We earlier mentioned that there are several different wi-fi frequencies your router might be using, with 2.4 GHz and 5GHz bands being the most common. The frequencies you use can also have an impact on your wi-fi signal strength and range.
Check out these 10 DIY long range Wi-Fi antennas you can make on a shoestring budget. Note that some of them may require you to obtain a license from the FCC (or relevant authority governing wireless devices in your territory), so do check before making yours.
3 Easy DIY Antennas That Increase Your WiFi and Bluetooth Range
Many inexpensive IoT development platforms rely on PCB and chip antennas to offer a WiFi or Bluetooth connection in the 2.4GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. Chip and PCB antennas offer a cheap, compact solution that fits onto a single board, which is often all that's needed. They are also a good option if you really do not want a visible antenna on your final design.
Buying a good antenna can be expensive, and in the world of do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics, nothing beats making your own antenna out of household items. The three suggestions listed below are most certainly not omnidirectional. They are intended to help boost your range (gain) in a specific direction, which is why they're known as directional antennas. You can learn a bit about omnidirectional vs. directional antennas here.
If properly constructed, you can see a large increase in the range of your wireless connection; just be aware that Cantennas are highly directional, which means you'll need to point the open end of the can toward your target (e.g., WiFi router). Some people report being able to maintain a connection over several miles with Line of Sight (LoS) in open air.
With the Tenda EX6 Mesh WiFi 6 System you can enjoy a stable internet signal all over your home or office. Connect multiple nodes to form a mesh network that will seamlessly allow your devices to roam from room to room. Total coverage has never been this easy.
Another means of extending range is by introducing repeaters into your environment. Repeaters simply pick up messages and repeat them again, which means a repeater placed at the edge of connection can extend that edge out to its own farthest range. This extends the size of the network without any more complicated engineering changes to the initial device.
Laird Connectivity provides a full suite of Bluetooth modules that deliver robust performance, easy global certification, and simple implementation to accelerate your entire new product development cycle.
If you have a high-end audio system or would prefer a Bluetooth audio receiver with digital audio outputs, the iFi Audio Zen Blue V2 was without question the best-sounding Bluetooth receiver we evaluated in our latest round of tests. Connection-wise, it has you covered with both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs, as well as a 4.4 mm balanced audio connection and stereo analog RCA outputs. The Zen Blue V2 is also a great choice if you need more signal range than most Bluetooth receivers can provide. All the rest of our test units either became unstable or lost connection somewhere within the 1,518-square-foot suburban home in which we did our testing, but the Zen Blue V2, fitted with the supplied long-range antenna, maintained a stable connection from an iPhone located all the way in the far corner of the backyard. Combine that with easy setup, reliable and near-instantaneous reconnections, and an attractive form, and the Zen Blue V2 is the best pick for demanding audiophiles, despite its lofty price tag.
Have you lost your WiFi antenna? Most antennas can be removed from WiFi cards, making them easy to lose. With a few household supplies, you can make an effective replacement antenna that can get you by until you can purchase a replacement. If you are having range issues, you can create your own directional antenna that can significantly increase the distance of your wireless connection.
Its been quite a while since i have been using a wired earphone for my computer and very recently i switched to Wireless earphones. My Computer being a custom made, doesn't has inbuild Bluetooth because i didn't use Bluetooth earphones before. For a quick hack, i bought cheap Chinese USB Bluetooth adapter dongle, which are good enough for 1-1.5 meter range, but as soon as you go beyond that, these micro tiny devices get disconnected and this USB dongle becomes useless, so i came up with this simple yet permanent fix for this miscalculated problem. So today in this blog, we will solve Range issue of our USB Bluetooth adapter using Wire antenna which is typically piece of copper wire soldered on pre-existing circuit. Read to the end of this blog and i promise this will be the only mod you need to do on your bluetooth usb dongle ever!
On testing this modified system, we successfully got at least 6m of range which was before getting disconnected at 1m. In conclusion this was a very easy and successful modification of Bluetooth. No more frequent disconnection and irritation, now i can easily enjoy editing my videos, listening to music, watching movies, Netflix and chill or whatever would want to do with your Bluetooth.
So you have a quarter wave as you know . Lengthening it will increase range . 2 times quarter wave won't work as you probably know because the signal cancels out . Three times is the way to go or 5 times ,any odd number. Do you know why?The other thing is the thinner the wire used the more precise the signal is on frequency. So use as thin as you can get away with. The energy spread over a smaller band is a gain in itself.Thirdly I would try cutting the circuit antenna as close to yours as possible with a dremmel. Sometimes you get an increase ,sometimes not but it will prove if your antenna is doing the job or not .Keep the cut small and you can resolder if it messes it up.
This seems like an eminently sensible thing to try. The main issue I've seen with most wifi cameras is that their antennas are omnidirectional - i.e. they send in every (horizontal) direction, because they don't know where the other wifi endpoint is. That means their signal doesn't go very far, but it's easy to connect. The tplink (and ubiquiti) long range devices have very directional antennas, so their signal is very focussed in that direction, which effectively means it remains quite strong for some distance. They also have to listen for the (more-interesting) return signal though from the wifi camera, and that could cause you grief. However, the highly-directional antenna can pick up fainter signals, from the direction they are pointing at, so it may be ok.
Getting wifi (or any radio signal) over any distance depends a lot on circumstances (distances, terrain, vegetation, weather, interference, ...) so I can't generalise to say this would/wouldn't work. You'd have to try it and see (or get into wifi signal strength measurements and calculations, which you can do with some apps). Some cameras also have removable antennas, so you could replace an omnidirectional (stick) antenna with something much more directional. Or, set up a wifi bridge, with e.g. a ubiquiti point-to-point link, with one end is close to your wifi camera (to pick up its weaker signal) and the other end at the house.
Ok, understand. Note, the bluetooth feature is very short range, just to configure the camera from your phone when standing nearby. Wifi will give you some longer range and greater bandwidth for image/video downloads. If it is only offering its own wifi network then that is sad, but unsurprising (they try to be very simple/cheap). Doesn't change my point though about the signal strength - if you are trying to get a really long distance (which is "over 100m" on most wifi cameras) then you will need to add something in between. A dedicated NUC/RPi/small-PC would be one option - but your reolink already has a simple PC built in, that offers the remote control and download features and storage to an SD card, etc. You can write your code to talk to that, from your home, using the reolink API/CGI ( -us/articles/900000625763-What-is-CGI-API). The small PC might still need to handle the "long-distance" wifi link if appropriate for your needs, in which case a ubiquiti/tplink wifi bridge (and a PC at home) might be more cost-effective? That can basically extend the camera's wifi back to your home.
Sir, Thank you so, so much for your tutorial. You have a gift and sharing it is most appreciated. I am using using two nanos, one receive and one transmit, to monitor several parameters: current, accumulated charge, temperature and battery voltage of a solar powered sign that is very difficult to reach, can I say near-impossible to reach.After struggling, mightily and unsuccessfully, to use use strings for data transmission I decided to use an additive offset to identify the data reads. e.g. 10,000 + AD count (or volt) , so that 101024 would be channel 1; 200256 would be channel 2, and so on. Then decoding is easy. Old school, yes; but it appears to be working and this comment may help someone else . Once again, thank you so very much.
The PA: stands for Power Amplifier and it correspond to the output level of the module. The higher is set, better range will have but that also means it will use more power. So if power consumption is an important factor for your project you should keep it at minimum, but of course it also depends on the range you want to achieve.
By controlling the phases of the antennas, the radiation pattern can be controlled over a wide range of beam widths. With special variable phase shifters, the antenna beam can be broadened, narrowed, or pointed in a specific direction. This is called beamforming. Phased arrays are widely used in military radars, but the techniques are also being adopted for cellular radio to control the directionality of cell-site antennas in order to improve signal quality. DKRed Custom PCBs Accelerate your design from concept to reality with DKRed, a custom PCB service from Digi-Key. Learn More 2ff7e9595c
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