hawking 5dbi Omni will completely cover you. Affix to home, power and you'll be shuffling between Willie Nelson and Boy George in no time. LINK: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00S6DB4S0/ref=psdc_1194486_t2_B003O7MY1E

 

[KenFirch]

You could get one those WiFi extenders that use your existing electrical outlet wiring, such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-PowerLINE-1000-802-11ac-Gigabit/dp/B01929V7ZG.
I've never used one personally, but I think it would be an easy solution, plus you could add more for those dead spots elsewhere.

 

[dw886]

I'm in a similar situation. I'm running a CAT6 cable and putting in a Unifi UAP-AC-M Pro. 600' range should cover our pool area nicely.

 

[PrairieGirl]

I'm tech-dumb, as I leave that to my spouse. We have issues with wifi, too, and our pool is a solid 50 feet from the house. My husband installed a powerline adapter on the outside of the house in a weather protected box, and wired an ethernet cable from the inside of the house to the outside. The signal wasn't strong enough when he installed it inside so he devised a way to install on the house- one on the outside of the house, one inside the shop/poolhouse, where he connected an extender to the powerline adapter. With this set up, we have a substantial portion of the yard between/around house, pool, and shop, covered.

Edit to add: there are lots of things that can change the effectiveness of this set-up - distance, the breaker panel between two different points, using a different pair of outlets, etc.

 

[Uncle Salty]

Are you already running the Sonos boost?

 

[salty87]

Are you already running the Sonos boost?

Uncle?? lol

Yes, have a boost hooked up.

This looks really interesting, need to read up more- https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00S6DB4..._t2_B003O7MY1E

We have a couple of the plug in wifi extenders inside the house. They're helpful but don't penetrate outside much. Haven't seen any exterior rated.

A repeater on a window sill might work but Mrs Salty won't go for the aesthetics.

Hard wiring just won't happen. With the way the house is built there's no way to get through the walls and this side of the house doesn't have attic space to go through a soffit.

Thanks for everyone's replies so far. Keep em coming!

 

[Uncle Salty]

Uncle?? lol

Yes, have a boost hooked up.

This looks really interesting, need to read up more- https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00S6DB4..._t2_B003O7MY1E

We have a couple of the plug in wifi extenders inside the house. They're helpful but don't penetrate outside much. Haven't seen any exterior rated.

A repeater on a window sill might work but Mrs Salty won't go for the aesthetics.

Hard wiring just won't happen. With the way the house is built there's no way to get through the walls and this side of the house doesn't have attic space to go through a soffit.

Thanks for everyone's replies so far. Keep em coming!

Uncle Salty is in reference to a Aerosmith song from around 1975. Just curious what platform are you running your Sonos on, Spotify, Tidal or something else? I just picked up a Sonos system and will be putting it out in my pool house with hard wired Klipsich and a couple of Play 3 speakers, now you got me worried about my range as I haven't tried it out there yet as it's still under renovation. I'll be checking back to see what you end up doing.

Salty

 

[salty87]

My pergola speakers are wired to a Connect:Amp which is located in an outdoor closet near the house. Speaker wires were pre-run from the closet to the pergola during pool construction. The Connect:Amp is plugged into a POE extender that doesn't transmit wirelessly. It does a great job for the Connect:Amp but doesn't do anything for wireless devices. It was pretty cheap, I can look up the info if you'd like.

The Sonos system runs off our library of music on a network storage device. With our spotty wifi Sonos didn't work well before adding the storage device. We run Apple products though.

*I've read on Sonos' site that Android devices mesh better with the Sonos network. The Sonos system/speakers communicate over their own broadband for best performance. Each speaker is a repeater. The more you have the better it all works.

*Disclaimer- this is from my understanding from researching last year when we were starting to set up Sonos and added the network storage device. We live out in the boonies so we don't stream anything. Our provider is rather tight with the data limits.

Edit- The Salty reference was in regard to both our handles as in long lost uncle, lol.

 

[JohnT]

You can run a powerline extender like http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear-powerline-wi-fi-1000-access-point-and-adapter-white/4760605.p?skuId=4760605

It will work anywhere on the same electrical service, and even at a neighbor's house if you share a transformer. I use one to get wifi in my shop which is over 100ft from the house and has metal walls. Takes about 2 minutes to set up.

 

[Skitch]

It's a sunny day outside my window

 

[johnnym]

Anybody familiar with Eero? eero - Finally, WiFi that works

 

[Swampwoman]

Speaking of overkill, my wee geeks like the newer Mesh technologies as opposed to boosting...aka, like this:
https://smile.amazon.com/Linksys-Tri-band-AC6600-System-coverage/dp/B01N2NLNEH/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1490896164&sr=1-3&keywords=Mesh+router

 

[Brentr]

I have 2 of these, ubiquiti UAP-AC-LITE, one placed in my office and one placed in the Flamingo Lounge. Internal network speeds are gigabit and range is at least 400 ft although I have not actually measured my signals are very strong.

I'm in a similar situation. I'm running a CAT6 cable and putting in a Unifi UAP-AC-M Pro. 600' range should cover our pool area nicely.

 

[ship of fools]

I have 2 of these, ubiquiti UAP-AC-LITE, one placed in my office and one placed in the Flamingo Lounge. Internal network speeds are gigabit and range is at least 400 ft although I have not actually measured my signals are very strong.

Something along these lines is all you need ..... we did a wireless link at work to connect two buildings about 1,500 feet away and separated by a public road. The customer was frugal and wouldn't buy commercial grade gear. We ended up with two cheap DLink directional antennas and it worked like a charm. They had 3 PC's and 3 IP Phones in the outbuilding and i never heard another word after the install and that was 10 years ago. I am sure some sort of omnidirectional unit like the one shown would do the job. The ubiquiti stuff is top notch and may be overkill.

 

[dw886]

Something along these lines is all you need ..... we did a wireless link at work to connect two buildings about 1,500 feet away and separated by a public road. The customer was frugal and wouldn't buy commercial grade gear. We ended up with two cheap DLink directional antennas and it worked like a charm. They had 3 PC's and 3 IP Phones in the outbuilding and i never heard another word after the install and that was 10 years ago. I am sure some sort of omnidirectional unit like the one shown would do the job. The ubiquiti stuff is top notch and may be overkill.

If you can figure out how to setup the Ubiquiti Unifi stuff, it's top notch. In addition to the UAP-AC-M Pro that I have that's going to be outside, I have 3 UAP-AC-PRO units in the house with pretty clear hand-off between them using Min RSSI. With my current setup, wireless devices are consistently ~70MB download using the SpeedTest website from anywhere in our house on a 150MB cable connection with about 2 dozen wired / wireless devices on the network. I haven't rebooted any equipment in months...

 

[Montu]

The real solution is to Run a POE access point out to the pergola as mentioned, everything else may be easier but will be hit and miss and will likely have severe speed reduction.

 

[smankins]

Sounds like JohnT has the simplest solution. Just use powerline networking. I have not had a need to do this yet but I believe the technology has advanced and will work. When others are talking about POE are you talking about Power Over Ethernet? If you are doing power over ethernet then you are already running an ethernet cable so problem solved. I apologize in advance if this is not the POE mentioned.