#43 ESP8266 Range Test with and without External Antenna

create see youtubers here is the guy with a Swiss accent again we all love this small esp8266 device they are extremely small and their antenna is even smaller today's question is therefore how far to they reach a while ago CN Loire did tests and found out that the reach was a few kilometers because my small boards sometimes were not able to connect to an access point which was upstairs I was not sure if his results were relevant for me my lab is in the basement and everybody knows that here in Switzerland every house has to have an atomic bomb shelter and might think this short reach is a particular Swiss problem because these shelters have extremely thick ceilings to find out I moved out of my lat into fresh air and did a test which is close to scenarios I use for the esp8266 I tried to connect my iPad to a remote ESP to make sure I had a clear line of sight I put the ESP on our roof deck and took the iPad with me for the first test I used a witty port with a plain vanila ESP 12 e and it's on board PCB antenna because sometimes size matters I used an ESP o7 with an antenna of an access point for comparison I use the ESP o7 because it has a small connector to attach an antenna both chips are the same so also the power output and the sensitivity of the receiver should be equal just a small digression esp8266 chips work in the 2.4 gigahertz band as many other devices including access points and NRF 24 lo1 chips these devices often use so-called SMA connectors these very nice little things come in male and female form now common sense tells us that a female and a male connector fit together not so with SMA connectors why in the 1990s when the first access points came on the market the FCC as an American government organization feared that some clever radio amateurs would use bigger antennas or even power amplifiers to extend the reach of these devices and this was completely forbidden so FCC ruled that all access point has to have non-standard connectors so the industry invented the reverse polarity or our P SMA connector clever the SMA RP has just a reversed gender the signal is not reversed so male RP connectors fit with female RP connectors but not with normal SMA connectors but now back to our topic how far can I go away from my ESP device and the iPad is still capable to connect because both ESP used the same frequencies I wanted to be sure that they did not disturb each other so during the test I switched the second ESP always off the ESP 12e where the PCB antenna was capable to connect up till about 90 meters and the ESP oh seven with an additional antenna was capable to connect up to about 150 meters this is much less than C n lower measured with his tests but I think this test is closer to reality another example ESP 12e was not capable to connect to the iPad when I was standing 20 meters away but behind the house this is also a proof that waves in the 2.4 gigahertz band behave much like light waves they work good if the sender and the receiver have a line of sight connection and do not work at all if this site is blocked I would be interested in your tests just post your results in the comment I hope this video was useful or at least interesting for you bye

Channel: Andreas Spiess

Views: 289,814

Keywords: ESP8266, Electronics, WiFi, Arduino, DIY, Antenna

Id: KYLN9qH0C84

Length: 5min 5sec (305 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2016