Why Is Wi-Fi Coverage So Bad in My House, and How Can I Fix It? [Ask Lifehacker]

Dear Lifehacker,
For reasons unknown to me (Physics? Global warming? Witchcraft?), my router’s reach is terrible. My house has all types of Wi-Fi dead zones, and I even have no idea why. What would be the cause, and how can I fix it?

Signed,
Linksys Lamenter

Dear Lamenter,
We know your pain. This particular Lifehacker editor once lived in an apartment that formerly housed a block of dentist offices. There were a whole lot walls, possibly reinforced with lead shielding, in that re-purposed building. Unless it’s essential directly see the router, your were out of luck after a room or two.

Adam Dachis touched on a couple of the right way to extend your wireless signal in his guide to going completely wireless at your residence , but we’ll get a piece more substantive in coping with Wi-Fi killers in looking to help out a laptop warrior tied to this type of small area.

Let’s examine a number of the common Wi-Fi killers, and the way to best them.

Top image via blmurch .

Home Construction and Other Obstructions

The way your house is built has likely probably the most direct impact on how far Wi-Fi can penetrate the house. Nearly all of homes were built before the concepts of cellphones, 3G service, and Wi-Fi were discussed outside of Nikola Tesla reading groups.

Steel structures, concrete, the layout of air-conditioning vents and returns in homes with centralized systems, aquariums, and the spot where your dog chooses to nap can all make an impact in your Wi-Fi coverage. One big signal killer is also lurking for your walls, especially in case your house dates back more than 60 years: chicken wire. Seriously.

As the Wall Street Journal explains, many homes with plaster and lath walls were held up by wood wrapped in chicken wire. When modern homeowners attempt to live the wireless life, they find terrible Wi-Fi coverage , because the wire is spaced in precisely this kind of method to create a great shield against Wi-Fi frequencies (also known as a Farraday cage . Image via Nanimo .

You can move your aquariums and re-position your router to present better, more centralized coverage-more on that down below. But you’re likely unlikely to gut your walls to fix your wireless, so let’s eliminate other potential culprits.

Interference from Neighbors (and Other Gadets)

Most home users buy only a few different types of routers made for the residential market. Most users also never tweak their settings, and most routers default to an identical channel. In case you see a number of Wi-Fi names available from your laptop, or you think you may have bad luck for your neighbors’ placement, it’s time to change channels.

The net-based Meraki Wi-Fi Stumbler is an effective bet for analyzing your network to seek out the least-used channel nearby-when it’s up. On Windows, you may also try inSSIDer , and Mac users can work through iStumbler . With an Android phone, you may walk around your private home and spot which channel is getting traffic, and where, with Wifi Analyzer .

Poor Placement

You placed your wireless router on the floor, right behind the TV and the home theater receiver, downstairs inside the corner front room, because that’s where the cable guy put it. He’s wrong, but the fix could be rather more simple than you thought.

For the very best placement of your router, use the VOICE acronym. We’ve adapted that simplification of the superb CountryMile WiFi guide to improving reception to a five-item checklist. So, ensure your router:

Has its antenna pointing in Vertical fashion. The Wi-Fi signal actually beams out from the perimeters of your antenna, and if they’re pointing in a direction rather then up, you possibly can get slightly better coverage in one particular area-but most of your signal is shooting straight into the ground and ceiling. Image via CountryMile WiFi .
Is free from Obstructions, so that it’s not right next to a thick wall, virtually other electronics, angled behind metal objects, or otherwise blocked from a line of coverage.
Is far from, and working on one more channel from, Interference from neighbors.
Has a Central postition in your home, so its coverage is as even and wide-ranging as possible.
Is Elevated, because Wi-Fi signal has a simpler time traveling down and sideways than up. It’s actually ok to elevated your router onto a dresser, entertainment shelter, or shelf, or maybe stacked on a couple of books. Wi-Fi signal has little trouble passing through wood and books, instead of other issues.

Not Enough Power

In the event that your Wi-Fi signal is dead just outside the room it’s in, you’ve got structural issues that you simply’ll likely must address, or you’ll must put money into some serious CAT cabling throughout your own home. If it seems like you’re always just on the verge of having signal, you are able to likely give your wireless router a bit of boost to fill that remaining gap.

We’ve discover some ways to raise the flexibility and extend your signal area. Listed here are nearly all of them:

Tinfoil-coated Windsurfer parabolic antenna attachment ( Original post )
Boost your signal strength inside the router itself by installing DD-WRT or installing Tomato .
Physically extend your router’s antenna with copper wire, a wood screw, a drinking straw, and a black marker ( Original post )
Improve reception at a selected spot in your home with a cooking strainer signal catcher ( Original post )
Use a shoebox and tinfoil for an unpleasant-but-effective extender. ( Original post )

Repeat the Signal

Some individuals are just unlucky in their net connections. Maybe the cable only comes in from one spot at your residence, a lower corner, and your walls and ducts aren’t particularly amenable to running cable. Or your spouse won’t publish with having the Linksys box so high up and visible within the spot you will have it. In either case, you’ll be able to form a type of wireless signal bucket brigade with a bridge or repeater: a second router that picks up the signal from your primary router, then re-broadcasts it to cover another area of your home.

We’ve covered two different setups for repeaters on Lifehacker in detail: Gina’s guide for organising a wireless bridge , and my guide to turning an old router into a repeater . What’s the variation? A bridge is primarily for providing devices with ” hard” Ethernet plugs with internet access through your Wi-Fi signal, while a repeater picks up signal, re-amplifies it, then pushes it back out again. You do lose just a little speed in a repeater connection, but for individuals who simply need to surf the internet in bed, or cover that previous few feet of the house without signal, it’s a good compromise.

We’re hoping you find that your Wi-Fi problems are easily solved with a channel change, a re-positioning, or even slightly hardware hacking, at most. Most Wi-Fi problems do, indeed, take just a major of strategic thinking to work through. When you’re living in a Victorian-style home that used to accommodate a radiology center, well, we want you the proper.

Love,
Lifehacker

P.S. We’re inquisitive about hearing how all you readers overcame your individual Wi-Fi dead spots and signal problems within the comments. Also, in the event you’ve found any products which will help-we read about Wi-Fi blocking paint, as an example, but never found an exact product to purchase-link us up inside the comments.

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This post is tagged: centralized systems, dentist offices, home construction, steel structures, wall street journal, wireless signal