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Using the Onion Pro as a wifi range extender?



  • I recently learned how to set up my Onion Omega 2+ as a Wifi range extender. I have it working fairly well, and learned that I can improve the strength/range by adding an external Wifi antenna. However .. this would require that I desolder the 0 ohm resistor on the Onion. Otherwise, I would apparently see no improvement whatsoever, and the added antenna would be 100% useless.

    My question is -- can I also use the Onion Pro as a Wifi range extender with an external antenna? And if so, would I also have to desolder the 0 ohm resistor on that device?

    Thanks,
    -- Yvan





  • >>> I learned that I can improve the strength/range by adding an external Wifi antenna. However .. this would require that I desolder the 0 ohm resistor on the Onion. Otherwise, I would apparently see no improvement whatsoever, and the added antenna would be 100% useless.



  • @Yvan-Gagnon since the Pro is just 2+ surface mounted on a power dock and it has the same 0 ohm resistor and the same SMT antenna I think the answer is logically YES.



  • Has anyone here actually tested this to confirm?

    -- Yvan



  • @Yvan-Gagnon Yes, most probably @Pavel-Metrokhin tested it.
    Please take a look at this tutorial: u.FL Antennas with the Omega

    As you know @Pavel-Metrokhin is (or maybe he only was ?!) a member of the Onion team / the Omega Squad.


    Notes

    There is a little typo in the tutorial.

    The difference between the two is relatively noticeable. Just to remind you, as the value in -dBm gets closer to 0 it becomes more stronger. Since the -dBm scale is logarithmic based, the diference between the two antenna configurations is actually quite large. A difference of -10dBm means that the u.FL antenna has a signal that is 100 times stronger than the SMT antenna at 10 meters away.

    A 10 dB increase in level is equivalent to a 10-fold increase in power.
    So the u.FL antenna has a signal that is approximately 10 times stronger than the SMT antenna.

    dBm means deciBel-milliwatt(s), mW milliWatt(s), uW microWatt(s), nW nanoWatt(s)
    
      0 dBm =  1    mW (1000 microW) power on 50 Ohm impedance
    -30 dBm =  1    uW (1000 nanoW)
    
    -50 dBm = 10    nW
    -60 dBm =  1.0  nW (1000 picoW)
    -70 dBm =  0.1  nW
    -80 dBm =  0.01 nW
    


  • So .. yes, then. I would also need to remove the resistor on the Onion Pro, which is unfortunate (I won't be removing it from mine). Still, thanks for your response.

    Regards,
    -- Yvan

    p.s. The article you referenced is specific to the Onion 2 btw .. not the Onion Pro.



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