Looking to put a camera 400 feet away from the router in my house. This is outside so a plug in extender won’t work. A wired option would be costly and time consuming. Are there any options?
You might try mounting a high gain parabolic WiFi antenna on your house. This might work if you do Not have any obstructions line of sight over the 400 feet.
Also, your WiFi router would need to have a removable antenna to make this connect.
I have used WiFi antennas inside my house on my devices in increase the gain. My previous WiFi router had the proper connector so these antennas plugged right in.
400 feet is possible if you can mount a directional access point off your house. TP Link makes some good cheap ones, and Ubiquiti makes ones that can go really long distances. But 400 feet line of sight should be possible with the TP links.
You would want to either hard wire it to your router, or use a wifi extender that has an ethernet port (client bridge mode) to link the outdoor AP to your router.
It could be mounted inside a window pointing out through the glass, will reduce the range some but it may be enough. But it would be better to get it outside if possible.
Similar idea to the antenna @StevenA mentions but a small, all in one device (not 24dbi gain either but that’s not needed for 400 feet of 2.4ghz).
Thank you Dave27 and StevenA. I will give these a try. Not sure if I can get LOS as I have trees in the way.
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Going to be a challenge at that distance with trees. A high gain point to point setup may be needed but depends how dense the tree cover is.
Burial rated ethernet is an option too, technically 400 feet is beyond spec but if you don’t need ultra high speeds (which these cams don’t) it would probably be fine.
Do you have any neighbors closer to your desired camera location? If so, you might work an agreement with them to put your camera on their WiFi if they are closer than your 400 feet.
Good idea, but no. I want to go in a direction from the house that is closer to the road, 700 foot driveway, that is away from the houses.
Buried ethernet is the expensive, and time consuming, option I am trying to avoid.
What about a solar powered WiFi extender placed in between?
If this is a possibility, it may solve your Line Of Sight issue.
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Thank you! I will look into this.
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Depending how dense the tree cover is, one of the TP links may do it.
The highly directional ones tend to be designed for point to point and not as an access point that connects directly to a device. But look at the “CPE” and “EAP” lines from TP link and pick the highest gain 2.4ghz one you can find that supports Access Point mode. Worst case, return it if it doesn’t work. Then try to set it and the cam in places where there is the least amount of obstruction between them. The CPE210 is probably the best option from TP Link, it is 9DBI which is not super high gain but it is inexpensive and outdoor rated, and supports AP mode. With no obstructions, 400ft should be very easy for it, but not sure what your tree cover is like or how much other 2.4ghz is in the area. The other option is one of their omnidirectional outdoor access points with external antenna, then replace the antenna with one like @StevenA mentioned (try to get one with just a single antenna, the second will not be used and will just cause issues unless you buy high gain ones for both). But I’d say try the all-in-one unit first, much simpler and cheaper (and nicer looking).
There is also the option of trying to put a reflector behind the cam to focus the wifi but that usually requires a lot of trial and error. Honestly a cam with an external higher gain antenna (Wyze doesn’t have any but others do) may be necessary, along with the high gain AP on the house.
The setups with two directional devices (one on each end) will give you more distance, and since it seems like you may have power for the cam at the remote spot, may be an option? But you’d then need to connect an AP to the remote one so it connects to the cam, so getting a bit overkill potentially.
Ubiquiti has extremely high gain powerful setups available, some are pretty reasonably priced, but off the top of my head I don’t believe any of those support AP mode, they’re for P2P only.
I haven’t tried any of the solar powered repeaters like @StevenA mentioned, not sure how long the battery lasts at night etc but may be an option too. Though line of sight/obstructions will still come into play, and you don’t want to have to daisy chain multiple ones together.
I have an Asus BD5 Outdoor Wifi7 Mesh router mounted outside and my wyze cams connect up to it. I know for sure 400 plus feet with full bars. The Asus BD5 Outdoor model is completely sealed and rated for outdoor use. I have it wireless backhaul to my main router. Its just basically plugged into power on the outside of my house… mounted it to a pole.
For a single camera with tree canopy in the path, the $30 directional TP Link will work better, especially if OP has the option to wire it to the main router (since it won’t act as a repeater without an additional piece).
There are better options for when there are multiple cams at closer distances and wider signal area is needed, but for a single cam, this is a good cheap solution.
Bear in mind even though the cams may “see” full bars, a high gain antenna also helps with the much weaker return signal from the cams.
Thank you people, for all the help and suggestions.