How to Get Wi-Fi in a Garden Office in the UK?

One of the main challenges of converting your garden room into a usable home office is getting a reliable internet connection. Most jobs today require some type of online work and to remain effective you need decent speeds with minimum downtime and interruptions.

The simplest solution to this is to extend WiFi to your garden office. By doing this, you are using a pre-existing network that you are already paying for. However, this does take some forethought and below, I explain how to get Wi-Fi in a garden office with five different solutions.

5 Solutions to Extend Wifi to a Garden Office

The best way to extend wifi signal to your garden office UK depends on the positioning of your garden room and your existing broadband setup. Make sure you consider these two factors and then look at the different solutions below.

1. Use a Wi-Fi extender

Wi-Fi extender technology has improved drastically in recent years and it’s the simplest way to extend Wi-Fi to your garden office. An extender is essentially a small box that connects to your Wi-Fi and then extends or boosts the signal so that it covers a wider area.

For best results, the extender should be plugged-in as close to your garden office as possible. So for example, in my house, I would plug it into a socket in my kitchen which directly faces the garden.

These devices are incredibly cheap and you can pick one up from somewhere like Currys for less than £50. Just make sure you check the boosting distance and the Wi-Fi bands that it supports (2.4GHz or 5Ghz, or both).

2. Run ethernet cabling to the office

The most reliable method that will give the stablest connection is to use an ethernet cable. During the initial garden room installation you could even ask for an ethernet cable to be run along with any power cables.

The ethernet cable connects directly to the router in your home, while the other end connects to either a secondary router in your garden office, or directly into a device like your laptop or desktop computer. This is another cost-effective method and the main barrier is typically how the cable is going to be run from your house to the garden office.

3. Powerline Networking

Powerline networking as the name suggests runs your internet connection along existing power cables that run between your home and garden office.

You can buy powerline networking kits that include all the equipment you need. Usually, you get two adaptors and two ethernet cables.

The idea is simple – the adaptors are connected directly to your main power in both your house and garden office. The ethernet cables then connect the adaptors to your routers and provide the internet connection. This is another cheap option and the great thing is, is that you don’t need to run any additional cabling outside of the powerlines that are already in your garden office.

5. Just connect to your Wi-Fi

Depending on the location of your router and the strength of your Wi-Fi connection, you may simply be able to connect to your home internet without any additional equipment!

You could even consider repositioning your router if possible (this depends on where the external cables are).

I still get full Wi-Fi bars for example if I walk into my garden so it is possible. However, this is completely situational, and oftentimes Wi-Fi signals will not reach your garden or will be too unreliable at that distance without an extender.

6. Starlink (SpaceX)

Starlink is a revolutionary broadband network that SpaceX has developed that uses an interconnected network of satellites. I find the concept really interesting and don’t be fooled – although satellite internet is traditionally slow, Starlink offers speeds of up to 200mbs and the technology will only continue to improve as the network develops.

Your Starlink kit includes the router and small satellite receiver and one you are setup you can enjoy Wi-Fi in your garden office without any additional work.

The only downside is the cost and this is one of the most expensive options. There is a cost for the initial equipment which is upwards of £400, and then the monthly subscription is relatively high compared to typical home broadband solutions in the UK like Virgin and Talk Talk.

Extend Wi-Fi to Your Garden Office and Work From Home Effectively

Hopefully at least one of these methods is viable and for the most part, they are all incredibly easy to set up and are cost effective. Once you extend Wi-Fi to your garden office the difficult part is done. You can then look to get your office furniture and storage set up and crack on with your new home-working lifestyle!