My RainMachine arrived a few days ago and the first problem I had was getting a -58 dBm WiFi signal at the far side of the garage where the irrigation wiring comes in. I had about -70 dBm which did not seem adequate, based on the recommendation for -58 dBm. I tried moving the RainMachine WiFi adapter around with a USB cable but that only gave me a decibel or two.

I'm not interested in adding a WiFi repeater to my home network. Most WiFi repeaters are useless because they don't do handoffs between WiFi access points when I'm walking around, so if my iPhone ever connects to one it won't let go of a weak connection even though I'm standing next to a much stronger signal coming from another other access point.

So I tried adding a second access point with a different SSID just for the RainMachine. I set this up at an interior wall next to the garage but that still didn't give me enough signal, about -67 dBm even though there was only one wall to go through. The signal was fine if I put the second access point into the garage itself near the RainMachine, but on a 100 degree day with two hot cars I would expect the temperature to be too high for reliable operation (the RainMachine tops out at 125 F so it should have no thermal issues in the garage.)

My final solution was to install a TP-Link CPE210 next to the garage. This is an interesting device normally used in pairs to connect two buildings up to several miles apart with WiFi. I set it up in access point mode and used it to extend my home network to the RainMachine with a different SSID to avoid interference with my home WiFi network.

The CPE210 has a directional antenna, so it's not useful for typical access point usage, and it also has much higher RF power output than usual -  up to 27 dB more than a typical access point. I pointed it at the RainMachine and programmed the power level for an extra 12 dBm resulting in -58 dBm at the RainMachine location. Problem solved.

To set it up, it was necessary to change the CPE210 default IP address to be compatible with my home network which originates in my WiFi router. I changed the IP address from 192.168.0.254 to 192.168.2.250 because my home IP address range is 192.168.2.xxx. That wasn't quite enough - I also had to enable the management VLAN (but did not change the port number from 0). I don't have a VLAN set up in my router, it just needed that setting to work. That made it possible to open the CPE210 device management page by typing 192.168.2.250 into a browser on a computer anywhere on my LAN.

The best part - the CPE210 is currently on sale online for about $40.

Ernst