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Forum Discussion
Outdoor Extender vs. Regular Satellite
Doing some outdoor construction and I had a ethernet line run out to my pool area. I would like to add a satellite outside in the pool shed. This would be a hard wired satellite. I have a few questio...
You are correct. The outdoor rated Orbi satellite has no ethernet jack. Perhaps the engineers did not anticipate customers being willing to penetrate their exterior wall to get to the satellite.
Orbi satellites have modest environmental specs: 32 to 104F. (i.e. not particularly well suited for an enclosed space outdoors without ventilation (cooling) and heating (winter).
The primary benefiti of an Orbi satellite vs. an ordinary WiFi access point is the "integration". Devices will "roam" from one Orbi device to another, switching seamlessly when the signal from one is deemed "better" than the other. (Great for cell phones.) An ordinary access point is a separate system. Users would need to manually switch from the Orbi WiFi to the AP (and back). Or, if the pool is located far enough from the house, then devices might drop their Orbi connection and pick up the AP automatically.
If WiFi is important and you can put up with lack of integration, there are many options. The Ubiquiti UAP-FlexHD, for example, is a combination 2.4G/5G access point that is outdoor rated, wall or pole mounted, powered over PoE, and rated for -22 to +158F. It retails for $179 and requires a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer to configure.
https://dl.ui.com/qsg/UAP-FlexHD/UAP-FlexHD_EN.html
I have no particular preference for Ubiquiti. As far as I am aware, I have never actually seen one in person.