@Philiprb 

Hi,

Is the garage lower than your studio and the studio lower than your house because your property is located on a hillside or is this an underground garage? 

Anyway, if reception is already bad in the garage, then there is no use in placing the second RE200 in that garage. I think your only chance is to place the second RE200 inside your studio and hope it can still provide a good enough reception for the outdoor camera in the garage.

Also, are you using the same network name (SSID) across your AC2600 router and the two RE200 or are you using network names with the ending *_EXT on the RE200s?

  @woozle 

Hi, thanks so much for getting back - its my first post on the Community, and I'm not an IT expert!

With regards your initial question about the layout of my house, studio, garage, and carport, here it is.

This is the front elevation ( since last October, I had solar panels installed, which are excellent, as the property faces South. The Studio is the building with gabel on the left .

Below it is the garage, and intront of the garage is the Carport which is at street level. In the Carport there is a professionally-fitted CCTV camera which keeps an eye on the Carport, and the electric chain-barrier when raised. The battery-powered outdorr camera I need to reach is just at the corner of the far-right pillar (it wasn't installed at the time of the photo)

The first RE200 repeater is by the front door, and the AC 1600 is 'looking up to it' from the side pation doors of the Studio.

As mentioned, I get around 90% plus signal throughout the Studio, which percolates down to the garage below, where my car charger is, and which is also connected to an app of my phone.

But wherever I tried the sewcond RE200, firstly in the garage just behind the metal up-and-over, and than up in the Studio, as you suggested, once it's logged in, the Red light remains on which, I think is telling me that the extender is 'too far from the router' While the camera is stringly linked to its own separate control hub in the studio, its wi-fi signal is virtually nothing at all.

But, can I rum something past you/ When the CCTV was installed in the Carport, the NVR (Network Video Recorder) was situated in the Studio, so I can monitor there, rather than in the house only.

But thuey had trouble getting the NVR to speak to my router, by using a range-extender of the time. So, what they did was to run a shielded/protected ethernet cable out of my router, down into the Studio where it simply plugged in to the back back of the NVR, and the connnection, both back to my router, and around the house on my phone is good.

At the time, they gave me a separate ethernet splitter box, so that, I could plug other things in, in the Studio, ensured of a strong wired connection.

My thought - which might just be wishful thinking: Could I sue the second RE200 in the Studio, as you suggested, but plug into into the direct ethernet wi-fi feed from my router itself, using the splitter box to accommodate box NVR feel and RE00 connection? I would assume it would need to be linked to the original SSID, rather than the .EXT version which the other extenders are providing?

I do hope this original problem, of some years back, might now be the solution to overcoming the present impasse. Thank you so much for your considered response, and in a way I could follow you at every step.

House - Studio - Garage - Carport

  @Philiprb 

Excuse me, but I am still not fully clear how everything is connected to each other.

Please look at the sketch below and check if that resembles your network setup.

What precisely is that AC2600/AC1600 device you've mentioned? Is it another wireless range extender, like the RE200, but just a different model?

You also mentioned a "separate control hub" for the camera. How does the camera interact with that control hub? 
Is the camera actually connecting itself directly to the Wi-Fi network or does the camera connect to the control hub via a different proprietary wireless signal and only the control hub then makes the actual Wi-Fi connection to the user's home network?

Do the router, the RE200s and the AC2600 all use the same network name (SSID) or do they use different network names? (like "myhomewifi", "myhomewifi_ext", "studio", "studio_ext")

  @Philiprb 

Hi again, and many thanks for all you help and advice - especially the schematic diagram!

I did attempt to connect the RE200 in my Studio to the direct ethernet line that was supplying my CCTV NVR with a wi-fi connection, so I could look at my main camera from anywhere in the world.

However, doing, so, seemed to have a detrimental effect on various parts of my whole wi-fi system.

Firstly on PC start-up I was now getting a Windows Network Conflict message - I'm on Windows 10, 64-bit. Secondly my Amazon Firestick started to drop out randomly, while streaming TV, and both my PC and Samsung S23 Galaxy Ultra weren't working as well as before.

Rather than continuing to go down that route - no pun intended - I tried a few 'tweaks', but didn't go any further with trying to connect the Studio RE 200 directly, rather than via wi-fi. My basic wi-fi system immediately returned to normal, though the signal to the Outside Carport Camera was still poor, and it says it will work only on the 2.4 MHz frequency.

Bearing in mind what you had said about the efficacy of this RE 200 in the Studio - connected to the other extender which is a TP 2600 model (with four exterior antennas, and making it look like a 'torso' with two arms and legs) - I brought this redundant(?) RE 200 back into the house, and took it upstairs, where I plugged it in to a socket in the front bedroom (right side of house, looking up) and it seemed to have two real benefits!

Firstly, of course, it improved the signal in my back bedroom, where I use my phone far too much at night, but also seemed to improve the signal strength to the Carport Camera,, which is now not too far away, physically hidden from view by the relatively thin roof of said Carport.

The Front Door Camera, and now the Carport Camera now take virtually the same time to connect, whereas, prior to this, the Carport Camera could take two or more attempts to establish a reliable working connection. The two sync modules I mentioned merely connect to each came via wi-fi, to allow local storage, and other controls.

I think I have now arrived at a working solution, which has even given me a few extra benefits - many thanks again for your advice and support - very much appreciated!

  @Philiprb 

I am glad to hear you have found a working solution.

By the way, for the TP-Link Wi-Fi extenders to work correctly when connected via the Ethernet line coming from the house they have to be switched to "Access Point" mode via their respective configuration webpages. (example screenshots below)

I know there is this saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but if you ever were to encounter sluggish network performance when connected to the AC2600 extender, then you might consider switching that AC2600 range extender to "Access Point" mode and connect it via Ethernet cable to the network switch in the studio.

  @woozle 

Hi,

Many thanks for getting back!

However, methinks you know me better than I realised!

When you wrote: 'I know there is this saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"', you probably knew that, while I have currently arrived at a working solution, as the signal to the Carport camera, while better, is still by no means optimum, it would be just like an invitation for me to change to mode from Extender to Access Point on the AC2600!

Your instructions will be most helpful, and fortunately it doesn't seem like major surgery to achieve the changeover, so I'll have a look tomorrow, and keep you posted!

Best wishes - and if we're not in touch again beforehand, may I wish you a happy and healthy New Year! 

  @Philiprb 

If you know how to access the webpage of the AC2600's management interface, then I think this would be the best way to do it.

Once you've logged in you would just follow the steps outlined in the screenshots below. After step 3 the AC2600 does a reboot and you need to plug the Ethernet cable coming from the network switch into the Ethernet port of the AC2600. Then log into the AC2600's web interface again and setup the "Wireless Settings" (from step 4) to match those that were used previously in Wireless Range Extender mode. (yes, unfortunately when switching modes these extenders don't keep the same wireless settings and therefore these steps will need to be done)

The tricky part of the above procedure is to find the correct IP address of the AC2600 in order to be able to log into it. This IP address can be retrieved from the router's user interface.
Normally the webpage of a TP-Link range extender can also be reached via the link http://tplinkrepeater.net , but I don't know what it will do when there is more than one TP-Link range extender operating within the same network, like in your case.

In case all the above is not doable, then we could also try it another way by using TP-Link's "Tether" smartphone app.

Thanks! I also wish you a happy New Year!