Anyway to increase wifi range of Metro Airlift?

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MonsignorBart
 
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Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2019 4:33 pm

Anyway to increase wifi range of Metro Airlift?

Post by MonsignorBart »

Hi all, I have a Adafruit Metro M4 Express AirLift (WiFi) - Lite and I'm using it as an access point to get information about my 100% solar powered kiln about 20 feet away. I connect to the Airlift (that's running as an ap) with my phone, where I can see temps and such through a webpage, and make changes.

The problem I have, is that my phone needs to be within about 15 feet line of sight which means I have to walk over to my kiln and open it up so I can get the signal to see what's going on with the door open (not good) or go inside it and shut the door (also not good).

What options do I have, is there something that will let an arduino have the wifi power of a phone/laptop they have no problem from within the kiln with door shut... I would think a directional repeater that will repeat the arduino wifi but at full power but there's no power in the kiln except 12v... but maybe there's some type of arduino full power wifi out there. I would appreciate any ideas. Thanks

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mikeysklar
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Anyway to increase wifi range of Metro Airlift?

Post by mikeysklar »

What size power supply volts/current are you using to power the Metro M4 Airlift?

You should be able to set the transmission power on the Metro M4 Airlift.

Code: Select all

WiFi.noLowPowerMode();
https://github.com/arduino-libraries/Wi ... wpowermode

You are sending the WiFi from the Metro M4 AirLift directly to your phone (ad-hoc mode)? You are not using a an access point? Adding an access point to run of the kiln 12v would probably be the best option.

You can also watch the RSSI value that the Metro M4 AirLift is getting with your phone while trying different mounting positions / orientations.

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MonsignorBart
 
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Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2019 4:33 pm

Re: Anyway to increase wifi range of Metro Airlift?

Post by MonsignorBart »

Thank you, I wasn't aware there was an option to increase power to the wifi.

To power I'm using a 12v to 5v power adapter, one end is micro usb (power only) and the other are wires that connect to a 12v battery.

I came across this last night https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07794JRC5 which is probably perfect. I'm always trying to save each watt, that uses only 1 watt. I can put 1 antenna inside and a directional antenna outside so would probably be enough.

Thank you

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mikeysklar
 
Posts: 13936
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Anyway to increase wifi range of Metro Airlift?

Post by mikeysklar »

The unit you selected looks like a good plan.

The power that the ESP32 (Airlift chip) used to be more customizable, but the library has simplified it to lowpowermode or the opposite nolowpowermode.

https://github.com/arduino-libraries/Wi ... wpowermode
WiFi.lowPowerMode()
Description

Enable low power mode. This is an automatically managed mode where the WiFi NINA Module reduces its power drain bringing the overall power consumption to 30 mA. Any incoming data is received and the device sends out regularly the beacon signal each 100 ms to keep the AP connection alive.
Syntax

WiFi.lowPowerMode()

Returns

None

WiFi.noLowPowerMode()
Description

Disables the power saving modes enabled with lowPowerMode(). This is the default status of Power Mode.
Syntax

WiFi.noLowPowerMode()

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