ok—MUST preface this with: NOT tecchy savvy. at ALL. please dumb down any answer for me. I only this past Christmas caved into my daughter wanting me to get a smart phone. I still use my flip phone for most calls. Anyway. my little two stall barn is about 400 ft from front of the house. there is a tree between…and little barn exterior is tin. Id love a simple plug in booster but sounds as if that wont work? so aggravating for me that my smart phone can pick it up (spotty for sure) and run my spotify on my nifty JBL speakers—but i would love my laptop to work out there…i know how to manuvere thru it and can use both hands to type.
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Check this out;
Or similar. (I have this but the one above may be easier to install)
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I use a mesh network. There are several out there, Orbi had the best rating when I purchased a few years ago. They are plug and play with very little challenge in set up.
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This problem is solvable! My advise is that if you are really not into technology, find someone local to advise and install, or it’s quite possibly going to either not work well or just stop working and it will be an expensive mystery.
thanks!!!
thanks so much!
Use an Orbi mesh system or a WiFi extender my do the trick. If you have a local IT pro, they can stop by and set it all up for you.
Just make sure you chose something that is designed for OUTDOORS.
Or install it inside…
any opinions on tethering either usb or bluetooth from my smartphone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQkpc2UlXdU
Do you have unlimited data and good 4G or 5G coverage in the barn?
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Here is a great article on using a WiFi bridge:
"On the other hand, solutions involving omnidirectional Wi-Fi almost never work well. We’ve seen people try it with everything from range extenders to just splitting Wi-Fi mesh kits up between buildings. "
The author has over 200ft to cover with trees in the way. You have twice the distance so something like this would probably be the easiest solution, the best would be to have a fibre cable installed between the two buildings. Your distance would not allow for a simple ethernet cable to work, 100m/300ft.
There is setup involved but if you know someone who is minimally competent then they should be able to set it up.
Good luck.
Assuming you have power in your barn and it’s somewhat tied into your home electricity, the easiest/simplest would probably be a Powerline WiFi extender.
You plug one unit into the electrical outlet by the router in your house, hook up an Ethernet cable between them, and then plug the extender into an electrical outlet in your barn. It uses the electrical wiring to transmit the internet signal from the unit next to the router to the extender in the barn.
The caveats with this are limited range (some might say 1000 ft but that means 1000 ft of wire and it isn’t always a straight path) and the wire configuration of your house. Also you do lose some signal. And the unit in the barn won’t probably won’t like to be frozen, so this probably only works well if you are in a warmer climate.
This is a decently rated one. Netgear also makes them if that’s the kind of router you have - you don’t have to match up companies but it can make things easier sometimes.
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV1000Mbps-Powerline-WiFi-Extender/dp/B0725LPTZR
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Little point if your phone reception is spotty.
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true enough. let me explain 'spotty; in this case . daughter set up my phone. my email isnt on it fb is and its so cumbersome for me to know how to sccroll thru/ dance around tne screens i just use it for messenger if im out there. i cant say connections arent working—just me!!!
the electrical outlet by the router is on the face of the house above the front porch roof. then–it would have to travel down and be dug/ put under the gravel circular drve and back up into barn. while that may work well–sure would be butt ugly and costly. 
Your router lives…outside?? Above the front porch? Are you sure?? That’s pretty unusual!
The point of this extender is to use the existing electrical wiring. You plug one part into the router & an outlet, and the other part into a far away outlet where you’d like connectivity. There is no wire between them except the existing electric. You don’t dig anything.
But it sounds like you may be better served by just installing the apps you need on your phone.
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As @Simkie said, the signal runs through existing electrical wire - no need to dig/bury anything new.
If your house and barn electricity come from the same transformer it should work, but we’d need to know more about how your house and barn are wired.
This video gives a high level overview - the unit the guy has in the barn is hooked up to its own WiFi router which is why it has a wire coming out of it. The one I linked has its own built in WiFi since I figured that would be easier. 
https://youtu.be/Yh-aekTg-yY
Will your laptop work on the existing house WiFi when you’re standing right next to the barn?
If it does you might be able to use this trick with a $20 extender:
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Is it established that there is power at the barn ?
