Using the Onion Pro as a wifi range extender?

Yvan Gagnon · 30 Jul 2019, 19:21

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

crispyoz · 31 Jul 2019, 08:04

@Yvan-Gagnon You just connect a UFL antenna.

https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/omega2.html#the-omega2-at-a-glance

Yvan Gagnon · 31 Jul 2019, 11:27

>>> 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.

crispyoz · 31 Jul 2019, 14:13

@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.

Yvan Gagnon · 31 Jul 2019, 14:25

Has anyone here actually tested this to confirm?

-- Yvan

György Farkas · 31 Jul 2019, 15:56

@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

Yvan Gagnon · 31 Jul 2019, 18:18

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.