Any experience with wifi access points?

[mdeisenhauer]

I recently built a shop on my property and I have Starlink at my shop. My challenge is, I'd like to have a camera at my gate and accessible over the internet.

My shop is 300 yards from my gate and I don't have power up there so I'll be needing 12v batteries and solar to power the camera and access point.

There are so many options out there in the market, I'm hoping someone has done something similar with good results and I can get some pointers off you.

 

[Iluvbeer]

If the gate has line of sight from your home, you can install something like this to beam wifi out to a camera. Then just buy like a Blink security camera that operates off of AA battery. I have used these nanostations all over my quarries to beam signal to weigh scales extremely far away...

airMAX NanoStation M2 - Ubiquiti Store

Indoor/Outdoor airMAX 2.4 GHz CPE.

store.ui.com

 

[KenB]

Nanostation . Blink cameras need to be close to their base stations (about 40 ft, max). Ring cameras might be a better choice — they are wi-fi and can be solar powered, but require a subscription for cloud recording storage.

Ken

 

[theoldwizard1]

It turns out there is a standard just for longer distance WiFi (up to 1km), 802.11ah (a.k.a. HaLow) !

It is not popular because it is slower than the commonly used WiFi standards (802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11ac are currently the most popular)

IEEE standard	Adopted	Maximum link rate (Mbit/s)	Radio frequency (GHz)
802.11bn	2028	100,000	2.4, 5, 6 mmWave
802.11be	2024	1376-46,120	2.4, 5, 6
802.11ax	2020	574-9,608	6
802.11ah	2017	86-347	0.9
802.11ac	2014	433-6,933	5
802.11n	2008	72-600	2.4, 5
802.11g	2003	6-54	2.4, 5
802.11b	1999	1-11	2.4
802.11a	1999	6-54	5

 

[mdeisenhauer]

If the gate has line of sight from your home, you can install something like this to beam wifi out to a camera. Then just buy like a Blink security camera that operates off of AA battery. I have used these nanostations all over my quarries to beam signal to weigh scales extremely far away...

airMAX NanoStation M2 - Ubiquiti Store

Indoor/Outdoor airMAX 2.4 GHz CPE.

store.ui.com

Thanks for the information. Looks like I need to rig up something like the following.

 

[Iluvbeer]

Thanks for the information. Looks like I need to rig up something like the following.

No, mount the nanostation on your home/shop or wherever your home internet comes from. Power the nanostation from POE (power over ethernet), that will be one cat 5 cable going to the nanostation is all that's required. Beam the signal out to the gate feeding a wifi camera that operates off a battery, or solar, whatever you choose...

 

[cgrutt]

No, mount the nanostation on your home/shop or wherever your home internet comes from. Power the nanostation from POE (power over ethernet), that will be one cat 5 cable going to the nanostation is all that's required. Beam the signal out to the gate feeding a wifi camera that operates off a battery, or solar, whatever you choose...

Forgive me not quite sure I'm following you with this. Are you saying that Nanostation will beam a signal 300 yrds to a Blink WiFi camera mounted remotely without power and be able to receive the camera feed back? Find that hard to believe but impressive if true.

 

[cgrutt]

I helped my buddy with a project for a convent to get wifi to a remote building where the nuns had a salon so they could put in some TVs etc. We used a pair of Ubiquity bridges that had line of sight between both buildings. It worked great but in this case there was power on both ends.

 

[Iluvbeer]

Forgive me not quite sure I'm following you with this. Are you saying that Nanostation will beam a signal 300 yrds to a Blink WiFi camera mounted remotely without power and be able to receive the camera feed back? Find that hard to believe but impressive if true.

No, I forgot that the blink camera must talk to the base station. The camera itself is battery powered however, the base is not. The base doesn't use much power though so it could easily be operated off of a small solar panel with battery backup. But yes, the nanostation will easily send a signal 300 yards. It is a directional antenna... So what I would do is find a good wifi cam that operates off of battery only...

 

[wyliesdiesels]

If the gate has line of sight from your home, you can install something like this to beam wifi out to a camera. Then just buy like a Blink security camera that operates off of AA battery. I have used these nanostations all over my quarries to beam signal to weigh scales extremely far away...

airMAX NanoStation M2 - Ubiquiti Store

Indoor/Outdoor airMAX 2.4 GHz CPE.

store.ui.com

i wouldnt do that. instead buy 2 radios and make a point to point. wireless cameras are atrocious

 

[Iluvbeer]

i wouldnt do that. instead buy 2 radios and make a point to point. wireless cameras are atrocious

Absolutely no need for a PTP setup when one antenna will work perfectly for this.

 

[rooster59]

Wi-Fi yagi antennas at both ends

 

[reader2580]

At work I helped set up a whole bunch of Ubiquiti Nanobeams to connect to cameras in parking lots. This requires a Nanobeam at each end. In our case the cameras were hardwired to the Nanobeam. Our cameras all had power run to them. Nanobeams at the time cost $99 each. They might be more with inflation now. No failures in five or six years. We had an "enterprise" grade solution previously that cost a lot more money and failed all the time.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Nothing against Ubiquity, but I would still look for a HaLow (802.11ah) solution ! A couple of references.

Revolutionary Wi-Fi tech that can cover two miles and work on coin batteries for months hits key milestone

HaLow gets first hardware after an eight year of wait but rivals abound​

Low-Power Wi-Fi Extends Signals Up to 3 Kilometers

Morse Micro hopes Wi-Fi HaLow can fill a niche in a crowded IoT space​

Wi-Fi HaLow Shatters Limits with a 3-Kilometer Range

The trade-off is lower throughput but as tests show, HaLow can still support data-intensive applications like video. The technology is also much lower power than conventional Wi-Fi, as it has in-built features that allow devices to remain dormant for long periods and wake only when they need to transmit data. This makes it feasible to power HaLow devices using batteries.​

One example

Silex AP-100ah

 

[drx2]

I'v used this. https://www.scenestek.com/
Happy with it

 

[BLUE72CAMARO]

I have been running a pair of tplink ptp antennas to send internet from my house to my sheds for a couple years now and it has worked great.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Absolutely no need for a PTP setup when one antenna will work perfectly for this.

accept it wont. ive done experiments before. the receivers in wireless cameras are atrocious. why not spend a little extra money and do a bonafide setup?

 

[Iluvbeer]

accept it wont. ive done experiments before. the receivers in wireless cameras are atrocious. why not spend a little extra money and do a bonafide setup?

I disagree with you as I have done this numerous times when the need was there. But I refuse to argue about it so I will not respond to this post again...

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I disagree with you as I have done this numerous times when the need was there. But I refuse to argue about it so I will not respond to this post again...

I work on microwave radios and towers for a living. Its not the best way to set them up and the results will usually be dismal. But if you want to cheap out by skipping one radio thats your prerogative…

 

[dscheidt]

Nothing against Ubiquity, but I would still look for a HaLow (802.11ah) solution ! A couple of references.

why? It's a technology no one uses. There are good reasons for that. For fixed locations, like a camera installation, a point to point (or point to multipoint) will be more reliable.

 

[Crazyjake8493]

I've had good luck with Ubiquiti products, though I've never tried to go quite that far. I have one of their access points (from about 10 years ago) in the attic of my garage near the rear window, and I get get Wifi about 700 feet from the garage while I'm mowing. They have a long range access point that will go farther.

 

[Denwood]

I won't add anything as @wyliesdiesels is pretty much spot on. I've been at this for 35 years plus in the industry.

I have messed with security cameras on WIFI, and my one suggestion is not to do it, unless reliability is not a concern or recording at a usable resolution is not important. POE, 4K...that's my one and only recommendation.

On point to point, I have used the Ubiquity Nanostations for several sites which have been rock solid for an unusually long time...as in 100% solid, zero failures and pretty much zero service calls. I have also used TPlink Omada's gear to do shared WIFI in a campground, and it works, but I would not use it for a 900 foot leg as it will likely work if you have line of site, but will be very slow.

Is your gate more or less line of site to the shop?

I would do a variation on the video below, as you had posted previously, if your shop has line of site to the gate. The ubiquity stuff is stupidly cheap for how reliable it is. These are the units that I have used and would recommend as you can use the POE pass thru port to power a 4K POE camera. Those Nanobeam 5AC units also have gigabit network ports to support the higher connection speed that you'll see, likely in the 300-400 Mbps range@900 feet. Your solar setup at the gate would just need to power a single POE injector. In the video, he's using USB to power the POE injector, which I would not do...likely there is not sufficient power there for both the nano and a camera. For simplicity I would use a small inverter to power your gate bits.


He did some tweaks on the solar setup in subsequent videos:

 

[My Old Tools]

We use a Reolink 4g camera at our gate with a solar panel. It is no where near line of site so cellular was the easy answer. $20 a month for a tablet sim in the camera.

 

[Stobal]

It would maybe warrant looking into the feasibility of a 1000ft roll of direct burial Cat6 cable with a POE repeater every 100 yards (so you would need two of them). Rent a trencher. I know there are some good outdoor rated repeaters and the data transmission would definitely be enough for a single camera. Just a thought. I admittedly am not an expert on the latest WiFi technology but I always look at hard wiring first. This of course also assumes the area between the shop and the gate isn’t a boulder field or dense forest or something of that sort. Just thought I would suggest another option to look into.

 

[dcg9381]

I recently built a shop on my property and I have Starlink at my shop. My challenge is, I'd like to have a camera at my gate and accessible over the internet.
My shop is 300 yards from my gate and I don't have power up there so I'll be needing 12v batteries and solar to power the camera and access point.
There are so many options out there in the market, I'm hoping someone has done something similar with good results and I can get some pointers off you.

I have dealt with this scenario exactly. I used unfi directional antennas access points between the house and gate.
I installed 100 watts of solar at the gate, 2 deep cycle batteries, and used 24V PoE to power the cameras and the access points.
Worked great. 3 cameras at the gate.

Took a little while to get the "how much solar/battery" do I need at the gate down... Expect 3+ days without any sun sometimes, even in TX.

 

[DaveMcLain]

One factor to think about is how crowded the wifi spectrum is in your particular location. My house is in town and my shop is on another lot across the street. When I originally built the shop I extended my network using two Engenius Enstation 2's set up as a PTP link. These used 802.11n and they worked great for several years but then the link started to really slow down at certain times of the day. Over time the 2.4Ghz spectrum became very crowded. I switched to using two Ubiquiti Gigabeam 60Ghz bridges several years ago and they have been flawless. I gave the Enstations to a friend who's lives out in the country and he's been using them for a couple of years with great results.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

One factor to think about is how crowded the wifi spectrum is in your particular location. My house is in town and my shop is on another lot across the street. When I originally built the shop I extended my network using two Engenius Enstation 2's set up as a PTP link. These used 802.11n and they worked great for several years but then the link started to really slow down at certain times of the day. Over time the 2.4Ghz spectrum became very crowded. I switched to using two Ubiquiti Gigabeam 60Ghz bridges several years ago and they have been flawless. I gave the Enstations to a friend who's lives out in the country and he's been using them for a couple of years with great results.

Yeah 2.4Ghz in a city is pointless nowadays because the spectrum is too crowded

 

[dcg9381]

Yeah 2.4Ghz in a city is pointless nowadays because the spectrum is too crowded

You can pretty easily check for this with a simple phone app.
I had garage door interference problems when using one side of the 2.4Ghz band also.
The advantage is that 2.4Ghz travels farther... Which may be useful in some circumstances... But as indicated here if you're in tight residential things can get pretty busy.