Bridging on a Budget: Cheaply extending WiFi to another building

hey everyone today we're going to look at some point-to-point Wireless Bridges these handy things can help you wirelessly extended internet connection to another place like a detached garage barn or some other building this can help you improve your Wi-Fi coverage across your whole property or give you new possibilities for security camera placement and home automation in this video I'm going to explain what a wireless bridge is what features you should be looking for when you go shopping for them how to set them up how to physically install them and then I'll go over some options for using the bridge to extend your Wi-Fi network in some separate videos in this series I'll be giving some overviews and go over the setup process with a few specific models including a couple of the cheapest options that I could find on AliExpress and we'll see how they compareed with better known Brands like microti and ubiquity a point-to-point wireless bridge once set up will simply act like a long network cable if you attach one end to your home router or modem it'll give you a wired internet connection on the other side that you can use to connect to a Wi-Fi access point security camera or anything else you need so what's the hardware like these devices are not much different from a regular home Wi-Fi router or access point the main differences are they have a case designed to be installed outdoors and withstand the weather to support power over Ethernet or Poe for short which allows power and data to share the same cable making it easier to install in a spot where they'll work the best without needing a power outlet in that location the software running on them can act as either an access point which broadcasts a Wi-Fi network or it can act as a client device which connects to a Wi-Fi network the software might also have some proprietary changes to the Wi-Fi protocols to make them work better at longer distances the most significant difference is the antenna inside your home router is designed to give you a somewhat even coverage all around it but these PTP Bridges will usually Focus the same amount of Wireless power in a very specific Direction think about it like comparing a bare light bulb to a flashlight each could put out the same amount of light but since the flashlight focuses that light into a narrow beam it will reach much further but only in the direction that it's pointing with the size of these things you can get pretty creative with them too anywhere you have power in the unit can get a signal you can add Wi-Fi coverage for your phone and smart devices or add cameras to other corners of the property that would otherwise be blind spots with some effort you can even run this stuff from solar and battery power if you look closely you can spot these things all over the place they'll be bringing connections to digital signs outdoor security cameras Campground Wi-Fi systems and there's bound to be an ouse with Wi-Fi somewhere too higher quality versions of this equipment is also used to allow cell towers Public Safety Radio Systems and other critical infrastructure to communicate between sites some smaller internet service providers also use this type of equipment to deliver home and Business Internet service Wi-Fi bridges are made by a lot of different companies and the amount of options even from one company can be a bit overwhelming so what do you look for one thing to consider when choosing the hardware is the radio frequency band that the bridges use you'll probably see Bridges listed as operating in the 2.4 5 or 60 GHz ranges the 2.4 frequency band will be slower and is often fairly congested in more urban areas because there's fewer channels available the lower frequency allows it to pass through obstacles like trees and walls better bridges that use the 5 GHz band have more channels available to them which means you're more likely to find a clean channel to use for a more stable connection and you can run wider channels to get more speed some higher-end equipment may also use the 60 GHz band which has a ton of room for some mind-bogglingly large Channel sizes allowing you to get multiple gigabits of throughput the downsides to the 60 GHz stuff are that it will need a Flawless line of sight rain can affect the performance way more than lower frequencies and pointing the bridges at each other is trickier to get perfect the next thing you want to look at is the antenna a lot of these Bridges will have a built-in antenna of different shapes and sizes and some will even have no antennas leaving you to buy and connect a separate external antenna at shorter distances of under a kilometer with a clean path between the locations you'll typically be fine with the smallest antenna available under 16 DBI of antenna game if the signal is having to pass through some light obstacles going to a larger antenna could mitigate some of the signal loss due to the obstacles but your mileage may vary and it's difficult to predict how an obstructed path will affect the performance the speeds that you need out of the bridge is another consideration if you're wanting to watch videos YouTube and other services recommend around 20 megabits for a 4K stream for web browsing you can generally get decent results even at 5 to 10 megabits per second streaming audio like Spotify typically works with under 1 megabit per second security cameras can take about 2 to 8 megabit per second each depending on quality settings these numbers are all pretty low and even with the cheapest options I found they'll typically give you over 50 megabits per second so unless you're downloading large files like video games regularly you can get away with the cheaper options besides the frequency antenna and speed there's a few other subtle differences between products if you want the best possible speeds you'll want to bridge with a gigabit Network Port since some of the cheaper models will have 100 megabit ports despite the wireless length being capable of more than that the design of the units will impact the way you install it some can be directly wall mounted and others might be designed to attach to a pole or some other round thing the software running on them can make it easier or harder to set up or have features that you may want power consumption should be low across the board but it may be something to pay attention to if you're planning on using the equipment off grid and want the lowest possible power usage finally some companies have different tiers of product line with the more expensive ones being designed for carrying large amount of internet traffic like for a wireless tower that's serving an entire community's worth of home internet connections or connecting to large businesses benefits of that tier of equipment will not be very noticeable in a home type setup so it's not really worth spending 5 to 10 times as much on that equipment before setting up most bridges we'll need to get a few things together first off we'll need a computer with an ethernet port you can use a USB Ethernet dongle if needed the operating system doesn't really matter most bridges will be configured with a web browser so you can use Windows Mac or Linux you might be able to set up some of these with Android or iOS devices but for consistency we'll use a Windows laptop to start we'll need to find a couple IP addresses that we can assign to each bridge that we'll be installing these IPS will need to be outside of the range that your router assigns automatically to other devices if we go into our Windows 11 network settings go into advanced network settings and look under hardware and connection properties we'll see that our PC is getting an IP address of 1921 1681 something and the router called a default gateway here has an IP of 19216811 in most cases you're probably safe to make assumptions and assign 1921 16812 and3 to the bridges but we can make sure of this by logging into your router and checking its settings if your router came with an app you can use that to log into it if it didn't you can use a web browser to access the router's IP address which was that default gateway address that we saw earlier the login info could be written on a sticker you could have set one when you first installed it or it could be a generic one like admin admin or admin password once you're in the router settings poke around for the DHCP server or land settings it might not be called exactly that but you'll likely see some settings for a start and an end IP address the IP addresses for the bridges should just have to end in between 2 and 254 but outside of that start and end range2 and3 should work here but on my network I know I already have some stuff set to those IPS so I'll just set mine up with 7 and8 instead most bridges will need you to come up with an SSID which is the name of the Wi-Fi network that the bridges are using to talk to each other the only thing that will use this network is the other Bridge so maybe don't make the SSID too close to your home Wi-Fi name to avoid confusion you'll also want to come up with a password which has to be at least 8 characters long again the only thing using that password are the two Bridges with all this info figured out you're ready to set up the bridges I would recommend going through all the configuration process before physically installing them so you can make sure things are working properly without having to run between two different locations since the configuration can be really different between different brands of equipment I've made individual videos for a few different models that will be in this playlist which I'll link in the description below next up we'll go over what's required to physically install the bridges now that you have a pair of bridges set up you have to put them somewhere having any sort of obstacles in the way like walls or trees will drastically cut down on the performance or prevent them from working entirely because of that if you're trying to make a connection between buildings these Bridges will work best when mounted outdoors and since they have directional antennas they will have to be facing each other mounting the bridge outside really depends on the model that you have and the construction of your building every situation is different and you just have to be creative and take your time try to mount to a flat concrete or wood surface like a wall deck post or roof fascia you'll want it in a spot where you won't Bonk your head on it and where it's line of sight to the other location won't be abstracted by vehicles or other things depending on the bridge that you have you might have the option to mount it directly to the surface for example this ubiquity Nano beam lets you drive a long screw through the middle of its ball socket Mount more commonly you'll have devices that are designed to be mounted to some sort of round hole so if you have something like a railing that's already kind of round you should be able to attach it to that as well otherwise you'll have to install some kind of mounting bracket attach using some screws appropriate for the surface you're attaching to you can find these Jr mounts often used with satellite dishes and they're pretty sturdy and adjustable but for some of the small Bridges they're a bit Overkill microti makes a couple different mounting options like their quick Mount which is a lowprofile fixed Mount made out of some kind of sturdy fiber reinforced plastic IC they go for about $6 they also have a pro version for about 9 bucks that can be adjusted both horizontally and vertically whichever Mount you use it can help with waterproofing to add a bit of silicone to the back of the mount around the screw holes these Bridges will use a single network cable for both power and data so keep in mind that wherever you install the bridge you'll have to find a way to run that cable back to your home router you will want to use outdoor and UV rated solid copper cat 5e or cat 6 cable for this because regular indoor network cable will deteriorate in the sun getting bulk lengths of unterminated cable is the most flexible option because you can cut it to length you can drill smaller holes in your walls and pushing the cable through is a lot easier typically bulk cable is sold in thousand foot spools but some websites like Primus cables show me cables and some local electrical suppliers will often sell it in shorter lengths or bu the foot starting from the bridge you'd want to secure the cable to the Mount to reduce stress on the RJ45 end and the port in the device give it a little loop at the bottom so water will drip off the cable and not go into the case for the rest of the way it's often easiest to run it on the exterior of the building if you have vinyl or aluminum siding with trim along the edges and Corners you can often tuck the cable behind it to both hide the cable and hold it in place while using fewer fasteners for parts of the run where you can't do this you can find cable clips with screws or nails to hold it into place if your router sits near an exterior wall you can pop through the wall and into the room for buildings with unfinished basements or crawl spaces you can also go through that outside wall into that space and pop up through the floor to run the cable through the wall you'll need a drill bit suitable for the material your walls are made out of with at least a 3/8 in diameter and a 12 in or longer length Bell hanger bits are handy because you can feed the wire through the tip and use the drill bit to fish the wire through otherwise a cable Fish rod or stiff wire and some tape will do the trick in a pinch if you're coming down and into the wall make sure you add a drip Loop here as well use some exterior silicone to seal things up you will need tools to attach your own RJ45 ends to the cable but you can find complete kits for around $15 to $20 making the RJ45 ends can be a bit tricky but there's plenty of good YouTube tutorials out there I'll go over to here and S Advance for the wacky autofocus first I strip off a few inches of the outer plastic taking care of not to damage the wires inside if you don't cut all the way through you can bend and snap to get it the rest of the way next I cut off the rip cord inside and use some paper towel to take off the clear plastic and start cleaning off the grease inside I organized them into a plus with the brown and orange opposite from each other in one way and the blue and green in the other way use a small flathead screwdriver to untwist the wires and use the paper towel to straighten and clean the wires I'll move the wires around to match the 568b color code don't make up your own color code I'm now using my thumb to keep the wires all flat while I shimmy the wires close together by pulling on them a bit I then use the connector to gauge how much wire to leave when I cut it making sure you have the black jacket under the strain relief tab then I carefully hold the wires flat as far back as you can while sliding the wires into the connector once the wires are in push them all the way into the connector and verify that the wires are in the correct order and if they are you can crimp them with the tool the RJ45 should now be ready to use if you buy bulk cable and RJ45 ends make a few practice cables first before you're up a ladder swearing at some little wires if you're willing to pay a little more on the tools and connectors pass through RJ45 connectors can make things a little easier if you're not doing them very often it helps you be a little less precise when cutting the wires to length and feeding them into the connector but is otherwise the same process as with the standard ends another good tip is if you're in an area that sees a lot of humidity or salt water you might want to consider using dialectric grease in the outdoor Network ports to prevent corrosion on the connections some manufacturers of wireless equipment and security cameras recommend this and tubes of dialectric Grease are pretty cheap a small blob in the port will do it makes a mess but it won't hurt the equipment once your cable run is installed and the bridge is powered up you you should be able to log into the units and confirm you have a working Link at shorter distances just eyeballing the direction should be more than enough to get a good signal to fine-tune the signal you'll have to make adjustments while watching the received signal strength also called RSSI it's a negative number so for example a -40 is larger and better than a -50 loosen the mounting hardware and slowly move the bridge horizontally while watching the signal and see if it gets any better once you found the best signal moving it horizontally adjust it vertically from Mount allows and tighten everything up at the best value you'll have to repeat this on the other side as well on the far side of the wireless bridge you'll end up with a wired network connection the most common thing you'll probably want is to get a Wi-Fi connection out of this for your devices and there's a few different ways to do this mesh Wi-Fi systems from Google tplink Euro and other companies are popular ways to improve the Wi-Fi around your house with little effort you can use one unit as your home router and then add additional units in parts of the house where you have weak coverage and they'll wirelessly connect back to the main unit and rebroadcast the Wi-Fi network most of these systems will also support a wired back hall mode where instead of connecting to the other units wirelessly it gets its connection to the rest of the network over its wired Network Port and is usually turned on automatically as soon as you hardwire one unit into another in our setup here all you should have to do is pair the second mesh node with the first and then connect the land port to your bridge if you don't have one of these systems or you want to save a few bucks you can use a regular home Wi-Fi router which you might already have laying around you can also find them secondhand at thrift stores and on places like Facebook Marketplace for $5 to $20 or brand new from $40 to $100 the nice thing about using a Wi-Fi router for this is that it also has a built-in network switch that you can use to hardwire in extra devices like cameras to use Wi-Fi routers to extend your Wi-Fi network you'll have to log into the router and then set them up in access point mode use the same Wi-Fi name and password as your main Wi-Fi network and assign it another open IP address on your network if the Wi-Fi router that you want to use doesn't have an access point mode you can go through the setup and put the wi-fi name and password to match your main Wi-Fi network once you're done with the first time setup go into the network settings and change its Lan IP address to another open one on your home network but then we'll turn off the DHCP server for the physical connections ignore or the WAN port and instead connect the bridge and other wired devices to the land ports if you don't need extra ethernet ports Wi-Fi Range Extender devices will often have an access point mode too and are often a little cheaper and smaller if you're buying them brand new but performance is often worse than a used older mid-range Wi-Fi router or a new low-end router you can also buy dedicated access point devices from companies like ubiquity or TPL link which will typically perform better than the cheap extenders if you just want to hook up a single wired Network device like a security camera computer or an iot device then you can attach them directly to the wireless Bridges Poe injector once you have working Wi-Fi at this new location you can do all the same things you can do on your home Wi-Fi stream video listen to music control Smart devices like lights and thermostats but one handy thing that a surprising amount of people don't know about is Wi-Fi calling if your cell phone provider supports Wi-Fi calling on your phone then you can use it to send and receive calls and text messages using your regular phone number but over Wi-Fi this is really nice if your building has metal or concrete walls which block the cellular signal when you're inside if you're in a remote area that has poor service to begin with it's like getting a cell phone booster that works all over your house as I mentioned earlier there will be some other videos that actually dive into how you set up specific models of Wi-Fi Bridges if you made it this far I hope that you check out some of those videos if you have any questions about what I went over be sure to leave a comment thanks

Channel: Ben Jeffery

Views: 7,104

Keywords: ptp, point to point, wifi bridge, extender, wifi, networking, ubiquiti

Id: mm29Fb2wLBg

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2024