Hi ,
hope everyone is doing well.
I recently bought dell wyse thin client 5070 and want to add Wi-Fi support in it. I was looking at the below adaptor which is available at Amazon and umart. The Amazon one is showing the full kit with antennas, whereas the umart one is just adaptor.
My question is do I need antennas, or can it work without one as well?
Links
https://www.amazon.com.au/Intel%C2%AE-Wi-Fi-Gig-Desktop-Kit/…
https://www.umart.com.au/product/intel-wi-fi-6-ax200-m-2-223…
TIA
I will use this dell thin client for home assistant. Would the USB wifi adaptor be stable 24 *7? I read somewhere that they are not 100 stable for the purposes of home assistant
So long as you turn off any features that put devices to sleep to conserve power in the OS, I don't see why you'd have a problem barring a bad product.
okay i think i will get the usb one
Yes you need the antenna. Hard to tell with gaming PCs these days, but they are not just for decoration.
okay thanks for comment appreciate alot
Yes, you'll need it. I'd double check you can re-wire the Intel kit to be on the antenna connection points too.
Even without the antennas you need some kind of wiring, the little points directly on the card aren't going to pick up anything (even a mobile phone has a pile of antenna wiring inside it)
okay thanks for this info. I didn't know that antennas are hidden so assumed they might not be necessary. good info thanks
If your Dell Wyse 5070 thin client doesn't have antennas obviously attached to the rear top of the case, you are going to need them as well as the M.2 2230 wifi card to connect them to. The wifi card doesn't work without antennas connected to it.
Thin clients are sold new with or without wifi. If they came with wifi they have the card internally, and may have internal or external wifi antennas. If they weren't sold new with wifi they have neither. Dell Wyse thin clients have their antennas obvious and external. HP thin clients have them hidden and internal, and you only know they're there if you see the cables from them that plug into the wifi card.
Wifi 7 is now available. It is faster, but it costs more.
okay thanks. there are no antennas with the product i got, so is the USB dongle the way to go for best wifi reliability and speeds ?
A USB wifi dongle is the easiest way to do it.
Fitting an internal wifi card and a pair of external antennas is the way you'll get best wifi reliability and speed.
Antennas improve signal strength and range. The only USB wifi dongles that will do as good a job as an internal card with external antennas are the ones that are a separate unit including antennas, that plugs into the computer with a USB cable. And they are usually more expensive than an internal card with external antennas.
People with experience of buying thin clients have learned that the best solution if you want wifi is to make sure you buy one with factory-fitted wifi. For second-hand thin clients ones that have wifi only cost a few bucks more than ones that don't. Its easy to upgrade it to the latest wifi standard by buying the latest m.2 wifi card.
thanks GordonD for the knowledge and insights. this is how the back of the thin client looks like - https://imgur.com/gallery/8NbRZgw
does it have space to accomodate antennas ? where would they go. i can attach the card to the motherboard but am bit confused about the antennas placement?
thanks
@honest-gary: I have a miniPC where they provided two holes in the back of the case for antennas in the immediate vicinity of the socket on the motherboard for the wifi card. So all you had to was fit the card, then fit the antennas and run the cables that come with them to the connectors on the wifi card. They just click on. Easy.
Looking at other images I see that if you had the model with factory wifi the fittings for the external antennas would be located in the area of the RS232 port. Look for images of the 5070 on the internet and you'll see where. And open up yours and see if you could drill holes through the case in those locations. If you are uncomfortable doing that, then you are going to have to choose a USB wifi solution.
https://www.piospartslap.de/Dell-Wyse-5070-Thin-Client-Intel…
Do you have a pic of the back of your 5070? I have bought a few and some come with antennas installed, some don't.
I checked and no antennas installed.
why don't use Ethernet ? you can just keep 5070 next to router
are you using HAOS or manual installation over another OS ?
the thin client is on a study nock which is far from router. as of now i am planning to install pop os and then put HA . I am new to all this so just learning and testing before settling down on something concrete
pop os and then put HA
getting most USB wifi cards on linux to work is not straight forward, you may need to build drivers/use firmware etc, but it is doable (I have used many on Linux) and better to research a bit before getting one.
I would recommend to go with HAOS as this is a thin client.
study nock which is far from router
can't you keep it near router? any specific reason it to be in study nook ?
I am new to all this so just learning and testing before settling down on something concrete
if you have a spare router capable of running OpenWRT, you can setup a WiFi -> Eth bridge to connect think client to wifi
thanks bazingaa, thats good to know. seems like i have some ground work to do.
@honest-gary: If you are going to run multiple services like pihole, homeassistant etc, you can get a used USFF client with i5-6500 like lenovo M700, Dell 3040 (cost < $100 with frequent deals on OzB) running Win10Pro and use Hyper-V VMs. So that you can run each as separate VMs with backup etc. I run HA like this on Lenovo M700 (HAOS VM), few times I had to restore snapshot points due to issues in HA.
Earlier I got a Wyze thin client to use as a Win98 PC, then installed linux but I only had issues with that lol. But looks like 5070 is a newer one and should be alright
@bazingaa: okay thanks bazingaa. one more question. If i use HAOS , would the usb wifi adaptor work without problems ?
HAOS , would the usb wifi adaptor work without problems
HAOS is another linux distro, so you have to do everything similar to Pop OS, could be even harder than Pop OS.
@bazingaa: @bazingaa thanks - i think i might be able to place the thin client next to router (which is sitting on the entertainment unit), however there will be no space for me to put monitor there ? is it possible to hook the thin client to TV ?
@honest-gary: you don't need a monitor to use HA, you can remote login to HA via web browser and dashboard is only available there.
on monitor you will only see something like this : https://community-assets.home-assistant.io/original/3X/f/3/f…
just install everything and set it up at your desk, enable auto power on after power loss from BIOS, and keep it near your router unattended. If you need to troubleshoot, you can connect to TV. what are the display output ports on the thin client ?
@honest-gary: you can use a DP source to HDMI display cable like this : https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0861Q45V6
I have one of these for my servers as well. Make sure to get DP source to HDMI display one, not the other way around as they are non bidirectional cables.
@bazingaa: Yes thanks. I ordered that one. thanks again for helping me out..looks like am good to go.
Why not use a USB wifi adaptor?