My garage is approx 80' from the house, cell signal is lousy inside the building, and the wifi doesn't reach. I'd like to be able to stream music onto the stereo, and probably more important, I'd like to be able to make a phone call for help if I drop a vice on my toes or something. It seems like there are 100s of signal boosters available, but I'd like to hear some real world experiences and recommendations for what to avoid. Cheers!
We have Starlink and cell service in my steel building is non-existent, and the wifi didn't reach. We added the Starlink mesh router and just stuck it right in the window closest to the shop and we now at least have wifi in there.
Probably not the "best" solution, but it was pretty "easy" and IT isn't my strongest area, so easy counts for something.
I have the Google Mesh system in my houwe and shop. One close to the router and then a daisy chain along the house and to the shop. Probably 80' from router to shop link.
I stream movies, live sports, and do some light gaming with no issues.
Little bit overkill* for 80', but I use a pair of these in a similar scenario. The one in the house is hardwired into a DSL modem, and the shop side is the network source for a wifi router for my phone, laptop, etc out there. The TP-Link connection is the most stable link in the chain, and I get full internet speed over the link (but that's <50mb/s since we're in a sparsely populated area).
https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/outdoor-radio/cpe210/
I just have mine propped in windows generally pointing at each other, but the transceivers are weatherproof and could be mounted outdoors if needed to get LOS or if you don't have convenient windows.
Configuration could be quite complex, and the documentation reflects this. A basic/simplest-case setup is more involved than connecting to a wifi router, say, but if you can read & follow directions it's doable.
* There's no kill like overkill, eh? :)
In reply to birdmayne :
I'll look into the mesh system, that sounds like the easiest method.
If you have power going to the shed, you could get some Powerline network adapters. If you have an outlet at both ends of the feed, that would give you the best performance. There might even be a Powerline wifi adapter that you could put at the shed end just to get wifi out there.
The outdoor wifi extender looks like the easiest method, but I wonder if the garage's metal exterior will block the signal if I have the door shut. There is power in the garage.
No specific product recommendations, but find a WiFi extender with multiple removable antennae.
Put extender inside garage, with half the antennae attached to it and half of them outside the garage attached via extension cables.
Depending on the functions of the specific antennae, this should give good receiving signal strength from WiFi outside the garage, and good extended network strength inside.
Wxdude10 - Mike said:If you have power going to the shed, you could get some Powerline network adapters. If you have an outlet at both ends of the feed, that would give you the best performance. There might even be a Powerline wifi adapter that you could put at the shed end just to get wifi out there.
I use a powerline adapter at home (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08M13B8B6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and love it. Plug it in and ... that's it. My previous setup lasted 8 years of continuous use before I replaced it, thinking it was getting flakey. It's not clear it really was but for $60 I thought I'd upgrade.
The only 'gotcha' is you have to be sure the two outlets are on the same phase, assuming your house is wired for 240. Just make sure they're on the same side of the breaker box.
You can put a repeater in the garage with a higher gain antenna. By default, wifi antennas are omnidirectional, meaning they're spewing Tx in all directions and also looking for Rx in all directions. If you use an Rx antenna that is directional pointed toward the house, it should work. I did this at camp. The wifi is about 500' from me and obscured by a hill. I just shimmied up a pole and put a Yagi antenna pointed at the source.
whiskey_business said:No specific product recommendations, but find a WiFi extender with multiple removable antennae.
Put extender inside garage, with half the antennae attached to it and half of them outside the garage attached via extension cables.
Depending on the functions of the specific antennae, this should give good receiving signal strength from WiFi outside the garage, and good extended network strength inside.
That's pretty much what I did for my metal shop, about 60-70 feet away from the house - wifi extender on the inside wall nearest the house, cable runs through wall to outside antenna pointed at house. Signal is good enough to stream video and music, and surf the web.
My setup is quite similar to a lot of yours. I tried TP-Link extenders, but they were garbage. Then I switched to an Amazon eero mesh system (one connected to the primary router, one about 50' away, the one in the shop about 50' away from the second one).
It is also garbage.
I ran an extra conduit to my detached garage with a couple CAT 6 cables and used an extra wireless router that had laying around for wifi just in the garage. You can also buy decent wireless routers for a good price. If you can't drop a conduit at this point the mesh wireless is probably your best option.
I had an attached garage with block walls and a concrete roof, and used a Netgear Powerline wifi extender (similar to this one https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Powerline-802-11ac-Gigabit-PLW1000-100NAS/dp/B01B5CTRGE/ref=sr_1_16?crid=COSTCZS7E2OK&keywords=TL-WPA8630&qid=1698945469&sprefix=tl-wpa8630%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-16&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc&th=1) with great success. . Only took it out when I moved house last month. The only drawback was it was its own network, and so you needed to make sure that your phone had switched over to it. I'm planning on using it in the basement of my new house.
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