Moving into a new home can be exciting, at least until you have to set up your Wi-Fi. If the thought of improper Wi-Fi coverage, connection drops, and low speeds makes you anxious, here are five things you can do to find the right spot for your Wi-Fi router in your home.
Start in the middle
The best place for a Wi-Fi router is always in the middle of the area you want to cover. Wi-Fi signals travel equally in all directions from your router’s antenna, which means that if you put the router in the middle of your home, you should get the best coverage everywhere.
However, that’s not really going to happen. Walls, electrical appliances, furniture, and other obstacles will prevent Wi-Fi reception from being equal everywhere in the house.
Still, starting in the middle allows you to work around a central location in your home to ensure you place your router in a place with the least interference and get the best signal strength in all four corners of your home. Even if you use a repeater to patch Wi-Fi dead spots or add a mesh Wi-Fi node, the new access point will get a better signal in a corner of the house than placing your router in a closet.
Place your router as high as possible
There’s a reason all those signal towers you see are so tall, and you should do the same with your Wi-Fi router. Placing or mounting your router in an elevated location, such as a rooftop, ensures there’s the least obstruction between the access point (your router) and the device you’re trying to connect to Wi-Fi.
This is one of the basics of Wi-Fi router placement you should remember. While many Wi-Fi routers are still designed to be placed on desks or mounted on walls, you can also mount them on the ceiling (be sure to double-check the mounting) or on top of a high bookshelf or closet.
Mind the ISP WAN line
Depending on a number of factors, such as your ISP and the area you live in, your service provider may require you to run cables directly to your Wi-Fi router. If your router is placed in the middle of the drawing-room, this may mean that the cable will be ugly that you will have to hide or run around corners and walls.
I recommend looking to windows for help – the architectural feature, not the OS. Having a window near your router means you can run as much WAN cable from your ISP as possible outside your home and only deal with the length you absolutely need, keeping in mind the other points on this list.
This applies to any other opening in your home where you can run WAN cables without risking damage in the long run. It’s best to talk to your ISP and plan ahead, as this gives you the opportunity to run the WAN cable in sync with the rest of your home’s wiring.
Beware of interference
Chances are you’re going to have a lot of household appliances in your home, including microwaves. If you’re placing your router in or near the kitchen, you may not be able to enjoy watching cooking videos while using the microwave.
Anything in your home, including microwaves, baby monitors, wireless security cameras, Bluetooth devices, and even cordless phones, can interfere with your Wi-Fi signal. This interference can cause anything from a slight speed bump to making your network completely unusable. Older Wi-Fi routers are more susceptible to outside interference, so this may also be a sign to upgrade your router.
Placing your Wi-Fi router higher up helps to minimize this, but you need to be aware of your home appliances and the location of the router. It took me months to understand why my internet would suddenly go off for 30 seconds in my new apartment, and then I realised my flatmate was heating dinner at the time and the microwave was right between my room and the Wi-Fi router, causing interference.