Best wifi for house with annexe?

[hoomhom]

We're about to move into a house with a separate converted 'studio' office in the garage, which is a separate building. It's just one room, not a full-on annexe, but we'll use it for home working, so it needs good wifi. The main house has full fibre. In the past we were on BT wifi in our current house (not full fibre), which we found good but expensive. We switched to Sky, which was cheaper but crap by comparison (far slower and more drop outs). Current owners of the new house have BT Halo, which provides extenders but looks expensive.

Any recommendations?

Can you run an ethernet cable from the router in to the annex? If that's possible then you can just get a cheap WiFi access point to put in the annex, plug it in to the ethernet cable and you're good to go.

Depending on how far away the garage is you could get a mesh network, then you can pop new nodes around to extend the range. You can even get outdoor nodes.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=mesh+network

We were advised to get wifi wired in. Apparently modern garden rooms are so well insulated they block the signal.

Our eero can be extended with Amazon echos. It's brilliant!

A second vote for a mesh network. You can just keep adding extra points till it works

As suggested, ideally route an ethernet cable to annex, you can get "outdoor" cabling, and it could be shallow buried in the ground as it's a very low voltage.

Lots of choice for access points, but personally (after decades of fighting unreliable routers) I installed a Unifi network from Ubiquiti and it's been excellent. (more usually found in corporate installations, so is hugely scaleable and RELIABLE!)

A Netgear access point would be fine for this. Ubiquiti is more prosumer; overkill for the average home, not serious enough for big corporates. Corporate WiFi is dominated by HP Aruba (and now Mist), Cisco, Ruckus etc.

I have a BT booster/disc. It sits midway between the hub and my garden office. Reaches the garden office with no issue at all.
I borrowed one from a friend before buying one, to check it worked.

Certainly run a cable. The existing router will probably have several sockets. You can buy LAN cables ready made with plugs at each end. You can put another WiFi hub in the outbuilding, but for best speed and reliability, plug your main desktop machine.

Powerline network extenders can be good.

Many thanks all. I'll have to check whether there's already a cable - if not, it would have to run under a paved driveway, so could be tricky. So, with these mesh networks - do you still have a normal wifi contract with someone like BT, but then plug this kit into it?

We have deco mesh. The first one plugs into the main WiFi thing, then space them out so they talk to each other. I am clearly not technical, but it was straightforward to set up and works really well. We share internet with a neighbour (detached house) and a studio at the bottom of the garden. It doesn’t matter who your internet provider is.

Oh, OK, I've just discovered it has networked CAT5 in the annexe - so should it just be OK with a normal extender?

When we were installing improved electrics to our annexe about 8 years ago we had to dig a trench across the garden. The builders asked if we wanted a stretch of conduit laid at the same time. I’m very glad we did as we were later able to run an Ethernet cable through it. The house and annexe are about 30 meters apart and both have thick walls so booster solutions available st the time just didn’t work. The annexe now has gold solid wifi using Devolo and I am able to monitor and reset it remotely if necessary.

What you want is a wireless access point. Something like this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Gigabit-Controller-Software-EAP225/dp/B01LRQW0GM

A wifi extender usually means something that takes in a wifi signal and (more or less) re-broadcasts it. An access point will take an Ethernet connection and then convert it to wifi. Set up the access point to use the same SSID and password as your existing wifi and your devices will connect to whichever one is offering the best signal.

Yes, the BT router has four Ethernet ports on the back. You just plug the Ethernet cable straight in. At the other end of the cable (in the annexe) you will likely have a socket that you can just plug a computer in, or plug in a switch if you want to run multiple computers. You could also plug in a regular wireless access point if you want to use WiFi in the annexe eg mobile phones. Just set up the witeless access point to use the same network name as the one in the house and your phone etc will seamlessly use the one with the strongest signal.

When we got our extension the wifi would no longer reach the back of the house (lots of steel & insulation). The virgin man who came round to look at it said we needed to get a mesh system - he gave me the links on amazon.

Its great & we've recommended it to friends & family who have had great results too.

We use this one
Linksys Atlas 6 Whole Home Mesh... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B5RRFVST?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

In my opinion running cable is much easier and more reliable than mesh systems and the like, particularly if you need reliable high bandwidth for business applications.

Absolutely. Wired Ethernet is faster, way less susceptible to congestion and interference, more reliable, more secure and much less troublesome than WiFi. WiFi's a marvel of modern technology but it's also such a pain in the bum. If I can run a cable to something it gets a cable run to it.

Yep, even our TV and stereo have Cat5 cables.

If necessary, you can run a cable overhead, possibly using catenary support if it is a long way. For cables that do not carry mains electricity, the usual regulations do not apply. It should be high enough that it is unlikely to be in contact with anything passing underneath.

Or you could put it on or beside a fence. If the fence blows over in a storm, it will be inconvenient, but not dangerous. If the fence belongs to a neighbour, put light posts beside it.

Ordinary pvc cables degrade in sunlight, I would probably put them in mini-trunking which is very easy. I expect an outdoor grade of cables is available, the sort of thing strung along telegraph poles.

An underground duct is very useful, I buried one (using plumbers waste pipe) when I build a shed at the end of the garden, also passing under the planned patio, and emerging in the underfloor void. You need a separate duct for mains voltage electricity, which must not share a conduit (and also may cause interference on adjacent cables).

Remember to include at least one cord to pull through future additions.