Wifi for workshop/living space recommendations?

[Shock]

Have a friend with WiFi reception that has always been fairly poor. His current setup is a WiFi router connected to a Fibre router/switch which covers 3 living spaces and his workshop.

• The workshop and living space that have weak signals is due to distance and walls
• The workshop is detached from the house (not able to run Ethernet easily to it)
• The WiFi network has several legacy devices on it i.e. 802.11g, 802.11n
• The signal coverage for legacy devices needs to improve
• The new network needs to be futureproof at least to 802.11ac
• The new network needs to be affordable and reliable
• Ideally the network needs to be seemless (no network swapping)
• An external Wifi Access Point or antenna can be used to cover the workshop

At the moment I'm thinking either 2 or 3 Access Points. Upgrade the existing WiFi router to a Access Point. Run an Ethernet cable to connect a second Access Point to cover the living space with poor signal. Run an Ethernet cable to connect an external Access Point (or antenna) to cover the workshop.

TLDR - Are there any Access Points that have authentication/encryption and can connect directly to a standard router/switch that would allow seemless roaming? Brands/Models recommendations? Or any better ways of doing this?

[tsman]

Ubiquiti UniFi would do what you want. The UniFi NanoHD is a good pick for an indoor 802.11ac wave 2 AP. They have an outdoor 802.11ac AP as well but it isn't wave 2. The UniFi APs will run without the controller but I'd suggest getting a Cloud Key G2 controller or making your own with something like a Raspberry Pi.

I'd suggest separating the 802.11b devices onto their own standalone WiFi AP though. They'll drag down the speed of everything else on the network and probably don't have WPA2 support.

[Jeroen3]

Ubiquity, or get expensive Cisco gear.

Otherwise, there is also Mikrotik, but that requires a lot of knowledge to configure.
In general, you fix poor wifi with more low range AP's scattered around tactically.

[Psi]

The Ubiquiti long range stuff not only has more TX power but also much more sensitive receivers.

So they work quite well when compared to a generic high power AP that just has more TX power.
Usually it's the phone not being able to talk to the AP that causes reception problems not the other way around.

[Shock]

There is no need to run any management on this network. The legacy devices all have WPA2 support so that is not a problem. The WiFi side of the network needs upgrading due to coverage not so much throughput. There are no 802.11ac devices connected presently and I'm not convinced separating the legacy devices onto a separate network is necessary.

So how well does the Ubiquiti UniFi NanoHD work without a controller or PC software? Does it handle the authentication/encryption on the device itself? If two are installed and connected to a plain switch can devices transition seamlessly as if they are on one large WiFi network?

[Shock]

Ok I found this here talking about the Unifi-AP-AC-LR now wondering if this is the same as the UniFi NanoHD, no real mention of authentication/encryption and meshing however. Still looking for more info on this.

As for running it without a controller, this absolutely can be done and is not terrible with only a few WAPs. The mobile app is decent for configuring the basic functionality of the WAPs. However that being said you will probably be happier in the long run if you at least install the controller on one of your home computers, such as your Mac. The controller does not have to be on 24/7 to run the network, and is only really needed to collect statistics and push configuration changes or firmware updates. If you do opt to use the controller software, you will have a much better interface for configuring all of the WAP's settings.

[sokoloff]

I have two Ubiquiti AC-Pros at home and they are great. I wish they were slightly more aggressive about handing off clients between APs, but they do eventually hand them off. Overall, it’s been a very smooth upgrade.

[Shock]

I have two Ubiquiti AC-Pros at home and they are great. I wish they were slightly more aggressive about handing off clients between APs, but they do eventually hand them off. Overall, it’s been a very smooth upgrade.

Can you help with some of the questions I had about setup? Do you run a controller or just as APs connected to a LAN switch/router? Was there provision for authentication/encryption in the devices themselves like you would find in a normal WAN/WiFi Router?

[sokoloff]

The APs are just connected to a switch each (in my case, I use switches with PoE, so the APs get power from the switch, but that's totally optional).
The switches then backhaul to a central switch, with later connects to a router and then a cable modem. All totally conventional SOHO networking stuff. All of mine happens to Ubiquiti except for the Arris cable modem, but it could be mix-and-match just fine.

The controller software I run (intermittently) on my Mac laptop. It is only needed for "adoption" and configuration of the devices (and if you wanted to have any live logging or live guest wifi access portal [like in a hotel]).

Basic wireless functionality, including WPA2 authentication, is handled on the APs themselves without the need for my Mac (and the controller software) to even be at home or be turned on. It's completely standalone at run time. (Put another way, I put the same system in at my parents 700 miles away and the controller is on my Mac here as well. I visit 2-3x per year; other times, they run standalone, including recovering from power outages, etc.)

In short, it works exactly like you probably hope it does.

[awallin]

Ubiquiti UniFi would do what you want.

see also google wifi, discussion e.g. there: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/8dfqjd/google_wifi_vs_ubiquity_unifi/

[Shock]

Ubiquiti UniFi would do what you want.

see also google wifi, discussion e.g. there: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleWiFi/comments/8dfqjd/google_wifi_vs_ubiquity_unifi/

Meh no offense to you, but google can go suck a fat one unless it was fully open source. That would be the last thing I'd consider putting on someones network.

[Jeroen3]

I have two Ubiquiti AC-Pros at home and they are great. I wish they were slightly more aggressive about handing off clients between APs, but they do eventually hand them off. Overall, it’s been a very smooth upgrade.

Can you turn off the lower bitrates? If you disable support for low bitrates (eg: 6, 12 18 Mbps) it will force disconnect faster when going out of range. Also disabling 802.11b support helps a lot.

[Gary.M]

Amplifi mesh. Just use several of the base / router devices. Works really well.

Sent from my MI 8 using Tapatalk

[kripton2035]

you can also look at synology MR2200. around $160. think of it as a nas without disk (but can add one) and with mesh wifi.

[tsman]

I wish they were slightly more aggressive about handing off clients between APs, but they do eventually hand them off.

You can set a minimum RSSI. The controller will try to kick clients off an AP if they're lower but it is still up to the client itself whether it just tries to reconnect to the same AP or roam to another one.

[tsman]

I'm not convinced separating the legacy devices onto a separate network is necessary.

802.11b severely degrades the performance because 802.11b is DSSS but everything newer is OFDM. The AP needs to spend extra time warning 802.11b clients not to transmit over somebody else by sending out a DSSS packet. The 802.11b client can't monitor the channel itself because it doesn't understand OFDM. It is only a problem for 2.4GHz channels though.

If the end user doesn't care about getting maximum throughput then this isn't a problem since they do already support WPA2. It should be AES and not TKIP since TKIP also limits throughput.