The best 802n wireless accesspoint?
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ASUS RT-N16 - A serious workhorse but only 2.4ghz ~$70 refurb
ASUS RT N66U - Dual Band workhorse ~140 refurb
ASUS RT N66AC Dual band plus 802.11ac technology (may be one of the fastest routers available right now) ~$180
would WAF allow you to place the WAP inside a 2nd floor closet above the door. That may get you the coverage you need.
I've owned many different wifi routers over the years of many differnent brands. None beats my last upgrade of the N66U. The range in my house is the best I've ever seen it, as well as performance. Also configuring as an access point is a breeze. I never knew it could be this good.
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ASUS RT-N16 - A serious workhorse but only 2.4ghz ~$70 refurb
ASUS RT N66U - Dual Band workhorse ~140 refurb
ASUS RT AC66U Dual band plus 802.11ac technology (may be one of the fastest routers available right now) ~$180
would WAF allow you to place the WAP inside a 2nd floor closet above the door. That may get you the coverage you need.
I've owned many different wifi routers over the years of many differnent brands. None beats my last upgrade of the N66U. The range in my house is the best I've ever seen it, as well as performance. Also configuring as an access point is a breeze. I never knew it could be this good.
And flexible . . . They will use tomatoUSB and DD-WRT and are FAST! I've only read specs and graphs on the AC66U but it looks amazing.
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with 32M of flash and 256M of RAM, I wonder if pfSense one day could run on the 66 ;D
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Thank you for your Asus-recommendations, I will look into that ;D
Meanwhile, I am running into a small problem.
With me not knowing too much about what I really need, I decided I need a 5 Ghz AP, mostly because this would have less interference problems. As I expect these to occur (I live in front of a shopping mall, where many wireless networks run, so tells me InSSider), I thought buying something simultaneously double band would be a wise decision (currently only my Lenovo supports 5 Ghz, so the tablet I am going to buy for my wife will be one that also needs to support 5 Ghz (my next cumbersome selection adventure :-X)).
So the ubiguiti recommended here gets many praises all over the internet, so it was sort of on my short list. Yet, with 5 Ghz it becomes expensive:
https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/315056/ubiquiti-unifi-ap-pro.html
Of course, I might try to find it cheaper on Amazon.com and have it shipped to me, but then you still have the import duties (so the government can give that to the 'poor banks in need' :P) as well as possible future warranty problems and - costs.
So a retailer advised me to instead take this:
http://www.wlanshop.nl/producten/access-point/access-points-indoor/engenius-ecb-350-high-power-wireless-n-gigabit-access-point_ecb-350.html
Would anybody be able to give me an opinion? What is wisdom?
Thank you very much in advance ;D
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You'll have to check availability where you are, but I'm presently liking EnGenius access points - specifically the ones that can be used outdoors, though none of mine are actually outdoors at present. ENH202 or ENH500. I've been able to get ENH202 nicely priced (US $70-ish) with a bit of shopping. I haven't wanted the 5GHz version enough to try one. You might look at the ECB9500 (poking around the price site you posted, that seems to be available there, for less than the ECB350.)
I tend to suspect that any lack of interference on 5MHz is going to be short-lived, and I definitely notice less range and lower actual connected data rates from 5GHz where I have it as compared to 2.4 GHz. The fact that you can see other networks does not mean that they will be a big factor if you are working short-range within your house where both your access point and computer are, while the other stuff is across the street. Think of it as similar to being able to hear your neighbors music when you are not playing any of your own, but mostly not being able to hear theirs if you all are playing some and nobody is at an absurd volume level…
I also have a Buffalo AirStation dual band router that I only use as an access point, which comes with DD-WRT as its software, which you mentioned at the head of the thread. It's been OK, and is actually gigabit on the ethernet ports (the EnGenius I mentioned are 10/100 single band, except the 9500, which is gigabit and singleband) and has other features that may be of more use "at home" such as a USB port for a mass storage drive. WZR-HP-AG300H, if it's still on the market...
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can some1 recommend a one that is tiny in size, similar to those usb powered wifi devices using realtek chipset but mainly i need a one with which i can attach a rubber duck antenna.
those usb powered ones r good to just get the job done, nothing fancy but problem is they r usb powered and need a computer to work as an access point, something similar to that but with a Ethernet port and a web gui would be great
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I've never used it but:
http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WR702NThe TL-WR702N is the smallest wireless router in the world….
Steve
Edit: No external antenna connector though.
Edit: Maybe this: http://www.cnetusa.com/product_CQR-980.php
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it doesnt mention the power but i have those chinese usb wifi card with realtek chipset which provide around 1200mW of power
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Since you can only draw 250mW from a standard USB socket I have to question those claims. ;)
How about this: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/asus/wl-330n
It's tiny and, as you see, it can run OpenWRT so you can make it do what you want.Steve
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actually the usb cable they provide needs to use 2 usb ports if u need full power, works with one usb as well but might experience drops.
the asus one u mentioned doesn't have a antenna port and also no idea on how much wifi power it can pump out
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probably if not n then a b/g will do provided a small size and antenna port
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I'm talking rubbish! :-[
Clearly a standard USB port is 5V at 500mA but that's 2.5W. Clearly not enough coffee yet today! ::)There seem to be more options if you're prepared to get creative, e.g.
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3020#external.antenna.hackSteve
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i have soldering tools but never was comfortable with them at all so lets just stick to some ready made product if possible
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@SunCatalyst:
i can get close to .9 mile away from mine
and still have signal and be able to surf and do my regular stuff.That's 0.9miles or 1.44km away from the cisco ap?? Or am I missing something?
Clearly I'm no expert in AP and wireless technology. But if this' what I think you meant it to be, then I'll be damned. The range is indeed impressive!
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This post is deleted! -
@Hollander:
G'day all,
After much struggling I finally got Pfense installed (thanks Steve for the 1:1 help ;D - and all the others for so kindly assisting this noob by replying to my previous questions in the thread I posted).
So, it finally start to look like something over here. I have Pfsense as my router and firewall, I have Synology as my file server, I have a HP-procurve switch, I have an APC UPS, I have some fast HTPC's freshly built. Now only two things are lacking:
- A tablet for my wife (a disaster to find out what I need to buy) since she wants to read ebooks in bed;
- The wireless setup to go with it. Per the recommendations of all the smart people over here, I will be plugging the wireless 'thing' into the HP switch, as this appears, per all the remarks here, the most stable. But then of course, the question is: what wireless 'thing'?
As I have experienced, the standard retail stuff is mostly crap ('hey, big companies, you should devote your resources to developing quality, not to marketing budgets to market crap to the people' ;D). More or less as an exception to this rule of 'crap', it appears Apple's Air wireless 'thing' gets good grades, but I have a problem with Apple (I do respect people that do like it, but I don't like the companies philosophy, let alone the ridiculous prices it charges while not paying the factory workers in China a decent salary).
So I am still left in the dark. And then I was thinking: dd-wrt appears to be a stable and widely prayed solution. Couldn't I use that? Of course, most people use it with 'an old' router that they flashed, but I don't have an old router to flash, so for me the whole story would be 'brand new'. Now I can go out and look on the Ebay's of this world for some second hand machine, but then of course the problem remains: which machine do I need?
Or, alternatively, isn't it possible to build your own wireless access point, simultaneously dual band, with good coverage (my guarden is 50 meters deep, so it should be able to cover that), and for a fair price?
So that is my polite question here:
A. what are you using (like said, wireless N, simultaneously dual band, good coverage and rock stable) 'of the shelf' and after market flashed with something like dd-wrt, or:
B. Is it possible to build it yourself? What hardware does one need for that?I am, again, in your debt for any help, so thank you very much for that in advance ;D
Bye,
;)
I ran a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND with add-on 8dbi antennae as my primary wireless main router plus wireless for a solid year on DD-WRT servicing 15 to 20 wired and wireless devices including 2 home based businesses without even so much as a reboot. The only reason I powered it off is that it was connected to my UPS which I needed to relocate.
I now use pfSense 2.0.2 as my router and just updated it to an Intel i3-3220 this morning. I reconfigured the TP-Link 1043ND as just an access point a few weeks ago so it’s workload is probably down by 95%. It is plugged into my gigabit switch. One of the wireless clients is a desktop case home theater PC a few rooms over. It accesses movies and TV shows on a home server via a dual external wireless N antennae. Most of the content is 720p or 1080p. There is some startup lag playing a movie but I do not experience ANY stuttering or dropouts while watching video.
Most of the other wireless clients are laptops sometimes and smart phones.
There is the new emerging wireless IEEE 802.11ac standard of course and these routers/access points are up to $200 for the consumer gear.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320115Hope this helps
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@SunCatalyst:
here again ive NEVER used a UniFi in a home enviroment.
i'm using them at work (a dozen or so) AND 2 at home, a very happy camper here..
I have the regular UniFi's - not the LR or PRO - and i think is more than enough, rangewise. Recently I bought a Pico too, just to play with it..
If you don't use a guest portal you wont need a controller running… set them up, save the config on you Dropbox of Copy drive and forget about it 'til you want to change somethin' -
I'm running the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND with Gargoyle (see http://www.gargoyle-router.com/) to handle my 'G' traffic. I have an Asus RT-N66U for 'N' traffic. Gargoyle is a simplified UI on top of open-wrt and I have personally found it to be more stable than dd-wrt on the TP-Link.
All that said - while the TP-Link is a nice router, I don't think it's in the same class as the Asus RT-N66U. Of course, it also costs considerably less!
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@SunCatalyst:
here again ive NEVER used a UniFi in a home enviroment.
i'm using them at work (a dozen or so) AND 2 at home, a very happy camper here..
I have the regular UniFi's - not the LR or PRO - and i think is more than enough, rangewise. Recently I bought a Pico too, just to play with it..
If you don't use a guest portal you wont need a controller running… set them up, save the config on you Dropbox of Copy drive and forget about it 'til you want to change somethin'I have to agree. I use Ubiquiti UniFi at home and at many of my client sites. Ranging from 1 - 20 access points. Very easy to configure and deploy. Great range and reliability.
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Did I read the Ubiquiti UniFi info correctly?
http://www.ubnt.com/unifi#UnifiSoftware
These need a Mac or Windows to administer?
