Connectivity and wifi 6

[Thenobbler]

Hi,

I have an office in my garden which has a six foot air gap between the house and office wall (office is a steel box, better quality than wood but obviously harder to get a wifi signal through. I'm running Smart Hub 2 and some discs, plus the router (a fibre connection which is getting around 60mbps at the router) is hard wired (cat 5, with a 30 foot run) to a TPLink 1300mps booster literally on the other side of the house wall - so the TPLink is pushing a signal six feet but through the house wall and then the office wall. On occasions Speedtest has the incoming signal well over 40mbps, on other occasions it's total garbage like less than one. Does the collected expertise here think it's worth spending the £3-400 to go wifi6 Whole Home, or is this pointless (and possibly not even functional) with dear old Smart Hub 2? I don't want to hard wire the office as it would mean banging yet more holes in walls and running cable where there's no easy routing.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Thanks,

Tony.

[WSH]

No offense, but this is such a terrible idea I’m surprised it works at all.  The only way to make it worse would be to put a water tank between it and the house.

You ever heard of a Faraday Cage?  When the military/government want to stop wireless signals escaping from a secure environment or protect it from an EMP blast they put it in an earthed metal box.

I would say you’d be wasting your money.  You want a decent, reliable connection you’re going to have to cable it.  (Or cut a big hole in your shed).  Other people might disagree with me, of course.

Edit:  Actually, joking apart, that might work.  If your shed has a sizable window turn it round so the window faces the house.  No promises, mind.

[Thenobbler]

No offence taken, I was well aware of the Faraday risk when I went metal (and I have a degree in military matters which makes me well aware of EMP hardening and the like) but:

- 25 year no maintenance guarantee whereas wood rots out without yearly painting;

- fantastic insulation making the office 12 month usable with a AC unit to keep it warm;

- and (I really should have mentioned this) a nice big window that the Wi-Fi adaptor sits next to facing the house, so no actual steel between booster and adaptor.

Does that inspire a different answer that addresses the question re Wi-Fi 6 paired up with a wifi5 smart hub? And actually your answer has been really helpful in making me consider moving from the TPlink as the transmitter to a Sky Wi-Fi booster that’ll sit in the house window rather than behind the brickwork. Thanks!

[WSH]

Yes, possibly.

The thing to remember is that there is a legal limit on WiFi signal power, so WiFi 6 is no more “powerful” than earlier versions.  Where it might make a difference is that a lot of high tech fiddles, (“fiddles” is not really a fair description), has gone into improving the way it shifts data.  As signal penetration is the issue here, I would not expect it to be much better.  WiFi6e is set to use 6GHz but as this is higher frequency, I would expect it to be absorbed by the wall even more.

I don’t have any experience of using WiFi 6 myself, so I’d see what others say.

[Thenobbler]

Amended my previous answer last para to say that you’ve given me an idea - booster in the house window rather than behind bricks (I am a bear of very little brain). Could make a big difference.

[licquorice]

I can't see how WiFi 6 will be any better than WiFi 5. Signal strength will be the same.

[Stu_H]

That depends on if they use different dBi on its antenna setup which alters its radiation graph. 

Do these discs use the same attenna setup?

[Thenobbler]

Existing discs (which aren’t involved in the office setup) are the standard BT Wi-Fi 5 gear. The new discs are the recently released Whole Home kit. No ideas as to antenna set up, but the receiving equipment is a new Mac Mini with a Wi-Fi 6 adaptor.

[WSH]

There is also better beam steering on WiFi6, but as I said, I would not expect it to make that much difference.

I’m probably going to get into all kinds of trouble with the mods now so I apologise beforehand if I'm breaking any rules, but as a retired tech I tend to post on lots of forums from time to time.  I happen to know there is a fellow by the name of Cookiemonster on the Sky forum who uses WiFi6 and is a big advocate.  Perhaps he could give you more info.

[licquorice]

No rules broken.