[00:01] shop was a rabbit hole. Every time I thought I'd figure something out, I just realized that there was more that I didn't know. This is the video I wish I didn't know. This is the video I wish I watched before starting this project.
[00:15] >> Before starting, I thought about it for weeks. Seriously stressing about it every single night. Thinking about how I'm going to do it. What kind of cable fiber? What kind of fiber am I going to use? I've never even used fiber. And if
[00:29] I use wireless, is it going to be reliable? Like so much is riding on this project because I run my business out of this detached shop. And if I can't test smart home tech out here, well, I'm going to have some serious problems. And
[00:44] I've spent almost my entire adult life avoiding the attic. So, [music] how am I supposed to go up there and do this project? Well, before I started the project, I went up into the attic one night just to walk around and make sure
[00:58] I felt comfortable. And there was a lot of things that I learned that no one had told me about. So, here are my rules for climbing in the attic. Rule number one, don't die. Climbing into the attic is probably one of the scariest parts. And
[01:12] doesn't go all the way up to the top. So, you just kind of lean back and then put your foot in front of you and then push off the front part and then that's it. Kind of scoop back and you're up in the attic. Rule number two, wear good
[01:26] shoes and gloves. You know, normally I wear flip-flops, but not in the attic. And you're going to be grabbing onto wood all over the place with your hands, gloves. Rule number three, have some
[01:39] a light by the HVAC system, but when you go far back into the attic, it really dark. So, have a flashlight or headlamp or even a lantern. My daughter gave me this. It's really cute, but kind of feel
[01:52] like a prospector holding it. Rule number four, limber up. Look where I'm about to go, under some wires, across this narrow beam, and then the rest of the attic. It's like an adult jungle gym playground. It is crazy climbing over
[02:08] things, going under stuff. If your body is completely horizontal at some point, that's totally normal. You can see back here, it's really dark now. Rule number five, take it slow and watch your step. At first I was trying to race through
[02:22] it, but it was way easier when I slowed down. And obviously, you don't want to step through the ceiling. Now that I was feeling comfortable in the attic, I started to think, maybe I can do this. So I started to get the
[02:36] equipment I needed to make this project happen. So for the networking equipment, you have different options. I am choosing UniFi. I've been using them for years and they've been working great, so I'm going to keep using them out here in
[02:48] the shop. I already had a Dream Machine Pro, so that's in the house, connected to the internet. It's kind of the brains of all the network. And then I got a 10 gig switch that's plugged into that. That way I can have a really fast
[03:01] connection out here to the shop. And then I also got another 10 gig switch here in the shop. This one's a little bit smaller. I'm using it so I can connect other devices like a wireless access point. That way I can have Wi-Fi
[03:15] out here in the shop. So to get the two network switches to talk to each other, I have a few different options to connect them. One, I could run ethernet from the house out to the shop, and that's not a bad option since it's not
[03:27] too far. Or a better option, I could run fiber, and that is better because it's less prone to lightning strikes since, you know, it's not copper in the ground, just glass. And fiber is actually not that expensive, way less than I thought
[03:42] it was going to be. But I wanted to make this project as fast as possible, like get it done in an afternoon. So UniFi has some wireless options like the building bridge and the building bridge XG. And the XG can go up to 6 gigabits
[03:56] per second, which is so fast. But, there's a catch. You have to run two there's a catch. You have to run two cables to it, a PoE and a fiber cable. And I know a lot of people said, "Just bury the fiber cable. Don't use
[04:09] wireless." I was really curious to see how well it would work. You know, is it how well it would work. You know, is it reliable? Is it not? So, I wanted to use the XG. So, even if you're not going to use the wireless option and you're going
[04:22] along in this video because I will be using fiber. Fiber was a completely whole new world for me. And when I was thinking about using the XG, I saw that there was an option just to get an SFP+
[04:35] cable. And I was like, "Oh, I'll just buy that and I'll be good to go." So, I bought it and then I realized it's not outdoor rated and this is probably not the way to go. So, deeper down the rabbit hole I go and
[04:52] I realize that there is fiber cables and then there's also SFP+ modules that you connect the fiber cables to. That connects into the switch or the building
[05:05] bridge XG. And there's a couple of different fiber cables that you can use. There's indoor rated ones, which are really small and kind of bendable. You have to be kind of careful not to bend it too much and break the fiber. And
[05:18] there's outdoor rated ones have shielding on the outside. So, I got some outdoor rated fiber to run through the attic and outside to the building bridge XG. Now, I'm not going to get all the different types of fiber, but what I
[05:31] connectors because they seem like the smallest and duplex. So, they're technically two fiber cables running together. Thought it'd be kind of difficult to keep track of which fiber cable was plugged into what, but there's
[05:45] only one way to connect them, so it's really easy to connect two different cables for like a patch panel or a keystone. I was feeling pretty good figuring this out. And then I realized you don't want too many connectors on
[05:59] the fiber cable because it can degrade the signal if there's like debris and stuff in between the fiber and the connector. And I was like, "Oh, great. Deeper down the rabbit hole I go." And so I learned about how you can clean the
[06:14] fiber cables and the connector with these like little cleaning pens. It's super easy to use. You just press it on the fiber cable or the connector. It cleans all the debris, so it has a nice clean signal between them. Since fiber
[06:26] cable's not that much more money for longer lengths, I gave myself plenty of room to work with. That way I wouldn't need any extra connections. This whole project would have been way less stressful if I would have just gone to
[06:39] Micro Center from the start, which is the sponsor of this video. This location in Phoenix opened not too long ago, so I recently went there for the first time, and man, this place is incredible. They have a whole Ubiquiti section where I
[06:52] could hold devices in person. Jeez, puts my server rack to shame. Not only that, but I could test out some of it in the store and talk to the trained experts. it was fun to talk to them about Home Assistant and all the nerdy tech Ali
[07:07] doesn't want to talk to me about. If I would have asked them questions before I started this project, it would have saved me time and hassle of buying the wrong tools for the job. Plus, they have tons of Ubiquiti devices available in
[07:19] the store, so you can just get it right then. And lots of other accessories I needed for this project. Man, they have like everything here. I need to come here more often. Home automation sections, Raspberry Pi, networking, they
[07:32] Austin, Texas, they're opening up a store there soon, so you can sign up for a free 128 gig flash drive. The same deal goes for the grand reopening in for supporting the channel. Now that I got all the supplies, it's time to do
[07:47] the project. The thing that I've been stressing about for weeks. Let's see if I can pull it off. So, the first thing that I did was got this massive drill bit and I drilled into the side of the house and I went at like kind of an
[08:02] angle, like an upward angle, so that water wouldn't go into the house. And I had to have a really long drill bit because we have spray foam in our attic, so I have a lot to go through. But, I drilled this massive hole through the
[08:17] side of the house and then I went up into the attic with the fiber cable and ethernet for the PoE and push it down through the hole. Now, on the side of my house, I just have this big hole with cables hanging out. So, then I took
[08:31] those fiber and ethernet cables and fed them through a hole, which I drilled for a previous project, down the wall and into the room with my server rack. I'm not running it straight into the switch. I'm plugging it into the wall like using
[08:45] a keystone coupler and that way I can run a patch cable from the wall to the switch. And so, if anything ever happened to the cable inside that room, I just replace the patch cable. I don't need to rerun all the cable in the
[08:59] attic. And then, to connect the fiber, I cleaned it, attached it to the SFP plus module, and then plugged it into the switch. And then, I got on a really tall ladder and got the pole bracket, so these building bridge XGs connect to a
[09:12] pole and I mounted that pole bracket to the side of the house. And since I'm using stucco, I used these special stucco screws that I got and they work extremely well. I'll make sure I link that, you know, everything down in the
[09:26] description. And then, I mounted the building bridge XG on it. It was just a couple bolts. And just like before, I cleaned off the fiber cable, connected the SFP plus module, plugged that in as well as the PoE and it turned on, which
[09:41] was a big relief because I did all this work and I was a little worried that I would do everything and it wouldn't turn on, but it did. So, one down, one to go. easier to do the second time. Again, I used that long drill bit, drilled into
[09:57] the side of the shop, fed the Ethernet and fiber cables outside the shop and then ran the cables down through this cabinet into the switch. This was a little different, so I used some wire loom tubing to kind of protect the
[10:11] cables and then the fiber plugs into a patch panel on this little mini server patch panel on this little mini server rack and then a tiny patch cable into data and power, it came online immediately and I held my breath because
[10:25] I wasn't sure what kind of signal quality I was going to have with just quality I was going to have with just eyeballing it and it was 100% signal quality. I got 60 gigahertz, you know, the 6 gigabits per second and I
[10:38] was so happy that I didn't have to fine-tune it or tweak it. I was a little worried that I was just going to have to be messing with it so much, but I didn't. Now, I think if they were really far away from each other, you might have
[10:52] higher signal quality, but since it was kind of close, I didn't have to do Probably the most shocking thing with this whole project was how painless it was to connect those building bridge XGs to each other. They come pre-paired and
[11:08] so once they're plugged in, you get a little notification in the UniFi app, you click accept and then UniFi does the rest. Like it commissions them, adds them to your network and it just starts working. Seriously, UniFi makes it so
[11:21] easy. Now it was almost dinner time and I had one more thing to do before I wrapped it all up. I had to seal that hole, so I climbed up the ladder and I filled in that big hole in the side of the house with some clear silicone caulk
[11:34] and that way it can keep out water and bugs and all of that. At this point, I'm so glad that this project is done. I have been stressing about it for so long. But how is the reliability? You know, people said "bury the fiber, don't
[11:48] use wireless." So, I finished this project about a month ago and I recently looked at the stats, the wireless stats to see how good my signal's been and I'm happy to say that I've had zero packet loss. Like the connection has been
[12:05] perfect. You wouldn't know out here that we're wirelessly connected to the internet or the network. It is so fast and I did a iPerf 3 speed test and I was getting 2.7 gigabits per second. Now, I know that's not the full 6 gigabits per
[12:21] second. You know, maybe it's the little ethernet adapter or something. I'll have ethernet adapter or something. I'll have to look into that more, but still 2.7 that is so fast. That's way more than I need right now. I know some of those
[12:33] speeds and everything can be a little overkill, but I want to future proof this area for a long time. That way I'm not restricted in some of the projects that I want to do in the future. The only issue that I ran into was sometimes
[12:47] my devices in the house were trying to connect to this wireless access point out here in the detached shop. So, all I had to do was change the wireless power for Wi-Fi out here to low and that solved the problem. All the devices out
[13:01] here in the detached shop still have a really good connection, but nothing in I'm very happy with how this project I thought it was going to be and I'm glad that I was able to do pretty much
[13:14] everything in a long afternoon. So, hopefully this video is helpful for you guys and I'll link to everything down in the description. Thanks for watching. Wait, what? Why isn't the signal 100% right now? What's going on?
[13:35] >> Dad, come fly this with us. >> Let's do it.