The Internet has become an inevitable part of our life. Be it a home, college, hotel, or detached Garage, you need internet connectivity everywhere. However, how shall you have an internet connection to your detached Garage?
If your house is located within a pretty large compound, you might probably consider having a garage built next to your home. Whether the Garage is built attached to the house or detached a few meters away, you will have space to store your vehicles, tools, and properties, and more room to work out with your stuff. But, which kind of Garage do you think is more beneficial to have constructed?
According to multiple reviews regarding the choice between an attached garage and detached Garage, people have referred that a detached garage is more beneficial and resourceful than an attached one. Here, we have some facts that say detached garages are a way to go!
A detached garage stands separately from your living house. Because of this, your home would get rid of the garage-dominated look. I mean, you will feel congested while having an attached or built-in garage. Besides, you will cause a lot of noise while working in the Garage. So if you have a detached one, then there’ll be almost no disturbances to be heard within your house. Furthermore, you’ll have limitless access to design and customize your freely standing Garage.
Well, there are several options for extending your home internet connection to your detached Garage. Earlier, you have to install separate internet connectivity for detached buildings. But, with the development of technology, now you can extend your network without establishing a separate Internet connection.
Your internet connection might be disrupted due to numerous reasons. Similarly, you need a strong internet connection to transmit it to a wide range. Thus, if you wish to extend WiFi to a detached garage, this article might help you.
Uses of WiFi In The Garage
WiFi has become a significant thing for everyone these days. When you’re at home and have nothing to do, you would undoubtedly be surfing the Internet, wouldn’t you? You will need internet connectivity anywhere in your house, which also includes your detached Garage. At the Garage, you require the network, especially for your smartphone or computer devices. Apart from that, there are other purposes for applying the WiFi network in your detached Garage.
There are several smart home and garage products available today, which can be worthy of inclusion for your detached Garage. The most popular one is the garage door opener. This garage door can be remotely controlled through your smartphone app by connecting to your WiFi. The smart garage door is more secure, works quietly, and is energy efficient as well.
Besides garage doors, you can customize and enhance your Garage’s outlook as well. You can install a security camera for monitoring your detached Garage. You can get alerts and even view your Garage from your smartphone. Also, you can add smart lightings to illuminate your workplace. These features make the proper use of WiFi for better performance in your Garage.
How Far Can I Extend My WiFi?
The range of WiFi depends on the number and type of router that you are currently using. For a traditional home network with one wireless router it will cover a single-family.
However, for business purpose that uses a grid of network access, it can cover large office buildings. Typically, WiFi ranges up to 150 feet indoors and 300 feet outdoors.
Why is My WiFi Signal Weak?
You already know that WiFi can be of fair to use in your Garage. But, there can be several issues regarding the connectivity up to the Garage. The farther it is located from your house, the less connection you are likely to have. People tend to struggle to have a better network connection up to their Garage. In the following, we have some possible reasons for a poor network connection in your detached Garage:
- Your network hardware is placed in a poor location.
- The thick walls of the building could make the WiFi signal hard to get through.
- Your network and router settings are not appropriately arranged.
- Other electronic devices may be interfering with the incoming signal.
- The network hardware you’re using could be out-of-date.
- The firmware on your network device has not been updated.
- There are certain materials in your Garage, such as bricks, metals, and concretes, which might block the signal.
Let’s get into them in detail:
Environmental Factor
Your WiFI router placement and weather conditions impact your WiFi signal. However, if you place the same device in a different environment, it performs in different ways.
Environmental factors such as lightning, thunder impacts the performance of your WiFi. Your signal gets weaken due to other environmental factors like the presence of fog, electrical interference, etc.
Physical Objects
Similarly, the physical objects such as trees, walls, buildings, etc. obstruct your WiFi signal. Along with it, concrete and steel walls are challenging for the signal to pass. Thus, this weakens your signal.
Likewise, the density of the material used, the material of walls and ceilings, size of the room, etc., also hinders your WiFi signal. Sometimes, this obstruction even blocks your WiFi signal to pass through them.
Radio Frequencies
Radio Frequencies emitted by microwaves, cordless phones, and many other devices can also cause noise and weaken your signal. Moreover, your neighbor’s WiFi also obstructs your WiFi signal.
Apart from this, BlueTooth signals and other radio frequency interference also weakens your WiFi signal. This will decrease the performance of your WiFi as well. Along with this, your connectivity in the broader range gets narrower.
Electrical Interference
You might be using several electronic appliances such as computers, refrigerators, fans, micro-oven, and many more. All these items create electrical interference if its near to your WiFi routers. Hence, it weakens your WiFi signal.
Besides that, the impact that electrical interference on the WiFi signal depends on how close the electrical appliances is with your router.
Device Installation
Likewise, where your access point is placed also determines your signal’s strength. Moreover, the position of the access point, like antenna direction, also impact it. So your device installation should be considered.
Placement in the right place is a must. Also, your antenna must be appropriately directed. The signal doesn’t flow uniformly through the antennal.
Number of Devices Connected
Have you had ever noticed that when you are in a crowded room, your internet connectivity is weak and slow? Well, if there is more user within a specific range, then automatically your WiFi signal gets weak.
For this, you can change the password at regular intervals. This eliminates the problem of getting your WiFi hacked. Lesser the number of devices connected faster will be the internet connection.
Problems With Most of the Routers
Routers are used to forward the data packets between the networking devices. It is a gateway between two computing devices. Despite technological advancement, you will face several router problem that affects your smooth networking.
Difficult Configuration
Well, how long will your router take to set up? Can you easily add a new device such as a new PC to your wireless network? And how about getting your wireless printer to connect to your WiFi network?
You might face such configuration difficulties with your routers. However, you can get into your setup screens and make the necessary adjustment.
Firmware Updates
Your router firmware acts as a security defense on your network. Thus it needs to be kept up-to-date. But the problem lies in finding the right firmware updates.
You need to go to the vendor’s support site and track down the current version that suits your router model. After this, you have to download it on your PC. Then upload it to the router’s web control panel.
Thus, it consumes a lot of time. Therefore, make your router update automatic rather than following these hectic steps.
Determining Who is in Your WiFi Network
If you think your WiFI is secure, think about it again. There might be an external user who has hacked your password. Thus, it’s a good idea to change your password at regular intervals.
However, it’s tough to find out who has been in your network. Though it shows who is connected, finding this out requires a lot of menus?
Antenna
One of the essential components of a router is its antenna. Your router’s antenna can influence your WiFi connection quality in many ways.
Therefore, the antenna needs to be of good quality. The antenna needs to be of a particular size, material, and placement. Similarly, it has to face in the right direction as well so that it covers the maximum range.
While purchasing a router, consider the range it covers, its antenna specs, and its convenience in its usage. Choose such a router that has broad coverage capacity, even for separate buildings.
Detached Garage vs. Attached Garage
What does detached Garage and attach Garage mean? Well, it can be clear from its name itself. The attached Garage is that which is connected with your home space. And you do not have to travel anywhere.
Where detached Garage is one which is located separately from your home.
When you have a detached garage, you might face the problem of network connectivity. Your WiFi from home might not cover the range up to your detached Garage.
But the attached Garage might not face this situation. Despite being far from home, there are several ways that you can connect your home WIFI to your detached Garage easily.
Ways to Extend WiFi To Detached Garage
Extending WiFi to the detached garage is not an easy job. Many homeowners struggle with connecting their wireless home internet to their detached room.
But, several ways can effectively solve this problem. Here are a few techniques that assist you to extend WiFi to the detached Garage.
Use A WiFi Booster
WiFi boosters are a powerful electronic device that is capable of extending the range of the WiFi signal coming from your original router. These devices can expand the network signal by repeating them from the primary source and then send it further away. The best thing about the WiFi booster is that you can have more than one of these devices installed to extend the WiFi range to detached garage. To receive a strong connection signal from them at your detached Garage, you must place them close to your Garage and then connect to it effectively.
In other words, WiFi boosters are also known as WiFi extenders, or repeaters, or relays. There are many kinds of WiFi boosters available, as they vary based on their performance. They come with different features, especially the quality of antennas and the processor equipped in the devices. Another thing about them is that all WiFi extenders are not compatible with your current router because the router may not be able to adapt to the speed of the booster device. Plus, if the WiFi device features intelligent roaming capability, then you can easily have a higher connection signal up to your detached Garage.
So, this is the one way to extend WiFi to detached garage.
Repositioning Your Router
One of the best ways to extend WiFi to detached garage is repositioning your router. Place your router close to the section of your detached Garage. The closer your router is to your detached Garage, the better will be your signal.
You should carefully put the router in such a place that covers both your house and your Garage.
In the case of a detached garage, the most prominent location to place your main router is outside the wall of your house. Here, it would help if you considered that the WiFi signal needs to reach both inside your home and also up to your Garage. By doing this, you can have a proper connection to your detached Garage. But for your house, you might only receive a decent signal in certain parts of the house, and consider the rest of the rooms as dead spots.
If it does not work, then you must upgrade your router to extent WiFi to detached garage.
Upgrade Your Hardware
If you think that you have your router placed in a good location, but still it doesn’t provide the adequate signal, then you must consider updating your router device. Updating the router can be either upgrading your current router device or changing the router with a better one. If you ask technician experts for suggestions, they would advise you to have your router device upgraded every 3-5 years.
When replacing the od router/modem with a new one, make sure to check the device’s quality and power level. Routers with many external antennas can provide sufficient signals and amplify it up to a long distance. Besides upgrading your router hardware, you can also check the WiFi configuration and manage the settings. You can fix the frequency range of the router’s signal and make it necessarily available to extend WiFi to your detached Garage.
Get a Powerful Router
Even after repositioning the router, if it does not work, then your router has weak transmission power. Hence, the only solution is to change it to a modern and powerful one.
Choose a router that has external antennas and powerful amplifiers. Thus, select an AC router for long-range WiFi. Similarly, the long antenna also ensures long-range transmissions. This enables you to extend WiFi to your detached Garage.
Use Wireless Repeater
Another way to extend your wireless range is to use the wireless repeater. The repeater is an electronic device that copies the original wireless router’s signal and then re-broadcast the signal.
Adding a repeater can extend your WiFI range to detached garage. However, you need to get it in the right position. This amplifies the signal to a new location effectively.
Get Powerline Network Adapter
A powerline adapter is a set of two devices, i.e., a transmitter and a repeater. You need a powerline adapter kit and two ethernet cables to use this.
One adapter is connected to the router via ethernet cable. Likewise, the other is placed in your detached Garage. This second adapter is connected to the computer in your Garage through another ethernet cable.
This provides an internet connection to transmit the link from the transmitter to the receiver via power lines. So, it helps to extend WiFi to your detached garage.
Add a Powerful USB Antenna to Your Garage.
If your detached Garage is located at near distance from your home, you can connect installing a powerful USB antenna on your garage computer. Plus, when there are multiple WiFi networks available nearby, you can make the best use of this device. The external USB antenna makes the single signal usable after it is fixed in a proper position to receive these signals.
But, this might not work well for long-distance. A good antenna will pick the signal from your home router. Then it enables your garage computer to have internet access.
While buying the device, make sure that you choose the antenna, which can provide the signal up to the proposed maximum range and provides a quality signal to your place.
But there are certain factors like the router distance or the home’s thick walls, that could cause the antenna to receive less signal, due to which you might not get a good connection in your Garage.
Still, the external USB antenna can provide a decent connection that could be enough for your detached Garage.
Finally, while purchasing a USB antenna, choose the detachable antenna that is AC compatible. It can deliver decent speed and cover a wide range which helps to extend WiFi to detached garage.
A detachable antenna can be replaced with a more powerful one shortly too.
Use Point-To-Point Antenna Setup
Using point-to-point is the best option when your detached Garage is located at a distance longer than 300 feet from your home. Likewise, it can send an internet connection up to 1 mile at maximum.
For this, you need to connect one antenna to your router using an ethernet cable. Similarly, you need to join the second antenna to your computer located at the Garage using another ethernet cable.
Through this, you can extend your WiFi range to longer distances.
Add A Powerline Network Adapter
Powerline network adapters are the devices that connect your home’s electrical circuit and transmit the internet signal. Powerline adapters do not require long wires to connect. They are available in a kit, and you need two Ethernet cables to connect them fully. The installation process is not so hard as it looks. But there are certain factors, such as distance between the adaptor and router, quality & age of the house’s electrical wiring, etc., which could decrease the adapter’s networking capability.
First, you need to plug one adapter to the power socket that lies near to the main router. Connect this adapter to the router with an Ethernet cable. Then, plug the second adapter to an outlet in your detached Garage. Now, use another Ethernet cable to connect the adapter with the device in your Garage that you need to have internet access. You can also pair the second adaptor to another router to have a direct WiFi signal in your Garage.
Install An Ethernet Cable
Ethernet cables are a type of network cable that connects two or more devices such as a router and a computer/TV within a local area network. These network cables are durable and are limited in length. The longer the cable’s length is, the poorer it is likely to deliver the connection to the devices.
For having a proper internet connection in your detached Garage by using Ethernet cables, you must bury the wires under the ground. You have to connect one end of the cable to the main router and the other end into the device in your Garage. You can also join the cable to a wireless access point in your Garage, as this will create a wireless network within the Garage itself. Installing an Ethernet cable can consume some of your time, but the results can be highly reliable for you.
Use Outdoor Access Point
If you wish to extend your WiFi range to multiple outdoor locations or into larger outdoor space, then this will be a perfect choice.
The primary benefit of this is you can make a connection to multiple locations through multiple access points. However, it requires a buried ethernet cable, which might be time-consuming. Furthermore, it is a bit expensive as well.
Install A Home Mesh Network
A home mesh network is a WiFi system for your whole home. It consists of the primary router, which directly connects to your modem and a series of nodes situated around your house that enable the expansion of your signal range. Unlike traditional WiFi routers, home mesh networks are less prone to performance issues. This is why a variety of customers prefers the mesh WiFi system.
In this case, you can simply place the node in your detached Garage. This will allow the connection signal to flow within your Garage, and you can easily use it from there. Mesh networks are very reliable for providing an extended range of WiFi signal throughout your whole compound.
Also Read: How to Fix Windows 10 Internet Connection Issues
Do WiFi Extenders Reduce Internet Speed?
WiFi extenders are a useful tool for enhancing internet connectivity to a detached garage. It stretches the reach of the wireless signal from the router to your detached Garage.
Thought it increases the range of your WiFi connectivity, but what about the speed? Will the speed of my WiFi remain the same? Or does it get reduced?
Well, it will not affect the speed of your WiFi in a notifiable way. However, it does reduce your internet speed in minimal amount.
Since it covers a wide range, so it is evident that the speed of your Internet gets down.
Which is Better: Either Extending WiFi or Installing Separate Internet Connectivity in the Detached Garage?
Installing a separate WiFi or internet connectivity requires a massive sum of money. Similarly, when you compare both in terms of speed, definitely having separate connectivity has a more powerful signal.
However, extending WiFi will not have a massive gap in terms of speed if it’s appropriately placed. Henceforth, why to set up new connectivity with doubling the cost? Thus, as an alternative, you can use some extenders.
Pros and Cons of Extending WiFi to Detached Garage
Every coin has two-part: Heads and Tails. Similarly, every action has two-part: Pros and Cons. Extending WiFi to a detached garage also has both pros and cons.
Well, when you look at the pros, you will have internet access to your Garage located at a distance from your home. Moreover, the speed of the Internet doesn’t get too much affected. Apart from this, you will have the cost-benefit as well.
Similarly, you have its negative side too. When you try to do heavy internet surfing or play games from your detached Garage’s computer, it shall lag. This is due to the weak signal comparing with your house connectivity.
Furthermore, your Internet shall not work correctly as you have expected to do. And, it is a bit difficult to configure than that of connecting the new Internet.
How to Extend Your WiFi Range Without Losing Speed?
You lose the speed of your Internet while using the WiFi extenders. So then how can you extend the WiFi range without losing the momentum? Here are a few tips mentioned below:
- Change your Router Location
- Avoid turning on different wireless devices at ar same time.
- Change the channel of your wireless router.
What Can Be Done to Increase the WiFi Range of Laptops?
Whenever you are working on laptops, you expect for the smooth running of your Internet. Along with it, wherever you are using it from your home, you want it to be run fluently.
There is no hard and fast rule to enhance the range of your laptops. Most of the ways are similar to every electronic device.
However, You have to consider environmental factors whenever it is concerned with improving the WiFi range. The router distance from your laptop affects its signal. Like, if your room is far away, your signal might be weak. For this, you can use extenders.
Likewise, your equipment and software updates also matter with the strength of the WiFi signal and its range. Use a newer WiFi standard and keep your laptop updated from time to time.
Apart from the laptop updates, frequency interruption from another electrical device hampers your signal. Thus do avoid electrical appliances that impact the free flow of WiFi frequency.
Another thing you need to consider for increasing the WiFi range of laptop is avoiding physical interference, Metal structures, and large appliances between the computer and router, concrete wall, etc. impact the WiFi range/
How to Increase the WiFi range on Android?
How do you feel when your smartphone does not get connected with your WiFi? Or when it gets disconnected frequently? There is nothing more frustrating than having a low signal that gets disrupted time and again.
However, you can enhance the WiFi range in your Android smartphone by making changes in your settings. Here are the steps you need to follow to improve the WiFi range on Android.
Enhance WiFi Range on Android
- Go to settings and enable “Developer Options.”
- After this, go back to setting and click on About Phone and scroll down to “Build Number.” When you click multiple times, it enables “developers options” for the device.
- Then, again, go to “Developer Options” and scroll down to Aggressive WiFi/Cell handover.”
- Slide to switch on.
- Now, you will see the enhanced WiFi signal. Then enjoy an increased WiFi range in Android.
Likewise, you can also change the WiFi band frequency of your Android from 2.4 GHz to 5GHz. You can follow the following steps:
Change WiFi Frequency on Your Android
- Go to Settings and click on WiFi settings
- Click on the Advanced settings
- Now, Click on “WiFi Frequency band,”
- Finally, select 5GHz only.
This enables your device to use a 5GHz frequency band that maximized the signal and strength of your WiFi.
A Quick Suggestion!
So you’ve come to know about the many alternatives regarding the solution to your WiFi problem at your detached Garage from the above section. These options might turn out helpful for you. But there are certain things you need to check before and after applying any of these solutions for your device:
- Do proper research about the options that can solve your WiFi problem. Check for every detail concerning your detached Garage as well. Confirm that the chosen option will work best for you so that you won’t regret it later. You can also consult with a home network professional about these terms.
- In some instances, it might be possible that your hardware is perfectly fine. It might just be needing an update or a change into the proper location. Do try this first to check out of your current devices are working efficiently, and you do not need an upgrade.
- If you are going to install a new router/modem or any related equipment, then it is better not to do it yourself. Instead, call a technician or a home network professional who can install them properly without any error.
- After installing a new device or hardware, make sure that everything is set up correctly in place. Do check if the signal is adequately available in the most required areas. If the network still doesn’t work correctly, then you should have the equipment appropriately fixed.
- Also, do not forget to put security for your network device so that the signal isn’t stolen or hacked by others.
Final Words
If you face the situation to extend WiFi to your detached Garage, try moving the router’s location—having your router located in a place where it is not obstructed from electrical appliances shall enhance the signal.
Similarly, you can try avoiding physical objects. Along with it, prevent the metal walls, or even aluminum and other oversized items. Besides that, place your router in the place that has an easy signal pass to your detached Garage.
Even if these do not work, you can either try upgrading your router or buy an extender to connect your detached Garage.
Extending WiFi to the detached garage is not an easy job. Sometimes, it works with just a repositioning of routers. But sometimes you need to use other ways.
There are several ways you can connect your detached Garage with your home internet. Thus, we can say that we are blessed with the technological advancement that enables our detached Garage to be associated with our home routers.
