Need to put reliable WiFi 5km WiFi 5km (or more) away? I did. Let's see how it works for Astrophotography!
Introduction
My AstropotamuPOD is only a few dozen meters away from my house, but it's still a long way to go for WiFi. Especially through old stone farm house walls, windows, plaster, and whatever crap is between the inner wall and outer wall that they threw down there for insulation. I've been bridging the gap with an Eero in the kitchen window, but I get a lot of "rain fade" and the link is slow. So I decided to put my decades of network engineering to work and see what was new in the world of WiFi bridging. The TP-Link CPE210 (for 2.4GHz or CPE510 for 5GHz) WiFi bridge units had amazing specs, cheap prices, and great reviews. So I bit the bullet, bought two, and installed them. The results (and my choices) might surprise you.
Key Specifications
-
Brand & Model: TP-Link CPE210
-
Type: 2.4GHz WiFi Bridge
-
Price Range: Less than $40 at Amazon!
-
Key Features:
- Amazing specs, prices, and reviews
- Easy setup with a built-in web server that requires minimal manual configuration
- 300Mbps communications at 50 feet with very lazy aiming
-
Best For: Anyone that needs to put WiFi "over there" without running a cable "from here"
-
Processor: Qualcomm Atheros 560MHz CPU, MIPS 74Kc
-
Memory: 64MB DDR2 RAM, 8MB Flash
-
Interface: 1 10/100Mbps Shielded Ethernet Port (Passive PoE in)
-
Dimensions: 8.8W x 3.1D x 2.4H in.
-
Antenna: Built-in 9dBi 2x2 Dual-polarized Directional Antenna
-
Beam Width: 65° (H-Plane) / 35° (E-Plane)
Design & Build Quality
- This is a brain-dead simple device that "just works" once you take a minute to understand what it's doing
- Even just throwing the base unit in the window (horizontally) and hanging the receiver inside the SkyShed POD from the tripod azimuth adjuster (vertically), I get full connection rates and fast data transmission
- Gone are the days of manually bridging Wifi networks
- Create a CPE210 WiFi network that only those two device connect to
- Plug base unit into your home network via PoE cable (comes with a power injector)
- Plug remote end into a switch, router, Eero, or whatever you want
- Bob's your uncle; you have an extended WiFi network
Performance & Features
Ideally, running fiber optic cable from someone's house to a backyard observatory would be provided free of charge for paying your taxes, but we're not quite there yet. The next best thing is the TP-Link CPE210 WiFi Bridge. Anything else is third-best thing, at best, and likely fifth or sixth or seventh best thing, in reality. The Bridge comes in two flavors. The CPE210 is a 2.4GHz version and the CPE510 is a 5.0GHz version. I won't go too far into the weeds here, but 2.4GHz has better range, better penetration through intervening things, and "standard" speeds while 5.0GHz offers less range, less penetration, and potentially better speeds.* I live in the country, not the city, and I am potentially moving the POD a few hundred yards into the back part of the property some day, so I went with slower speeds, better range and penetration. If you live in a crowded area with lots of WiFi traffic, you might want the 5GHz version to get better spectrum coverage with less interference, but both the CPE210 and CPE510 should work relatively similarly, so long as you keep these things in mind.
This is a brain-dead simple device that "just works" once you take a minute to understand what it's doing.
With not much to configure, I put the main unit on my network, used the included Power over Ethernet (PoE) injector to combine network and power to its single network jack, and it sprung to life. Note that it is hard-coded to be 192.168.0.254 when it turns on so you may need to do some minor fiddling with your network to get an IP address that can connect to it. I'm not going to go into that here. Once you're on the same subnet, you can aim your web browser at it, log in, and you're almost done.
Change your username/password, tell it you want to do Access Point mode for the base unit and Client Mode for the remote unit, change the IP address to match something more reasonable for your network, tell it the name of the WiFi Bridge network you want to create, it's password, reboot, and you're done. That Bridge network will be used only for the two devices to communicate with each other so you can mark it hidden afterwards if you want to make it more secure. No "normal" devices should be able to connect to it, even if they know the password, but it's always better to have more security than less. Do the same for the remote unit with IP and WiFi network and when it reboots, it will want to connect via radio to the base unit. When it does, the Ethernet port on the remote unit will magically be on the same network as the Ethernet port on the base unit as if there were a long wire between the two. Magic!
*It's not likely that your equipment will actually use this better speeds, since the Ethernet port is a 100Mbps port, which is likely going to be your limiting factor.
Ease of Use
- Once connected, you'll forget it's there. As I said, mine is just thrown in my kitchen window, connected to the Eero that was previously providing WiFi to the SkyShed POD. Since the POD network is now the same as the home network (instead of a separate, routed network) all my equipment, cameras, and software are simplified by being on the same network. You may want to do something different with VLANs or whatever, but that's up to you.
- I can't imagine a more easy setup than this. TP-Link's Pharos web interface really is a slam-dunk home-run hat-trick win on this one!
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Easy setup
- Fast network
- PoE injector included
- Zip ties for securing to a pole (not included) or other object are included
- Indoor/Outdoor with IPX5 waterproof Certification
- 6KV Lightning Protection and 15KV ESD Protection
Cons
- Doesn't come with network cables so you'll need one for the PoE power injector and a second for plugging into the main network (base unit) or plugging something into it (remote unit)
- If you don't know what you're doing and start poking settings on your own, it's possible to make it so it doesn't do what you want and there's no way to connect to it other than to factory reset it and start over.
- Ethernet ports are 100Mbps instead of 1Gbit but it's rarely an issue
Who Should Buy This?
- Ideal for anyone that wants to spread their WiFi network to another building or remote location with line of sight up to 5km (or more)
- Best suited for someone who has some idea of networking but it doesn't require any in depth network knowledge
- Great for putting WiFi into a remote building near one's house, for [semi-] permanent PC, Astrophotography, or other work
Final Verdict
If you need to put WiFi somewhere else, and you have a line of sight to that place, this will probably work. Don't forget you need to buy two!
Compared to the Eero, it's a different beast. The Eero is a mesh network that - so long as each Eero unit is within a few meters of another Eero - builds a consumer WiFi network that covers a larger footprint than a single WiFi router could. It's great for providing coverage to your house. The CPE210 is like making a virtual cable between point A and point B and then continuing to have network at point B, even if it's thousands of meters away. In fact, if you plug an Eero into the remote unit, it will find the other Eeros in your house and extend your Wifi automatically out there, as if it were wired back to the main unit(s). Pretty cool!
Where to Buy
- I got mine from Amazon for less than $40 each
- Other places probably sell it
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which help support our work at no extra cost to you.
FAQs
-
Q: Will it work with my main mesh network?
A: It will if you plug your mesh wifi into the remote unit (see above) -
Q: Is it good for large coverage?
A: No, it's not designed to increase the overall coverage of your network (that's what a Mesh network is for). It's more like an extension cord. If you have a 100 foot extension cord, you have power at the start and power at the end, but not in the middle. Same with this - network at the start and network at the end but not in the middle. -
Q: Can it make my network faster?
A: It won't make the network itself any faster, but it might dramatically increase overall connection speeds between the two locations if you're using some sort of mesh extender or other option (other than wired connection) today.