WiFi Mesh for coworker

[XplodingData]

I've got a co worker that lives in a fairly big place out of the city. I told him about my ruckus APs and the wildly improved coverage in my house and now he's deputized me to get him fixed up.

He's got a shop/outbuilding about 300ft from the main house. Currently he's using ethernet over powerline but has to mess with it every month or two and reset everything a few times to get it going. I've inquired and there's no underground LV conduit or I'd have him pull in some fiber.

He also has a front gate that he'd like to add some wifi toys to down the road.

So question is, would the Unifi UAP-AC-M-US units be a good choice? Have him mount one at the shop and one on the side of the house facing the shop, and then ultimately another near his gate later on. The range is listed as 600 feet so he's half that and being 1000ft from the neighbors means less interference from other devices.

I'm also curious if the UAP-AC-M allows you to use the ethernet port as a bridge to wired devices when connected via mesh.

 

[gregsachs]

I don't think the uap-ac-m will bridge, but not positive. I have 2 running, 1 outdoors 1 indoors. There is a directional antenna available that would probably help vs the normal ears;

Access Point Mesh Dual-Band Antenna - Ubiquiti Store United States

An optional mesh antenna designed to work with the Access Point Mesh AC-M.

www.ui.com

This certainly suggests that bridge mode is intended to work,

UAP Ac-M wireless bridge | Ubiquiti Community

Attempting to use the UAP-ac-m (not pro) to wirelessly bridge a client computer that can only be connected with a wired connection. I can successfully

community.ui.com

but didn't for at least one FW rev. I might be able to test in the next few days; would need to find an injector.

 

[XplodingData]

The bridge function is probably secondary currently. He's really just looking to have basic wifi work at the shop and in the suite above.

That was an interesting read. It's a couple years old so maybe the FW is fixed again.

Thanks for the input.


Any obvious concerns with running two of the UAP-AC-M units to get wifi coverage in the yard and out to the shop?

 

[Marsh]

So question is, would the Unifi UAP-AC-M-US units be a good choice? Have him mount one at the shop and one on the side of the house facing the shop, and then ultimately another near his gate later on. The range is listed as 600 feet so he's half that and being 1000ft from the neighbors means less interference from other devices.

I am in a similar situation.
My house is in 2 acres lot, all my neighbor house are in 1.5 to 2 acres lot.
My garage is 200 feet from main house, also my tools shed / workplace is about 100 feet.

I thought that there would very little wifi interference. I just did a wifi signal site survey.
I see about 50-100 WIFI SSID crowded into 3 2.4ghz channels.
5ghz band is not that much better, but have more channels to spread out.

Have your friend do a wifi site survey to determine the next course of action.

In my case , I used 5ghz Nanobeam to bridge my remote locations to main house.
Then remote location devices are all hardwired ethernet.

Let me add this.
Wifi channel is very crowded now, partly due to the mesh technology. partly due to Comcast xfinitywifi SSID.
Every Comcast router broadcast on at least 2 2.4ghz channels and 5ghz channels

 

[XplodingData]

I am in a similar situation.
My house is in 2 acres lot, all my neighbor house are in 1.5 to 2 acres lot.
My garage is 200 feet from main house, also my tools shed / workplace is about 100 feet.

I thought that there would very little wifi interference. I just did a wifi signal site survey.
I see about 50-100 WIFI SSID crowded into 3 2.4ghz channels.
5ghz band is not that much better, but have more channels to spread out.

Have your friend do a wifi site survey to determine the next course of action.

Well that's troubling. Holy crap that's a lot of devices for lots that size. I wouldn't have expected that, I'm in town on much smaller lots and I only see about 6 SSID (other than mine). Are you using a specific tool for the site survey?

I downloaded an app (WiFi Analyzer) on my android for testing a couple things at work (electrician, not IT specialist by any means) and it seems ok. Any better tools for the site survey?

 

[Marsh]

I thought living outside of the city would give me wifi coverage advantage.
I moved into my current home over 20 years ago, there was only a handful of SSID.
Today, I counted over 30 SSID on channel 6.

Ubiquiti device has the site survey function build in to the device.

If you are using a phone to see the wifi ssid, I suspected the antenna in the phone is less sensitivity then the Ubiquiti antenna .

In my case.
My Andersen windows have coating that blocks WIFI signal, I ran Ethernet cables and mounted the Nanobeam outside of the building.
It also help attenuate my neighbor's wifi signal.

 

[XplodingData]

Ah yes, I expected my cell phone wasn't as accurate as the APs would be for a survey, but to do the survey with the APs, I'd have to get him to buy them. So I'm hopeful that anyone with suggestions will bring any obvious flaws to my attention before I get him to buy hardware that won't work well. I know, tough ask with little info to share.

 

[Marsh]

What is the current wifi router that your friends is using? It may already have the tools build-in.


If you have a spare old router , load dd-wrt or open-wrt firwmare. It also have the tools.
You want to mimic the real deployment condition without spending a lot of money.
It is still trail and error process, because each neighborhood is different.

My neighborhood has lot of Comcast routers, lots of xfinitywifi SSID drowning each other in interference.
I had to move to 5ghz band for my bridges to function.

 

[XplodingData]

I am not sure what he's using, but I'm betting it's probably a standard issue ISP consumer unit.

I did a little digging around and found the UMA-D antenna so I think I'm gonna suggest he pickup a pair of UAP-AC-M units, and then if the signal isn't working well enough, upgrade to the UMA-D on the shop unit.

After finding a list from someone else with a similar situation, that's what they did and they're getting great link now, so seems a good direction to go. He's being tight with the wallet so can't sell him on anything really fancy.