EAP610-Outdoor: Mesh in harsh environment
I have a cottage and a boathouse, which is located in rough terrain. I aim to have wifi coverage at the boathouse for safety reasons, as the conventional mobile network does not have coverage.
My cottage will get internet over fiber with 100 Mbps down/100 up at the end of 2023. I plan to use the following hw:
Router ER605 (with 4g backup mobile internet)
OC200 controller
AP1: EAP653 indoor wifi accesspoint (AP), cat6 cable to the router, POE from 230V power
AP2: EAP610 outdoor wifi AP on a pole at the roof top 25m above sea level, cat6 cable to the router - POE from 230V power
AP3: EAP610 outdoor wifi AP located on a pole (5m above sea level); 160m in direct view over sea from AP2 - POE from 230V power
AP4: EAP610 outdoor wifi AP located on a pole (9m above sea level); 140m in direct view over sea from AP3 - POE from 12V battery
There will be several VLANs on the wifi (Camera & public ++)
Q1: I plan to set this up as a MESH network; will AP3 and AP4 work as part of the mesh network despite not beeing wired by cable directly to the router?
Q2: Will this setup be able to deliver reasonable speed (above 15 Mbps) and stability ?
Q3: The location is the west coast of Norway, which have harsh weather during winter with rain/snow and regularly winds above 25-30 m/s [Beaufort 10/11/12]) & sub-zero deg. C. Will EAP610 stand up to this mounted on a metal pole ?
Q4: Is the antennas in the EAP610 Outdoor designed to work if the unit is placed alongside the pole, or must the unit be installed the top end of the pole ?
Hi, all. Just wanted to give you all an update:
During the first weekend of 2024 I installed AP1 (indoor) and AP2 (Outdoor on the top end of a wooden pole on the roof top) in their planned positions.
Q2; speed:
I did not have time to do a more detailed checkout, but I was impressed by the speeds i got on distances up to 200 meters. This exceeds own expectations and is very satisfactory. The installed Fiber from my ISP have 100 Mbit/s Down and Up. For the outer boundary, I measured 35 MBit down / 28 up on Ookla speedtest on my mobile approximately 300 meters away - looking sligthly upwards on the antenna (in direct sight on all measurements). On a range up to 200 meters, it looks as the speed is around 70-80 Mbit/s.
These measurements was performed on a chilly day in January with clear sky, no winds and temperature just below 0 deg. C. I expect that these impressive numbers will go down in a westerly storm with rain or slatter... or when the wet leafs return closer to the summer ;-).
Regarding Q3: harsh weather during winter with rain/snow and regularly winds above 25-30 m/s [Beaufort 10/11/12]) & sub-zero deg. C.
The antenna has now been tested during two storms on a more extreme scale during the last couple of weeks. The official met.station not so far away has measured a windy start of the year, with the highest gusts at 34 m/s on the 31 Jan and 45 m/s on the Third of February (my own instrument has stopped working). My buildings and infrastructure - including the antenna mounted on a wooden pole - survived, while some trees had to give in for the wind (several years since last time this happened). So the antenna has performed flawlessly w.r.t. wind I will say :-). I also used self-vulcanizing tape on all visible joints on the antenna itself, in the hope that this will keep the water out when the antenna/pole shakes and twists in the wind - I guess time will tell if this is a success or not.
Here is an map of the distances and the terrain with some measurements on top.
Thank you all for providing me with good input before I decided to purchase this Omada system. This is a very satisfactory result! (I do struggle with on other parts of the software, but this is configuration-related and out of scope for this discussion :-).
Odd Erik
@OddErikD " However, my biggest concern is the weather. I am a ham operator (radio-amateur) and have experience from exposing antennas up in the air. The EAP610 specification is IP67 so that is promising, but things tends to bend when there are enough wind (even metal poles bend), and I am a bit sceptical when the instruction is to mount the antenna with zip-ties... "
That is a legitimate concern. From experience, when doing checkup on APs that have been in place for a year, the zip-ties can take a beating from sunlight. I used the stock zip-ties on my 610 Outdoor. They have held up but they do not get direct sunlight at all. 40 to 60 mph winds have not been an issue for them. I have other devices with less beefy zip-ties that had direct sunlight for the majority of the day, and they actually became very brittle in less than a year, one even breaking on its own.
Depending on what you are mounting to, these may work out well and since all metal and stainless they will hold up for quite some time. Just make sure to get a length and width that works for your application.
Hi, all. Just wanted to give you all an update:
During the first weekend of 2024 I installed AP1 (indoor) and AP2 (Outdoor on the top end of a wooden pole on the roof top) in their planned positions.
Q2; speed:
I did not have time to do a more detailed checkout, but I was impressed by the speeds i got on distances up to 200 meters. This exceeds own expectations and is very satisfactory. The installed Fiber from my ISP have 100 Mbit/s Down and Up. For the outer boundary, I measured 35 MBit down / 28 up on Ookla speedtest on my mobile approximately 300 meters away - looking sligthly upwards on the antenna (in direct sight on all measurements). On a range up to 200 meters, it looks as the speed is around 70-80 Mbit/s.
These measurements was performed on a chilly day in January with clear sky, no winds and temperature just below 0 deg. C. I expect that these impressive numbers will go down in a westerly storm with rain or slatter... or when the wet leafs return closer to the summer ;-).
Regarding Q3: harsh weather during winter with rain/snow and regularly winds above 25-30 m/s [Beaufort 10/11/12]) & sub-zero deg. C.
The antenna has now been tested during two storms on a more extreme scale during the last couple of weeks. The official met.station not so far away has measured a windy start of the year, with the highest gusts at 34 m/s on the 31 Jan and 45 m/s on the Third of February (my own instrument has stopped working). My buildings and infrastructure - including the antenna mounted on a wooden pole - survived, while some trees had to give in for the wind (several years since last time this happened). So the antenna has performed flawlessly w.r.t. wind I will say :-). I also used self-vulcanizing tape on all visible joints on the antenna itself, in the hope that this will keep the water out when the antenna/pole shakes and twists in the wind - I guess time will tell if this is a success or not.
Here is an map of the distances and the terrain with some measurements on top.
Thank you all for providing me with good input before I decided to purchase this Omada system. This is a very satisfactory result! (I do struggle with on other parts of the software, but this is configuration-related and out of scope for this discussion :-).
Odd Erik
