ORBI topology?

[BRS918]

I have a 4500 SF two story home - ground floor is about 3,000 SF with the balance on the 2nd story.  I have a 3000 SF shop (metal building) that is approximately 100' from the house (line-of-site).  ISP is AT&T U-Verse.  I'm anticipating using an Orbi router and two satellites to cover the home.  I'm trying to figure out the best way (techically and commercially) to extend the network to cover the shop.  I have underground electric service (with transformers and meter(s)) from a central area approximately half way between the the shop and the home.

Will the Orbi satellite extend 100+' into the metal building AND provide coverage to 3000 SF (50' x 60') or should I be looking at installing another satellite between the shop and the house (at the electric service)?  If so, does Netgear make an Orbi satellite for OUTDOOR installation?  If so, what is the model?

While researching this equipment, I'm a bit confused on the difference between the Orbi 'range extender' and the Orbi Satellite.  I do a search on "Orbi outdoor satellite" and the 'range extender' comes up every time.

[CrimpOn]

A metal shop building is sort of a "worst case scenario". WiFi signals do not penetrate metal walls very well.  So, "no".  An Orbi unit inside the house is highly unlikely to be usable inside the metal shop building.

The best performing solution is to run a Cat6 ethernet cable from the house to the shop inside a PVC conduit.  Cat6 supports gigabit connections up to 328 ft. (including patch cables), so the shop building is well within that limit even if the cable cannot "go in a straight line" from house to shop.  While the cable itself is not expensive, the cost to create the conduit pathway can be considerable.

Yes, Netgear does sell an "outdoor rated" unit, the RBS50Y.  Placing it "half way" runs into the same issues with the metal building.

Depending on how the house and shop are connected at the transformer/electrical panel, you might be able to use Powerline adapters.  It would be an easy experiment to set up.

The most convenient method of bridging such a gap is to install a pair of WiFi "bridge" units to create a point-to-point link.  Every major WiFi vendor offers one or more such products.  Devices on each end of the link think they are connected to a regular ethernet cable.  Although most bridge units are designed for outdoor mounting, they also can be installed inside, for example stuck to a window.

[BRS918]

Thanks.  You're not telling me anything I didn't expect to hear.  I considered the wireless 'bridge' but from what I can tell the speeds are considerbly slower than a Mesh Network.  Since I expect to 'steam' events (football games and Nascar races) in the shop (man cave), I'm concerned about speed.  Do you think connecting the house to the shop via 'wireless bridge' would be fast enough to support streaming of live events?  Can the wireless bridge support a seamless network between the house and the shop or would have have to set up a seperate WiFi network in the shop?

[FURRYe38]

I would recommend CrimpOns suggestion of running a buried LAN cable out to the shop, then install a RBS there on the LAN cable and run the RBS as wired satellite. This will be like a wired AP with singals available at the shop. You should have signals inside the shop however signals outside will be limited. 

[BRS918]

Another thing I neglected to mention is that the shop and the house on separate electric meters and have their own service panels.  To my knowledge the first common component in the sytem is the high voltage step down transformer.  I'm not certain but pretty sure using the electrcial wiring to extend the network, wouldn't work very well having to go through the panels, meters and transformer, if at all!?!?

[CrimpOn]

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@BRS918 wrote:

Do you think connecting the house to the shop via 'wireless bridge' would be fast enough to support streaming of live events?  Can the wireless bridge support a seamless network between the house and the shop or would have have to set up a seperate WiFi network in the shop?

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To have multiple connections inside the shop (TV, smartphone, computer, etc.) there needs to be some kind of access point inside the shop buildiing.  If it is an Orbi satellite, then this will create a "seamless" network compatible with the main house network.  The question is how to get that satellite connected to the main house.

WiFi bridges come in various capacities.  Ubiquiti's NanoStation AC supports "up to 450mbs".  Considering that streaming HD video takes 15-25mbs, this would probably stream more than 10 TV's at the same time.  Not bad for about $150USD

https://www.amazon.com/NanoStation-NS-5ACL-US-802-11ac-Wireless-POE-24-7W-G/dp/B07K351LGD/ref=sr_1_3... 

[schumaku]

Honestly? Forget consumer mesh Orbi or prosumer mesh like Orbi Pro. 

Create a real SMB network based on Netgear Insight, consider the installation of a fiber pair (Multimode, basically inexpensive, but you need some pro support for splicing in a patch box), two switches (e.g. with 1G or with 10G SFP for the link between the building, like a GC728XP), some Network cables installed (free flight wiring, or with a small patch panel and wall outlets), to the locations you need reliable connections (for wireless access points, where you might want to install some NAS, office computers, ...). The investment in fiber and cabling will last for a much longer time (10..25 years), possible bandwidth and reliability will pay back from the first day of the set-up. Desperately have some locations where no wiring is possible this can be done binding a WAC564 wirelessly to a wired WAC540. Needless to say, all these access points offer seamless roaming. And thanks to the higher bandwidth you won't have to replace the Mesh system devices in three years once the next WiFi technology will pop-up. 

[BRS918]

I assume the wireless bridge components would be installed on the outside of the buildings, facing one another? Then hard-wired to the rounter in the house and the satellite in the shop (metal building)?  If so, is there any advantage to installing a mesh network with a 'satellite' in the shop (hard wired to the wireless bidge)  vs an off-the-shelf range extender on the esisting wirless network?

[CrimpOn]

An "off the shelf" range extender suffers from the same disadvantages as locating an Orbi satellite inside the shop building

• Most of them are not rated for "outdoor", so the WiFi signal from the house will be too faint to provide the range extender a good signal.
• The shop will not have a "seamless" WiFi system with the house.  Whether that is important is a question only the user can decide.
• The range extender most likely has omnidirectional antennas, which does not help "bridge the gap".

It would be considerably less expensive to attach a "regular $50 access point" to the WiFi bridge at the shop.  Not "seamless", but  that may not matter.

Wireless bridge units are rated in terms of kilometers, so it is common to place them indoors or stuck to windows to eliminate the hassle of drilling holes in the wall and exterior mounting. If the shop has no windows that face the house, of course, that bridge unit needs to be placed outside.

[schumaku]

The price of a regular WiFi access point depends on the technology built-in. It depends what you want to serve over the WiFi (number of devices, average load, and max performance), and last but not least the types of WiFi clients. Netgear's entry level WAC505 is currently prices below 60 USD - combined with other WAC5xx (The 540 where you need more bandwidth and clients supported goes for less than 160 USD). And everything can be seamless. No idea why you continue riding the "Mesh" marketing wave - there is nothing these WAC can't do.

[BRS918]

I'm not riding the "mesh' marketing wave!  I have an existing wireless network in the house that I'm generally happy with (it includes ONE wireless extender to get to to portions of the house not covered by the router). 

My goal is to get WiFi in my shop.  I've been lead to believe replacing my existing nework with MESH technology MIGHT be a cost effective way to get WiFi in the shop.  After doing some research, it doesn't look like that is the case. 

From what I can tell, I will need to 'bridge' the distance between the house and the shop with a hard wired (copper or fiber via digging and burrying conduit) or a soft bridge (point-to-point wireless).  Once the 'bridge' is in place, I'm wondering why another 'extender' on the existing network wouldn't provide wireless access in the shop when hard wired to the 'bridge'? 

Once the 'bridge' is in place would MESH technology provide ANY benefit over adding an extender to the existing nework?

From all I can tell, it looks like I need to add the wireless bridge (outside the shop) and hard wire a range extender (inside the shop) for WiFi coverage.

[CrimpOn]

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@BRS918 wrote:

I'm not riding the "mesh' marketing wave!  I have an existing wireless network in the house that I'm generally happy with (it includes ONE wireless extender to get to to portions of the house not covered by the router).

From all I can tell, it looks like I need to add the wireless bridge (outside the shop) and hard wire a range extender (inside the shop) for WiFi coverage.

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Sorry I was not perceptive in reading the very first post.  "Anticipating using an Orbi" somehow got mangled into "already have an Orbi", which is entirely different.  I believe that the device inside the shop should be a WiFi access point, not an "extender".  The point of extenders is to connect via WiFi to an exiting WiFi access point to support WiFi devices that are too far from the access point to get a good signal.  Any ethernet port is typically to support a local device rather than the connection to the network.

The principal difference between using a "mesh" and a system of extenders is the coordination that a mesh system provides.  If the existing extender setup is satisfactory, then adding an access point in the shop should be as well.  With a 100' distance from the main house, at some point a device travelling between them would  most likely drop the house WiFi connection, scan again, and pick up the shop WiFi signal.  (and the reverse going back).  Devices that remain in the shop will never know about the house WiFi.

Sorry we led the discussion off in the wrong direction.

[tomschmidt]

@BRS918, you are correct that MESH will not help your garage coverage unless the garage itself needs a mesh to cover the size of it.  Once you extend your house network 100 feet to the garage using either buried cable or a point-to-point link, then you can either add an access point (AP) using anouther router in AP mode, or an extender.  The disadvantage of the extender is that they essentially repeat the signal from one SSID (i.e. MyWiFi) to another SSID (i.e. MyWiFi_ext) and cut the total throughput bandwidth in half doing so.  Whereas another router in AP mode would be able to use your same SSID for the garage.

Using mesh with another satellite in the garage however could also provide you coverage between the two buildings.  That way as you "roam" from the house to the garage with a smartphone, tablet or laptop, the WiFi coverage could be maintained between the two buildings as well.

Simple diagram:

House Satellite <-> cable to garage <-> Garage Satellite