DIY Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi Repeater Part 1: Boost Your Home Network!

Neural Lantern

Want to boost your home Wi-Fi without buying an expensive repeater? Turn your Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 into a powerful Wi-Fi extender with this detailed tutorial! Learn the prerequisites, how to set up a second subnet, and configure your Pi with an extra Wi-Fi adapter for better coverage. Perfect for tech enthusiasts who love DIY projects and want to save cash while improving their network. Follow along to download the Raspberry Pi OS, prep your SD card, and get started. Subscribe for more tech tips! #RaspberryPi #WiFiRepeater #DIYTutorial  Introduction to Wi-Fi Repeater 00:00:00 Disclaimer and Cost Comparison 00:00:17 Raspberry Pi Hardware 00:00:33 Prerequisites for Setup 00:01:00 Need for Extra Wi-Fi Adapter 00:01:17 Network Diagram Explanation 00:01:45 Current Network Issues 00:01:56 Solution with Pi Repeater 00:02:36 Creating a Second Subnet 00:02:48 IP Address Planning 00:03:16 Choosing Subnet for Repeater 00:07:00 Assigning IP Addresses 00:08:28 Downloading Raspberry Pi OS 00:10:00 Preparing SD Card 00:13:30 Writing Image to SD Card 00:16:27 Conclusion and Call to Action 00:19:08  Thanks for watching!  Find us on other social media here: - https://www.NeuralLantern.com/social  Please help support us!  - Subscribing + Sharing on Social Media - Leaving a comment or suggestion - Subscribing to our Blog - Watching the main "pinned" video of this channel for offers and extras

Transcript

00:00hey there let's talk about using your raspberry pi as a wi-fi repeater wi-fi extender just to

00:07help make the wi-fi signals a lot better in your home

00:18so for starters uh i just want to make a disclaimer it's actually a lot cheaper and

00:21easier to just go to the store and buy a wi-fi repeater but if you're like me

00:25and you like to do everything yourself the hard way because it's brain exercise and fun

00:28why bother driving down to the store when you can stay inside all day long and do it yourself

00:34so uh uh i'm using an old raspberry pi that i found in a drawer this is like a raspberry pi 4

00:39it's not really that old um after i do this video i'm going to do the same thing with the raspberry

00:44pi 3 which i think should probably also work um and i was about to throw this pi 4 away and then i

00:51realized i could turn it into a repeater so it actually did save me money in the in the end

00:55um let me just uh talk about your your prerequisites real fast what you actually need

01:01uh you obviously need a pi you know and like the power and uh all that stuff you need an sd card so

01:06that you can write an operating system to the pi hopefully if you're watching this video you already

01:10know that um but the the major thing that you actually need uh that you probably don't have yet

01:15is uh you need an extra radio you need an extra wi-fi adapter for your pi because the pi by itself

01:22only has one built-in uh radio antenna you know wi-fi adapter wi-fi card but you need two because

01:29one is going to connect to your existing router your existing wi-fi access point and then the second one

01:34is going to become its own access point so other clients can connect to it let me kind of show you

01:39a plan of what i'm talking about here i i i made i made a crappy diagram i hope you like it i'm not very

01:45good at these things but uh if you kind of look uh on the screen right now you can see that uh this is

01:52this is the situation before you add some sort of a wi-fi repeater or the pi repeater so this is this

01:57was what was happening to me spoiler i already did this so i kind of remember how to get this working

02:03pretty quick so uh i have like a wireless router here and uh it's also the regular router and it's

02:09connected to the modem and stuff and the devices that are close to the router uh get lots of you

02:15know fast good connection but the devices that are kind of far away like way over here in the back

02:21maybe like a server a printer another laptop a phone whatever um they lose connection they they have

02:27slow speeds they're spotty they're frustrating right i think probably most of you deal with this

02:32um so the the wireless repeater or the pi uh that we're going to do right now is going to solve the

02:38problem at least hopefully or mostly i don't know so i'm going to uh show you a diagram of what it'll

02:44be like when we're finished we're actually going to create a second network notice how on the first

02:50slide oh i already lost it let me do yeah on the first notice how on the first slide we just had

02:55one network here uh for my personal network this is just 192 168.1 dot something and then that slash 24

03:02means the last number is able to change we usually call this a subnet uh honestly this is

03:08not smart to have a standard subnet in your home network but i'm kind of lazy maybe i should change

03:12that soon um you should know in advance this is part of your preparation and research you should

03:19know what is the ip address of your router your existing router you should know the existing subnet

03:23that you're running on if you don't uh this is going to be extremely hard for you to do most people

03:28though if you just get a router and install it it's either going to be a one right here or a zero right

03:32here very rarely will i see people with like a 10 0.0 dot something and if they do somebody else in

03:39their family or or business set it up for them already so we start off with only one subnet one

03:45network all the devices can talk to each other without uh all the land devices can talk to each

03:49other without routing when we're done we'll end up having two networks so just notice real fast again

03:55this is the initial network you know this is the thing that we had before 192.168.1 dot something

04:01and then uh these close devices they're still going to connect to the router notice how

04:06you know this green line right here it's not or sorry this blue line uh it still connects um well

04:13no it doesn't i'm totally lying uh oh no no i am not lying i lied about lying basically the router

04:21is connected still to the original devices that were fast on the router so there's no reason to

04:26move devices that didn't have a problem but notice here instead of having one long

04:30blue line going all the way to the devices in the back uh this this this blue like connection

04:35squiggly you know image it goes to an antenna which is going to be um the internal radio of the

04:42raspberry pi and then uh the raspberry pi will have a second antenna that's going to be you know

04:48one of these things i'll show you how to install this and all that stuff in another video i'll talk about

04:53it uh that second radio is going to connect and be an access point to all the other devices that are

04:59far away and if we're lucky what will happen is the signal won't get too bad by the time it hits the

05:05pi it'll probably be like you know hopefully okay kind of fast not too spotty at least you know not as

05:12spotty and bad as it was going all the way to the devices in the back and then because this is digital

05:17the pi is going to actually repeat the signal uh out on the second antenna from from scratch like

05:23it's going to give a fresh signal it's going to be the same data but it'll be you know renewed

05:28repowered so if you think about it that's kind of like having the wireless router a lot closer to

05:33the devices in the back so if we're lucky then the devices in the back will have a much easier time

05:39connecting so and and getting speed and being reliable and all that stuff the only thing that we really

05:45need to deal with though is in order to do this we have to create a second uh subnet so at the

05:51very end of this video we'll talk about routing and we'll just we'll just do a couple of commands

05:55to make sure that um the devices in the regular part of your lan network can actually reach and

06:02connect to and talk to the devices at the very end um we'll we'll add a static route to make sure

06:08that these two subnets can talk because by default they uh they wouldn't be able to talk to each other

06:12and if you don't really need them to talk like let's say uh i don't know maybe these devices in

06:16the back maybe they're just like your phone or a computer that you only surf on or something like

06:20that uh then you don't really need a route if you're not going to connect to uh one of those

06:25devices in the back as a server or something so but you know that's what i like to do so we're going to

06:29do that also so the first step let's see i think the first step oh before we get the pie started

06:37we need to talk about um your plan so what is your plan we're going to what happened there i lost

06:47there we go okay we're going to

06:52plan what ip addresses the pie will have when we're totally done you have to do this in advance

06:56right so we already talked about you have to identify what is your main subnet yours might not

07:00be the same as mine and then we have to identify or not identify we have to choose what the repeater

07:05subnet is going to be you don't have more than one subnet if you don't even know what i'm talking

07:10about you could probably just choose any number you want for me i i chose 192.168.5.0 keep in mind

07:16you probably want to have the first two numbers the same unless you're in some sort of a special setup

07:22you know there are numbers that you can use that are not that but this is just easier and more common

07:26so for me i just chose to change that third number from a one to a five indicating there's like a now

07:32now a dot five something subnet uh remember that this slash 24 means that only the last number can

07:39change for communication to work without routing so that means i don't really want to interfere with

07:44my existing subnet if i did you would probably mysteriously continually lose connection while

07:50you're trying to set this up and then later when it's working so just take it from me it's more

07:55trouble than it's worth so just come up with a new subnet um if you're thinking about doing bridged

08:00networking you can't really do that with a wireless uh radio that is connected in client mode i already

08:05tried that it didn't work so i mean for me i just had to make another subnet so write down whatever

08:11you decide as your as your other subnet walk around and make sure that it doesn't exist look in your

08:17router so this is the ip for my router at least right now and um you should determine what your router ip

08:23is and then you have to come up with three ip addresses for the new uh raspberry pi setup so the first

08:29ip address is going to be what are we going to assign to the ethernet port i said originally this

08:34is just going to be you know a wi-fi repeater so we're not really going to use ethernet except at

08:38the beginning when we're setting everything up it's going to be much more convenient to be able to

08:42connect to the pi me when i was practicing this yesterday i kept screwing up the wireless settings

08:49and if i had not set up the ethernet port in advance i would have been locked out of the pi i would

08:53have had to like restart it and then hope for the best or maybe rewrite the whole card

08:57so you know once you get the ethernet port working and you know you can connect to it

09:01it makes things a little bit easier if you should screw up the wireless so then come up with an ip

09:07address for the built-in radio the one that's going to connect as a client to your existing network

09:11for me i chose 147 and then obviously for the ethernet 123 then you have to come up with an ip address for

09:18the second radio on your pi you know the antenna that's going to become

09:21an access point it should be on the new subnet so whatever you choose up here you know 5.0 24

09:28that means 5.something is valid i just chose 5.1 because it's kind of a common thing that the gateway

09:35that is sort of like handling traffic for other machines which is what the intent is going to do

09:40is it ends in a in a one so i'm just going to choose you know 5.1 because that's kind of a standard

09:45gateway thing and now that i have all my ip addresses ready i'm going to start installing

09:52the pi so the first thing that you want to do to get ready to install the pi

09:5712 minutes that's not too bad i tend to talk a lot i gotta chill you know i gotta chill

10:05uh is you probably want to go to the raspberry pi website so i'm going to go raspberrypi.com

10:10what is this new stuff i gotta set up firefox uh raspberry pi the foundation has got like an org

10:16and a com i think org is like more for community stuff so go to raspberrypi.com click on software

10:23and um let's see so you could use the imager if you want to i'm not going to show you how in this video

10:29i like to do everything manually what we're going to do is download an image of the raspberry pi operating

10:34system and then burn that to the sd card for the raspberry pi so again you know if you if you don't

10:41want to do it this way you can do it whatever way you know how you just need to install the os basically

10:46if you're interested leave a comment i am thinking about making future videos where i explain how to

10:50do this from windows um but i'm in linux right now so i'm just going to use linux to do it um i'm on the

10:58raspberry pi 4 which supports the 64-bit operating system you should use that if your pi supports it

11:04on my pi 3 i'm only 70 sure that it supports the 64-bit operating system i haven't like fully

11:10explored it yet although it did run i don't know if anything was broken but i'm just going to click

11:16on the 64-bit operating system so you click that then you have uh you know choices like uh not not

11:23flavors but like levels of stuff that comes pre-installed so the 64-bit double check that

11:29raspberry pi os double check that yeah um with the desktop we don't need a desktop for our repeater

11:34desktop with recommended software we don't need that we need the light version that's the

11:38the leanest meanest version that is the easiest and fastest to download install so click that download

11:44button and um what will happen is you'll end up with an xz um yeah let me copy that link real fast

11:54you'll end up with an xz extension uh when you download it notice how it says uh you know arm 64 light

12:01image dot xz that just means the image is zipped up so that's that it's faster to download um if you

12:08had something uh that was like that ended in a gzip into extension then on the command line uh you

12:14would say g unzip and then you would do you know the file name dot gzip or whatever it was since we're

12:19using uh xz i think it's uh un xz as far as i recall let me open up a terminal real fast and i'm going to

12:28go into my downloads and then another uh disclaimer i'm not really going to show you the basics of using

12:33a terminal or ssh i have already talked about that in other videos um definitely uh command line basics

12:40i think maybe soon i'm going to post um an ssh tutorial so if you're like on windows and you want

12:46to be able to connect or do command line stuff just basically see my other videos by the time you find

12:51this one uh you'll probably there'll probably be a lot others that are up so i'm going to go into

12:55downloads here and go into my iso folder i just like to keep things organized so let's see un xz

13:04yeah that's what i originally did so that's the command uh to unzip an xz zipped image file so now

13:11i just have regular dot image i don't need to unzip it is what i'm saying so i would have done uh if you

13:18don't have xz you can do apt search xz on your computer it's in here somewhere yeah i think it's a

13:24xz utils that'll allow you to unzip so anyway the next thing that i really need to do now that i

13:30have the image is i need to burn it to an sd card and then i need to modify it for first boot which i

13:36think i will do in in another video that i'll link here or or mention here so again what am i doing i

13:42have like an sd card it's like a really you know small micro sd card for the raspberry pi and then i

13:48have a little um sd card reader um and writer so i'm just gonna this is the first time i've used this

13:54one i have a really cheap one behind me that sucks and i'm hoping this will be faster so i'm

13:59just going to stick it in uh and then so now the card is on usb so then i'm just going to go

14:07plug this in

14:10and oh hang on before you plug it in i almost forgot uh you don't have to do this but it's kind of a

14:16good idea it makes it more convenient i'm going to use a program called part ed to see what

14:20um like disks and partitions and drives and things i have available in the system

14:26so pseudo parted if you don't have that installed it's pseudo apt install parted

14:30i'm going to say print devices and notice how it just shows only one disk this is a virtual disk

14:36because i'm actually in a vm right now so now that i know what disks are currently in the machine

14:41it'll be easier to see what disk just got added so i'm going to like push this in here

14:45i saw a spark no that was a light i'm going to wait a second and then i'm just going to very

14:53quickly try to tell my uh my host machine to give that usb device to the machine that you're looking

15:00at right now so you don't have to worry about doing this um genesis logic reader and writer the

15:06cheapest thing i could possibly find i don't know it seems okay though it was a it was a choice on the

15:12shopping website that i went to okay so i mean this this proves that it worked i get annoying pop-ups

15:18because basically i have like another operating system already on that card so if you get these

15:22pop-ups because you had something on the card before you probably want to unmount the card before

15:27you continue so we know now that the card is uh showing up as dev sdb got to remember that

15:34and uh before i continue i'm gonna unmount so you want to go mount this is linux again by the way

15:40and i'm gonna oops well mount and pattern match it by sdb and those are the two mounts that i have

15:47so i'm going to just sudo you mount just to get rid of that because if you try to modify a card that

15:56is currently mounted or a partition or a drive or something that's currently mounted you'll probably

16:00end up corrupting a bunch of data so you don't want to do that mount pattern matching against sdb so

16:06now it's unmounted i don't know if this is 100 safe at this point but this is what i do so hopefully

16:12it's okay um just print the devices again to make sure it didn't disappear if it did disappear you

16:17probably have to like unplug it and replug it or maybe reboot the computer um because you use the

16:21wrong command or you click the eject button or something so now i'm going to write that image

16:26uh directly to the cart so i'm going to say sudo um dd so this is the this is the program that i use for

16:34writing images to disks and cards and copying files and stuff like that it's really cool and and fast

16:41and and versatile but um be very careful because you could actually destroy your entire computer

16:46with this command so what am i talking about so you have to specify the in file and that's pretty easy

16:52if you get it wrong it doesn't really matter so i'm specifying the in file as that image that i just

16:56downloaded then i'm going to specify the out file and this is where it gets super dangerous

17:01you have to double and triple check that you're typing the correct device and you're typing the

17:06device correctly so i'm literally going to look at it like five times ago out file dev sdb print devices

17:14dev sdb the dev sdb has the right size that's a 64 gigabyte sd card there's nothing else except for my

17:20okay you got to be paranoid because i i've done this one time in my life i used the wrong out file and i

17:27basically watched my computer destroy itself in front of my face and a little tear went down my

17:33cheek slowly anyway so then the other thing that i usually like to put on here is conv fsync i don't

17:40know if this is required for sd cards but it's usually a good idea because um it'll basically force uh

17:45syncing of the file because like for example if you have a usb thumb drive and you use dd to write data

17:51to the file the thumb drive sometimes lies to you and tells you that data is written even though it hasn't

17:56been written because the thumb drive is trying to appear faster than it really is so if you just

18:01kind of notice that the command is finished and you pull out the thumb drive you might have corrupted

18:05data because it didn't actually finish writing so i use conv fsync to try to avoid that and then i'm

18:11going to do status equals progress so i can just kind of see what's going on okay so let's see double

18:16check fsdb and then it's all plugged in everything's good okay wish me luck then again this is why i'm in a

18:24virtual machine if this gets destroyed i don't really care as much okay it's going incredibly

18:29slowly just as slow as my old slow card reader that sucks maybe the problem is my uh hypervisor then

18:39you know going from this host machine to my virtual machine okay anyway so i'm gonna cut the video for a

18:45second here and hopefully you've gotten this far with me and you're you're ready to go to the next step

18:50just maybe pause the video while you're while yours is riding to the pie and i'll turn off my video

18:56now i'll come back as soon as it's finished and then we'll continue we'll do first boot on the raspberry

19:02pie be right back hey everybody thanks for watching this video again from the bottom of my heart i really

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