Wifi ap from a Raspberry Pi 4

is ther a vid an or step by step guide to build a

wifi ap from a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B/4GB an how does it compare to a brand

name ap units near same price range ?

It will be a TERRIBLE AP

Just buy an AP

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How come?

Could probably sell it and get an amazing ap. The reason is antenna count power etc you want purpose built gear if your trying to do an ap. It’s not to say you can’t just going to stumble very quickly have poor range etc

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I don’t see why it would be “terrible”. It supports 802.11ac which might be good enough, and has gigabit ethernet for upstream. Looks like you can get it working as an AP with Raspbian and hostapd. The worst part of it might be the little on-board antenna might not have the best range, but I’ve used the same antenna on the Pi Zero up to 40 metres with no problem so maybe that will be good enough too.

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It’s terrible because the hardware isn’t suited at all for that purpose and driver support is poor a best. It’s like arguing that a Trabant would be the best racing car ever.

not great, but does work

I found this to work pretty easily:

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If all you needed was an 802.11ac radio and a gigabit port, then why is their AP’s that cost $20, and ones that cost $2000?

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I’m not really disagreeing with you, some APs are better than others, and some cost more than others.

I personally wouldn’t use an SBC as an AP, but depending on your use case I just think “terrible” might be too strong a word to describe it. Raspberry Pi 4 is really expensive right now so for that reason this whole thing probably doesn’t make sense anyway.

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@dreadknot2077

You can think of OpenWRT + RPi4…

Doable but as others have noticed not the best idea. Unless you already have the RPi in your hand and you need to quickly have any AP… :wink:

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Please don’t. Get something that is designed for the task. Also 4GB of DDR4 and a CPU like that for just an AP is just an absolute overkill.

If you just need an AP then get something like Ubiquity UniFi6 Lite or one of their more expensive variants. We use those at work and they are superb.

If you have no other need for RPI 4 then it’s a really good time to sell it. I sold all of my older RPI for more than I paid for them originally.

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[Quoted] Didn’t fully read / comprehend entire response of origional post.

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They did ask how it will compare to a proper AP unit of the similar price range. Sounds like OP didn’t really know that RPI is just not a proper fit for turning it into an AP. Even at MSRP price of RPi4 4GB, the proper wifi will run circles around RPI usb wifi solution.

That’s like asking will Tesla make a good vehicle for working on a farm and how does it compare to a tractor in this price range.

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