Hi @mackworth,

I have two EAP225-OD's myself, both connected via MESH for outdoor signal in my yard.  I have found the transmit distance of the EAP225-OD is not terribly far and it will not penetrate structures.

So, Nest camera's aside, I can say that placing the AP in between the house and garage is not doing you any favors.

Given the areas you want to cover, and some preference for aesthetics, I would recommend three EAP225-OD's.  One mounted on the sidewall of the garage (top of picture).  One mounted on the sidewall of the house (bottom of the picture).  And one mounted on the back of the house (roughly in the middle right of the picture).

Alternatively, you could go with two EAP225-OD's (one on the front corner of the house near the driveway, and one of the opposite, back corner of the house.  But, this means that you could see the one on the front of the house from the street (as I can with mine).

The Outdoor EAP's should be mounted between 6 and 8 feet high.  And while the V-shaped antenna configuration seems to be optimal, for best speeds and coverage most clients (which are 2x2 these days) need to be able to "see" both antennas.  

As far as your Nest cameras go.  I also have Nest.  Is it the Outdoor-IQ or the older Outdoor model?  Or the Doorbell?  My newer Outdoor-IQ's (<2yrs old) seem to have very good Wifi sensitivity, but my Doorbell is awful.  I'd recommend switching them to 2.4GHz if 5.8GHz isn't working well.

Using wireless MESH for backhaul is working really well with my outdoor units.  This way I only have to supply power.  And, I can connect fixed ethernet devices (like my Solar Power inverter) to the AP, and share the Wireless MESH connection.

Not that MESH requires at least one ethernet connected AP (I use my homes indoor EAP's) and you need an OC-200 or have to run the Omada server software. (I have the OC-200).

-Jonathan

@JSchnee21 To clarify some things about my setup.  The garage is single story, unconditioned, with a slighly sloped asthalt shingle roof.  My house has a walk out basement on that side, so the access point is actually about 3 stories above the ground.  I did this to hopefully get over the garage and to be able to hide it at the top corner under the eave.  It is connected via cat6 run up from my basement through my attic, not using mesh.  I am going to try and re-orient the unit directly on the side of the house instead of trying to get both my backyard and side yard and see if that helps at all.

I had thought about putting another 225-od somewhere on my garage to repeat signal, but since its unconditioned it seems I would need an "industrial" POE injector since it can get down the single digits and the TPLink POE adapters don't permit operating below 32 degrees.

Hi @mackworth,

Oh wow, 3 stories?  Like 30 feet?  That's way too high.  I'm not sure how feasible it will be for you, but I would try 20' and then 10' and see if either of these work better.  When I installed mine, I originally had it at about 10' high mounted on the side of a vertical deck support for my deck (I have a two story deck).  But it worked terribly there.  I then mounted it to the fence on the end of my property (6' high, about 30' from the indoor AP) and now it works great -- for the back yard.  Even if you decide to run ethernet, using MESH initially is really helpful because it lets you easily move the AP around and test in different locations.

I would also turn your AP/Antenna orientation so that the antennas face towards the top and bottom of your picture (aka rotate your entire AP about 45 degrees clockwise).  This way both lobes will reach the front and back yards.  Given your AP heights, you could also try orienting the two antennas completely horizontally versus in a V.

I'm using the TP-Link midspan PoE injectors that came with the EAP225-OD outside and it has been fine.  I have it in a zip lock bag, out of direct sun, and it's been fine Summer and winter.  Inside of a garage, even if unheated, should be perfectly fine.

I've also found that "custom" power works better for some reason than Low, Med, High.  Set the 2.4GHz Radio to ~16 dBm and the 5.8GHz to ~20 dBm.  Make sure band steering is off.  And use 20MHz BW for the 2.4 radio and 80MHz for the 5.8 (not 20/40/80).

-Jonathan