Using Outdoor Access Points allows to extend your wireless network coverage into your outdoor areas. It allows you to work, stream your favorite show and enjoy your game wirelessly from your laptop or tablet while sitting in your backyard.
The wifi signal coverage is too weak outdoor without an Outdoor Access Point. The exterior walls of the building and the glass thickness would impact heavily the wifi signals and render them too weak to cover the outdoor areas. Therefore, you would need to install an Outdoor Access Point on the outer wall to provide proper wifi coverage in your desired areas.
The Outdoor Access Point would also allow to extend you wireless coverage to detached buildings in your property or distant buildings. In order to connect distant buildings, you would need to setup your Access Point in Wireless Bridge mode.
In this article, we are going to go over a list of recommended outdoor wireless access points that are available in the market and I will highlight on how to install your wireless access point outside.
How to select a good Outdoor Access Point?
Not all of the outdoor Access Points are created equal. Therefore, we need to look at specific specs.
Weatherproof: The Outdoor Access Point has to be IP55 or IP56 rated to be considered weatherproof and resists outdoor wet conditions.
Resists Temperature: The Outdoor Access Point has to have a temperature range in its specs sheet that would work for your environment.
Power: The Outdoor Access Point has to be powered with PoE (Power over Ethernet). PoE allows to use the same cable to connect the device and to power it as well, which is supported by most systems nowadays.
Outdoor Access Points Selection
There are several options for outdoor access points that you could select from or have an IT expert assist you in selecting. However, you would need to be aware that the 5 GHz signal (fast connection) can cover a shorter range but provide higher speeds. As for the 2.4 GHz signal, it can cover a much father range but would provide slower speeds.
Most of the Outdoor Access Points available nowadays would support 5GHz, 2.4 GHz and just recently the Wifi6 frequency was added to the list of supported channels. However, the Wifi6 provides faster speeds but covers a fairly short range compared to the other frequencies.
Cisco Meraki MR84 Outdoor Access Point
The Cisco Meraki Outdoor Access Point is currently on top of our list for a business grade access point from Cisco to use for outdoor wifi coverage. It is literally the Ferrari of Access Points.
The Access Point has 4x4 antennas with MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wave2 technology which allows for better user traffic handling and higher throughput per user.
The high price tag is also explained by the long list of features like Wifi location tracking, Integrated enterprise security, application aware traffic shaping, optimized for voice & video, Flexible omni and directional antenna options.
The Cisco Meraki MR84 Outdoor Access Point is manageable via the cloud and require a yearly subscription that covers continuous cloud access, firmware updates, and next-day replacement in case of any issues.
Use link below for purchasing the device:
Ruckus T610 Outdoor Access Point
The Ruckus Outdoor Access Point ranks 2nd on our list of high end business-grade access point because of having less features and slightly lesser technical specs. However, it is a beast, is full of nice specs and a really powerful outdoor access point.
This outdoor access point has 4x4 antennas with MU-MIMO and the next generation of 802.11ac Wave 2 features to deliver industry leading Wi-Fi performance and reliability. It also has the proprietary Omnidirectional Beamflex+ wifi coverage which allows for focusing the wifi coverage on the specific areas where the user exists.
The Ruckus T610 Outdoor Access Point is manageable via the cloud or locally and require a subscription that covers cloud access, firmware updates and next-day replacement in case of any issues.
Use the link below for purchasing the device: