A WIFI extension question.

[Dave7]

I have had a wildlife camera installed on t'other side of my fence (its open land).
Its connected to my phone via WiFi.
To get a connection i have to stand next to a rear window.
Can I buy an extender that will give me a clear signal ?

 

[fossyant]

You can, but they usually take a bit of configuring. I have a MESH system, with three extenders throughout the house

 

[Shortfall]

I'm with EE and they supplied us with free boosters to improve the signal around our house. Seems to work well but don't know what the range is like or if it will work in your examp!e.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

Does the camera create it's own Wi-Fi Network that your phone connects to or can it connect to an existing Wifi network.

eg one of my regular image cameras supports Wi-Fi either it can create a Wi-Fi network eg a network called "Sony-RX100-Wifi-q23ed24" or it can connect to an existing Wi-Fi network (eg from a BT Homehub or whatever Wi-fi you use in the house).

Extending the Wi-fi if it creates its own Wi-fi network is complex (unsure quite how you'd do it, maybe depends on the capabiulities of the wildlife camera which are likely to be "limited").

Extending the house network is more straight forward eg mesh as mentioned above but other options.

 

[Dave7]

Does the camera create it's own Wi-Fi Network that your phone connects to or can it connect to an existing Wifi network.

eg one of my regular image cameras supports Wi-Fi either it can create a Wi-Fi network eg a network called "Sony-RX100-Wifi-q23ed24" or it can connect to an existing Wi-Fi network (eg from a BT Homehub or whatever Wi-fi you use in the house).

Extending the Wi-fi if it creates its own Wi-fi network is complex (unsure quite how you'd do it, maybe depends on the capabiulities of the wildlife camera which are likely to be "limited").

Extending the house network is more straight forward eg mesh as mentioned above but other options.

TBH I have no idea as I got my grandson to set it up. I will ask him the question.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I've no first hand experience of them, but if you have a spare electric socket by your broadband router and by the window where you can pick up the camera WiFi signal, could you not install a router WiFi extender that sends the through the electric wires?

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

I've no first hand experience of them, but if you have a spare electric socket by your broadband router and by the window where you can pick up the camera WiFi signal, could you not install a router WiFi extender that sends the through the electric wires?

It the camera was connecting to the house Wi-fi then standing by a window would make no difference. Were the camera connecting to the house Wi-fi then standing anywhere in the house with good coverage would enable a connection.

OP asked

Its connected to my phone via WiFi.
To get a connection i have to stand next to a rear window.

which suggests they have to be close to the camera to establish a Wi-fi connection directly between phone and camera not phone<->house wi-fi<->Camera Wi-fi.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

It the camera was connecting to the house Wi-fi then standing by a window would make no difference. Were the camera connecting to the house Wi-fi then standing anywhere in the house with good coverage would enable a connection.

OP asked

which suggests they have to be close to the camera to establish a Wi-fi connection directly between phone and camera not phone<->house wi-fi<->Camera Wi-fi.

My thinking was that the extender by the window would be seen by his phone and the extender would pick up the camera, so instead of standing by the window with his phone getting a direct signal from the camera, the extender would boost the camera signal into most/all of his home.

 

[fossyant]

Power Line extenders do work fine, but take a little setting up. But, your 'device' (phone laptop), won't always connect to the extender as it will remain connected to the router, you usually have to stop and restart the wifi for it to find the strongest signal. This is where MESH is way better, as the devices see it as the same network.

 

[Tenkaykev]

The camera has 8GB of storage built in, enough for many thousands of video clips ( depending on recording length which you can set in the app ) so you will never " lose " a recording. Once you open the App and the phone can see the camera over WiFi then you can download all the clips and watch them at your leisure. There's a little " download " tab in the app interface.
You need to be in range to see real time footage, I have used the intercom feature to tell a visiting cat to eff off as it was about to take a dump in the raised beds 😁. I think Dave has quite a large property so one experiment might be to move the camera at ten metre steps and try different locations to map out the signal strength.
I also purchased the " Home Base 3 " which acts as a wireless hub for the cameras ( I have 6 including 1 video doorbell) and this acts as a central repository for all the cameras. The Homebase needs to be connected to your home router via Ethernet, it comes with 16GB of built in storage and has a slot for a hard drive/ SSD.