Adding an AP for one bad room — am I overthinking this?   

General Discussion
1

My WiFi is fine basically everywhere in the house except my office, which is unfortunately where I work from home all day.

I can run Ethernet from the router to the office, so I was thinking about adding an access point there.

Is it really as simple as running a cable from the router to the AP, setting up the WiFi, and connecting my stuff to it?

Any downside I’m missing?

2

If you’re already pulling Ethernet into the office, don’t waste that opportunity. Put a small switch in there. Wire your work PC directly to it, then plug the AP into the same switch for your phone/laptop/whatever else needs WiFi. Best of both worlds.

3

Before buying the AP I’d also figure out why that room is bad instead of assuming “office = needs another AP”. Do a quick NetSpot survey and see where the signal actually drops. Could be one wall doing most of the damage, could be placement, could just be the router being at the opposite end of the house. Then you’re placing the AP based on something real instead of wherever the cable happens to reach.

4

@Pharece11504 That’s actually a really good point. I was thinking of the AP as the whole solution, but there’s no reason not to wire the work PC if I’m already running cable there. I’d still want decent WiFi in the office though for my phone and work laptop.

5

@Sharp-Homework187 The router is pretty much on the opposite side of the house, and there are two walls between it and the office, so that probably explains a lot. I was just going to put the AP right in the office, but now I’m wondering if somewhere just outside it would make more sense.

6

And if you haven’t bought the AP yet, you can model it first. Use NetSpot Planning Mode. Pretty handy here because the best place may not actually be inside the office. Sometimes moving it a little into the hallway gives you better coverage for the office plus the surrounding rooms.

7

If you want the new AP to feel like part of the same network, use the same SSID/password as the main WiFi. chew up a surprising amount of airtime. Temporarily kill the cameras and retest before blaming the entire band.