Farm Wifi / oh-my

[rwbryce]

Hello,

I have some buildings that I'd like to install a camera in, but there's no wiring in. And the ground is now frozen and covered with white stuff so we're not dealing with wiring anytime soon! I've got an Ayrstone Hub 2x2c AyrMesh Hub2x2C - Ayrstone Productivity across the farmyard and I'm happy with the signal strength where it needs to be. My hunch is it was a resold product (which is okay) and it's likely correct. Do these devices do the same thing? would indicate that they are using Ubiquiti devices, just remotely managed. Thanks to @Flintstone62 for the hints to go research in that direction.

Q1: I haven't worked with Ubiquiti products directly. But, rather than buying AyrMesh Receiver - Ayrstone Productivity, I'm thinking of just getting

https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-LocoM2-2-PACK-Nanostation-Outdoor/dp/B0161G653W/

, but am not sure if it'll be a configuration nightmare when the other device is managed by Ayrstone. Can anyone provide insight before I go and buy it? I'm assuming that the Nanostation will interface with the Ayrstone/Ubiquiti product.

Q2: Some interesting chat here: Basically, I'd use Vonets with a car battery, which may be suitable for a PoE IP camera and getting the signal back to the house. I should only need a bridge from wifi to RJ45. This may be possible with Ubiquiti, but it appears to want 24V so that'd take 2 car batteries. Again, looking for input from somebody who has already tried this, before I start spending a lot of $ on an experiment that could fail.

Thanks,

--Rob

 

[Teken]

I would say if you’re having good success with the current brand just stick to it. There’s no guarantee the Ubiquiti hardware will operate with one another if they are using specific firmware.

If this is just about starting over and deciding upon buying Ubiquiti - go for it.

 

[TVille]

Wifi is NOT the same as the Ubiquiti Nanostations or similar. The Nanos are dedicated radio links designed to replace ethernet cable up to a certain speed. Wifi is great for devices, computers, TVs, etc, which are designed to have interruptions. Apparently, surveillance cameras are not, and you may be able to get one or two working over wifi, there is no guarantee. Several of us have the Ubiquiti Nanos working on short haul links with great success. Will the Ubiquitis work with the AyrMesh? I have no idea. You would have to make sure you get the right frequencies, at least, to even attempt it.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Battery powered WiFI or dedicated links are problematic. The power requirement never stops so you'll need to carefully calculate how much battery power is needed. That means knowing the operating voltage and current for each device. From that you multiply the two numbers together to arrive at how many watts the device consumes per hour. Add all the devices together and multiply by the number of hours you expect to run them. That figure will be half the battery power you need to operate the equipment so it needs to be double to allow for overhead and to avoid over discharging the batteries.

 

[TonyR]

FWIW, Ubiquiti's "airMax" is a proprietary protocol used between their radios along with WDS and a wider standard channel width to provide optimum bandwidth and performance; in some cases even GPS coordinates are used to adjust the power and sensitivity levels to provide, once again, optimum performance. That is NOT something utilized in standard "Wi-Fi".

You can connect a conventional wireless device (smartphone, tablet, iOT device, etc.) to a Ubiquiti radio running in "AP" for Wireless Mode and in "Bridge" for Network Mode but in the Ubiquiti radio the airMax & WDS features must be disabled and the channel width set to 20MHz, therefore the link is not running as it would between two properly configured Ubiquiti radios like this ==>> airMAX - How to Configure a Point-to-Point Link (Layer 2, Transparent Bridge)