Mark (smokey mow) Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 Following a change of jobs I now find myself working from home full time for a company miles away and therefore in need of a better home office solution. Throughout covid I’d been working from the dining room table but the new job brings with it a dual 32” monitor setup and associated paraphernalia for which I need to find a more permanent long term solution. Another garden outbuilding or a garage extension seems to be the obvious solution since my house is smaller than my garage but I somehow need to get a reliable and stable internet or Wi-Fi connection out there. My internet currently comes courtesy of a BT Homehub but at best the Wi-Fi signal will only just reach the 10m to my garage and by then is quite unstable. I’m already using a power line adaptor in another outbuilding but looking for a better solution since it’ll be used for both teams/zoom calls and Wi-Fi calling from my mobile. A wired connection would be the obvious solution but that would involve a lot of work and digging up the driveway so instead I’m looking at wireless options. I’d like to keep things as simple as possible and my limited IT knowledge tells me a radio linked point to point network between buildings may be one solution but beyond that I’m totally lost. Does anyone else have anything similar or can offer any advice and recommendations as to what components I might need to be buying. Any advice would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Barlow - Show and Events Co-ordinator Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 14 minutes ago, Mark (smokey mow) said: A wired connection would be the obvious solution but that would involve a lot of work and digging up the driveway I've got overhead cables from house to garage, works fine and no digging required! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemsley Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 Hi Mark, I use a pair of these. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DCNRTAG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They bridge the network in our house to the garage / annex which is about 50 metres away across a yard. It did take me a bit of head scratching to get it setup correctly, but it works perfectly and has required zero adjustment. I believe the range they support can be over 1km, and multi-point, but I've never tried anything like that. Happy to share more details if that would help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corsechris Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 I get excellent WiFi in the shed which is about 25m from the house using a TPlink WiFi extender. It’s a single device rather than a pair. I also have a BT Homehub (Hub3) which before I put the extender in was just about able to get me a signal to the far end of the shed, but it was flakey and slow. With the TPLink at the near end of the shed, it gets a good signal itself, and of course the repeated signal is excellent. It now gives me WiFi at the end of the garden, which is maybe 50m from the house. Wireline didn’t work due to having a split board with the house and garage & shed on different sections. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DIY-Si Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 We use powerline adapters to get Internet to the wife's shed which is wired through my garage fuse board before going on across the garden so there's at least 60m of wiring between the two. One end is wired to out BT Hub, and the other is wired to her laptop, so it doesnt have a router at the office end. They're stable, and fast enough, for her to access all her online databases at work and use Teams with no lag that she's told me about. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Davis AO - Devon Cornwall & Somerset Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 We use Deco P9 Mesh WiFi system which works very well. The house is old, quite large and with thick walls and it uses a combination of network over mains and WiFi to create a mesh network around the house. I also have one in the garage for camera coverage and a temp/humidity sensor and it again works well out there. We used to have Devolo adaptors but devices didn’t move easily between different adaptors, with the mesh network it is seamless as you move around the house. TP-Link Deco P9 Whole Home Powerline Mesh Wi-Fi System, Up to 6000 Sq ft Coverage, Dual-Band AC1200+HomePlug AV1000, Gigabit Ports, Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa, limited walls impact, Pack of 3 https://amzn.eu/d/2q6LDT1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 As others have said, TP Link homeplugs. One next to the router, and a wifi one in the office. Note the wifi ones also have RJ45 sockets on them so you get both wired and wireless in the office. I've used them for over a decade in some semi-professional scenarios and they work fine. I have three right now distributing an IP phone system at my parents house and although they are a few years old they are rock solid. I think I've had to reboot one of them in the last year. https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-WPA4220KIT-Powerline-Broadband-Configuration-UK/dp/B01LXOZ4EN/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1C8H7D3ABA4WA&keywords=tp+link+homeplug&qid=1673302475&sprefix=tp+link+home%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-2 That's pretty much all you need. The small one next to the router, the large one in the office and as long as they can see each other over the mains, you're golden. Mine provide a solid 50Mb/s over an electrical system that is coming up for 40/50 years old. Newer systems may get closer to the full broadband speed but I'd be wary of claims of high speed when we start to look at full fibre speeds. For that sort of "high" speed pulling cables is definitely worth the extra effort, more for reliability and removing failure points as much as getting the fuill connection speed. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark (smokey mow) Posted January 10, 2023 Author Share Posted January 10, 2023 Thank you for the advice. On reflection and despite initially discounting them it seems power line adaptors would probably be the better option. I’ve just run a quick speed check using the ones fitted in the garden room and found I’m actually getting better download speeds out there than I am in the house! House: Garden room: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted January 11, 2023 Share Posted January 11, 2023 I also use speedof.me on the web and the speedtest.net application that can be downloaded. I test speeds all the time and the speedtest.net app seems to be pretty reliable. I have a full fibre line at my house with a guaranteed speed and SLA and the speedtest app has proven to be spot on. The online compared to app tests are likely to show differences so pick a test and stick with it. That way you have a consistent set of answers. Don't worry too much about ultimate speed. The better metric is differences. If it's a few Mb/s slower for a couple of days, then I'd start to look more closely at what is going on. Quote I’ve just run a quick speed check using the ones fitted in the garden room and found I’m actually getting better download speeds out there than I am in the house! I think that's possibly the vagaries of internet speeds more than anything else. There are a few things to consider, especially if it's a wireless test. If it was a wired test then there are still a couple of things that could make a difference but I won't bore you with any of that right now... The key here is margin for error. Both speeds to me look to be within a small margin of error so I would not be worried about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveclow Posted January 22, 2023 Share Posted January 22, 2023 Another idea is to buy 5G Wi-Fi, i.e. doesn’t need a phone line. We’ve just got it at work via EE and are estimated to get 70-110mbps thanks to a strong 5G signal in our area. the phone line into the office is really bad, 5mbps at best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 Couple of small caveats with 4G/5G connections, especially for a "business*" user. First if the internet is used to share large files often and/or is used for a lot of streaming it could be possible to fall foul of the "fair use" policy that many of these OTA connections have. It is rare, but it is possible. I personally have dealt with this twice for customers and it's a colossal pain... Secondly there are plenty of deals out there for an internet connection without a landline but if there is a landline anyway, then I'd prefer it for the reliability of the connection even though the speed might be lower than 5G. A cable is much less likely to be affected by weather, competing signals and local cell tower congestion, although cell tower congestion is dependent on the exact location of the user, the and size of the local population. That's not to say 4G or 5G are unreliable, but Murphy's Law states that the moment you really need it to be reliable it'll turn to excrement... *Since the pandemic, "business" user has become a very blurred line with people working from home much more. However I am a BIG believer in playing fair. I have been able to work from home like most people but a recent change to my circumstances means I am now fully based at home for my work, essentially making my home my actual place of business. So I changed my connection from domestic to business. It 'costs a little bit more but there are benefits like a much reduced SLA when reporting faults, dedicated support if things do go wrong (not so far) guaranteed speed (hence why I measure my speed often as mentioned earlier) fixed IP address (very useful for a someone like me) and no fair use policy to worry about irrespective of how much of a battering I give the connection. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 My two TP-Link extenders are getting increasingly unreliable. From the start, one of them dropped out once a month and had to be turned off and back on again. Now it’s both of them and it’s once a week. Not impressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 How old are they? Have you tried them in different sockets to see if they stabilise? Have you tried a hard reset? There should be a button on each plug. Depending on the model/type, it could be protruding underneath or almost invisible on the "front face". If memory serves, holding the button for 10 or 20 secs (I'd have to look it up) will force a hard reset. ETA... 10 seconds... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 1 hour ago, Blatman said: How old are they? Have you tried them in different sockets to see if they stabilise? Have you tried a hard reset? There should be a button on each plug. Depending on the model/type, it could be protruding underneath or almost invisible on the "front face". If memory serves, holding the button for 10 or 20 secs (I'd have to look it up) will force a hard reset. ETA... 10 seconds... About 3 years old. I have switched sockets, no change. Haven’t tried a hard reset yet though, good shout, I’ll try that next time it happens - which will probably be tomorrow… thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 Ok cool. 3 years would be a little soon and quite unfortunate if they have genuinely failed. If the reset doesn't improve matters it might be worth an email to TPLink support. If they offer help then great, if not then I guess you won't be buying them in future. Please let me know what the hard reset brings. https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/replacement-warranty/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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