Easiest (Cheapest) way to make the bridge from WiFi USB dongle to Ethernet connection?

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guillaumeber

Prominent
Jun 25, 2017
2
0
510
Hello!
I have 2 small buildings relatively close from each other.

The second building is currently receiving a good WiFi connection from my first one with a USB Wifi dongle plugged in my laptop.

I am currently using this laptop as a bridge to convert the WiFi signal (received with the USB dongle) trough the laptop's Ethernet port which is feeding a router that is covering the second building entirely.

I would like to recover my laptop for other uses and to keep a similar setup using another device.
I would like to keep this USB dongle as the receiver as I'm pretty happy with the performance I'm getting.

Interesting information: My USB dongle has a long (about 7inches) external SMA antenna.

So I need your opinion and here's some related questions that could ring a bell.

What could I use as a smaller, less energy consuming, more affordable bridge.
Could a cheap raspberry pi with an Ethernet and USB port do the job?
Is there any available device especially made for this?

OR

Is there any router that could directly accept my USB dongle as a WAN input?
Is there any router that could accept a single external SMA antenna to receive the signal from first building and be used as a repeater?

Thanks a lot guys, this community is awesome :)

G.B.
 
Solution
B
The cheapest and simplest is to buy a device that is designed from the start to do what you want. Just buy a outdoor bridge from ubiquiti or engenius for about $50 and be done with it. You would not use your USB just the bridge connected to the router in the second building.
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bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,326
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125,640
The cheapest and simplest is to buy a device that is designed from the start to do what you want. Just buy a outdoor bridge from ubiquiti or engenius for about $50 and be done with it. You would not use your USB just the bridge connected to the router in the second building.
 
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Solution
J

Jamie_125

Prominent
Aug 8, 2017
14
0
520
There are many ways of doing what you want to do. They all range in price and performance though. You could buy two satellite disc things (forgotten the name of them) that beam the connection from one building to another. This would probably be the most expensive way to do it. Alternatively, you could purchase another router that can act as an access point (providing the router supports this feature). I would say this is a cheap option without sacrificing too much performance. Like you say, you could use a raspberry pi but the performance probably wouldn't be as good and there would be a lot of work involved to start off with. It may not be the cheapest option either as you would have to buy the raspberry pi as well unless of course, you have one. It's up to you though but I would definitely explore the different options along with their differences in functionality.
 
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