mk e wrote:
Brian A wrote:
I honestly have no idea what's involved in even getting a hardline working out there....i know where the paper they gave me with the Wi-Fi password is but since they set it all up I never ever looked at it.
Ha! You are me a year ago.
Its very easy. On the house side, you have to plug the garage Cat5 cable either into your existing cable modem or into an ethernet "switch". A "switch" is bascially a splitter which gives you a place to plug in a bunch of Cat5 cables into one place. Cable modems typically have a switch built into them and that is why there maybe several ports to plug Cat5 cables in the back of your modem. No configuration is required.
On the garage side, if you are going to buy a bunch of wifi devices (such as the $20 TP-Link smart plug), you'll have to setup a wifi access port (WAP) in your garage using your garage Cat5 cable. A WAP is another little box you plug into an Ethernet cable. The WAP gives you a strong wifi signal in the garage. It can use the same network and password as in the house so that you can go from house to garage to house without wifi interuption on your phone. (And .. if you locate the WAP properly in the garage you might get good wifi all across the backyard as well.) (To use a smart plug for the compressor, you will probably have to use it to drive a relay since a compressor probably draws too many amps for that little switch designed to turn on coffee pots from bed.)
You might check to see if there are special Cat5 cables that are specific for underground installation, though I doubt there is any difference.
Welcome to the wonderful world of computer crap. Bwahahaha.