This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.CP210 or CP510 radio directionality
This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
I'm planning to set up two CP510 devices to connect a barn to my house. I was planning on setting up the house CP510 as an access point, but I'm unsure about the mode for the barn. I'd like to be able to connect devices in the barn both with wired ethernet and wirelessly, without using an additional wifi router. From the documentation, it appears that the correct mode for this use is AP Client Router.
However, I'm concerned about the directionality of the radio. I know that the primary radio and antenna are very directional, which allows the CP510 to communicate over long distances to the house access point. But the documention is unclear about how the local wifi access in the barn will work. Is there a second radio in the device that provides omnidirectional local access to the CP510? Or does the local wifi network share the same radio and antenna, which would mean that wireless devices in the barn would have to be in the directional path towards the house?
-Dan
@dkuchta5 Not for sure on TPLinks? Unifi older Airmax radios did a little but not good at all...the newer AC models do not at all. I put AP's on both ends to cover all the wifi needed in the both buildings or houses. I also put POE switches on both ends too....so all is powered on POE...much much cleaner setup. 
Any operation mode does allow to use wired and wireless Ethernet at both locations, local and remote.
As the manual states, »AP Client Router« mode is for typical WISP scenarios. This operation mode turns a CPE from an access point into a full fledged WiFi router with a wireless WAN and a wired LAN as well as an optional wireless LAN (WLAN). This mode is similar to the mode of a classical WLAN router and it is used by WISPs to cover the last mile to a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE):
The modes you want to use for a directional link are »AP« and »Client« modes. It doesn't matter which CPE is the »AP« and which is the »Client« in a standard PtP setup.
If you need WLAN coverage at the remote side, use an additional omnidirectional AP such as EAP110-Outdoor as shown here:
In this case you use a CPE510 (5 GHz band) for the backhaul and EAP110-Outdoor (2.4 GHz band) for a local WLAN (local to the remote location).
Depending on the distance from the house to your barn you probably could use an EAP110-Outdoor mounted at your house outdoors as shown here:
Which solution is best depends on the distance and direction you want to cover. Keep in mind that any client needs to cover this distance and direction, too.
Now, when it comes to the direction, standard clients have omnidirectional antennas, CPEs have directional antennas.
Thus: no, CPEs don't work well with standard clients. CPEs are not designed to communicate with such clients.¹
The Pharos forum is full of posts about problems when trying to feed standard clients with a CPE such as here: https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/209480. Such malfunctions are caused by using CPEs to feed standard clients. The weak part is not the CPE here, but the client's signal strength, signal quality and signal direction.
¹ Only exceptions are very seldom cases, where the characteristic of the CPE's directional antenna could be used to feed SOHO devices. A typical use case is to cover a very limited area such as a terrace by a CPE mounted 10m apart. But even then, a Pharos WBS210 with omni antenna TL-ANT2410MO (360º antenna beam width) or with sector antenna TL-ANT2415MS (120º antenna beam width) would fit much better.
Here are the antenna beam widths for CPEs, you can see the directional coverage in 1m distance to the CPE. For example, the CPE210 covers just 1.3m x 0.6m at a distance of 1m. What's more, your standard clients would need to be inside the covered area to get the full signal and to work reliably.
If your WLAN does not need to be reliable, you can use reflections of the signal from reflective material around the CPE to feed standard clients sitting somewhere on the back of a CPE. But you will run into problems anyway, at least you will run into the Hidden Node Problem (which is what every repeater has to deal with and what makes repeaters so unreliable).
And BTW, for a reliable backhaul link you need a fresnel zone clearance of at least 40% (better 20%). Maybe you now can image what electromagnetic chaos you can create with a CPE if used indoors where reflective material comes into the way.