Finding the best Wi-Fi Router placement is not difficult, but you need to have some basic understanding of how Wi-Fi networks work.
Most Wi-Fi routers today broadcast in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The 2.4 GHz band is better at penetrating solid objects and spanning greater distances, but it does not provide as much bandwidth as the 5 GHz band.
Both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands belong to the non-ionizing part of the electromagnetic spectrum, just like AM and FM radio, cell phones, radar systems, or TV remotes.
Wi-Fi Router to find the best placement, you need to take into consideration not only physical obstacles and the layout of the area you want to cover, but also the potential interference caused by other devices that generate noise in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Guidelines for Finding the Best Placement for a Wi-Fi Router
LiveSAFE will work with you to help you to organize Wi-Fi router in a safe and secure manner for your organization / residential places. We will ensure best connectivity with optimum exposure to EM radiation from external as well as internal communication devices. LiveSAFE has worked with multiple organizations over the last 6 years to help create Wireless Radiation safe working space without compromising on connectivity or aesthetic.
To help you find the best placement for your Wi-Fi router, we’ve put together six guidelines for you to follow in the order they’re written here.
Before you begin, we highly recommend you analyze your current wireless coverage using a Wi-Fi analyzer like Net Spot. With Net spot, you can quickly create an accurate Wi-Fi signal Heat Map to see where your signal is the weakest and strongest.
When you find a better place for your router, you can create it again and compare the results.
1. Make your route the center of attention
Wi-Fi routers do not broadcast in a single direction. Instead, they radiate signals in waves that are similar to ripples in water. If your router is currently sitting on a corner, you can not expect it to cover your entire home or office evenly.
For that to happen, you need to move it to a central location. Of course, that’s much easier to do if the area you want to cover with a strong Wi-Fi signal has an easily determinable central point than if it’s irregular, but even a small transition away from the outside edges of the area you want to cover is better than none at all.
The only exception to this guideline is when the central location is either inaccessible or unsuitable because it violates the other guidelines described in this article. In such a case, skip to the end of this article to learn about other ways to boost your Wi-Fi signal.
2. Get Your Router off the Floor
To help the signal emitted by your Wi-Fi router disperse throughout your home or office, get it off the floor, and place it on a shelve or mount it on a wall. Wi-Fi routers have Omni directional antennas that create a coverage bubble, and you don’t want half of this bubble to be eaten up by the foundation.
Where a router should be placed in a two-story house? If you want to cover a two-story house with a strong and reliable Wi-Fi signal, you have two options. First, you can place your router near the ceiling of the first floor. Second, you can place your router on the floor of the second floor. We don’t recommend this as it may increase your exposure to harmful levels of EM Radiation in the First floor.
What about a three-story house? That’s easy: simply place the router right in the middle of the second floor to achieve even coverage and remember that the best location for a wireless router upstairs or downstairs is approximately in the center.
3. Avoid Physical Obstacles
You might be surprised by just how far your router could broadcast a strong Wi-Fi signal if there were no obstacles in the way. While some obstacles, such as walls and ceilings, may be impossible to avoid, other obstacles, such as cabinets and large appliances, and should be avoidable without much trouble.
Keep in mind that reflective surfaces can bounce off Wi-Fi signals and cause performance issues, so avoid them as much as possible.
If completely avoiding physical obstacles is not an option, then at least stay away from those that have the most negative impact on Wi-Fi signals. Conductive metals cause the most problems, but brick walls can also act as impenetrable barriers standing between a Wi-Fi router and your computer or mobile device.
4. Be on the Lookout for Interference
As we’ve explained in an earlier chapter of this article, Wi-Fi signals can be negatively impacted by other electronic devices that operate in the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such devices include microwave ovens, baby monitors, wireless security cameras, cordless phones, and various smart home devices.
Other Wi-Fi networks in the same area can also have a detrimental effect on the quality of your Wi-Fi signal, especially if they use the same Wi-Fi channel as your router. You can discover which Wi-Fi channels in your area are used the most with Net Spot.
In addition to Wi-Fi channel information, Net Spot can also reveal the names of the networks in your area, their signal level, noise, security settings, and more.
5. Reposition Your Router’s Antennas
If you have a router with adjustable antennas, you can experiment with their position to improve the quality of your Wi-Fi signal. By positioning your router’s antennas upward, you can achieve better horizontal reach. On the other hand, sideways antenna positioning can help you get a better signal upstairs.
You should also consider replacing your router’s antennas with larger, high-gain alternatives.
Router antennas typically use the RP-SMA connector, which has the same external housing as a standard SMA connector, but the center male pin is replaced by a receptacle. You can purchase a compatible antenna for around $10 on Amazon or eBay, and installing it won’t take you more than a minute.
6. Bonus: Update Your Router
Wi-Fi routers are complicated devices with a CPU, memory, simple operating system. If you want your router to deliver the best performance possible, you should update it regularly or, better yet, configure it to update itself automatically at night.
What are Some Other Ways to Boost Wi-Fi?
If you’re unable to find a suitable place for your Wi-Fi router by following the guidelines above, there are still several other ways to boost your Wi-Fi signal that we haven’t covered in this article, including:
⦁ Improve your Wi-Fi security settings
⦁ Buy a Wi-Fi repeater
⦁ Upgrade to a Wi-Fi mesh network
⦁ Reboot your router
⦁ Control bandwidth-hungry applications
For more information on them, read this article, in which we cover the top 10 ways to boost your Wi-Fi.
Check Your Wi-Fi Signal Strength
After going through the tips provided in this article, you should check your Wi-Fi signal strength to see how much it improved.
Make sure to measure from several different places to obtain accurate results and consider building a Wi-Fi heat map for a comprehensive overview of your wireless coverage.
LiveSAFE can help you locate and optimize your Wi-Fi router. We can also measure your exposure to EM radiation, a known wellness inhibitor, from your as well as your neighbors’ Wi-Fi routers and Cell Towers. Call us for an EM Radiation Audit to help live safely with EM Radiation.
Finding the best Wi-Fi Router placement is not difficult, but you need to have some basic understanding of how Wi-Fi networks work.
Most Wi-Fi routers today broadcast in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The 2.4 GHz band is better at penetrating solid objects and spanning greater distances, but it does not provide as much bandwidth as the 5 GHz band.
Both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands belong to the non-ionizing part of the electromagnetic spectrum, just like AM and FM radio, cell phones, radar systems, or TV remotes.
Wi-Fi Router to find the best placement, you need to take into consideration not only physical obstacles and the layout of the area you want to cover, but also the potential interference caused by other devices that generate noise in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Guidelines for Finding the Best Placement for a Wi-Fi Router
LiveSAFE will work with you to help you to organize Wi-Fi router in a safe and secure manner for your organization / residential places. We will ensure best connectivity with optimum exposure to EM radiation from external as well as internal communication devices. LiveSAFE has worked with multiple organizations over the last 6 years to help create Wireless Radiation safe working space without compromising on connectivity or aesthetic.
To help you find the best placement for your Wi-Fi router, we’ve put together six guidelines for you to follow in the order they’re written here.
Before you begin, we highly recommend you analyze your current wireless coverage using a Wi-Fi analyzer like Net Spot. With Net spot, you can quickly create an accurate Wi-Fi signal Heat Map to see where your signal is the weakest and strongest.
When you find a better place for your router, you can create it again and compare the results.
1. Make your route the center of attention
Wi-Fi routers do not broadcast in a single direction. Instead, they radiate signals in waves that are similar to ripples in water. If your router is currently sitting on a corner, you can not expect it to cover your entire home or office evenly.
For that to happen, you need to move it to a central location. Of course, that’s much easier to do if the area you want to cover with a strong Wi-Fi signal has an easily determinable central point than if it’s irregular, but even a small transition away from the outside edges of the area you want to cover is better than none at all.
The only exception to this guideline is when the central location is either inaccessible or unsuitable because it violates the other guidelines described in this article. In such a case, skip to the end of this article to learn about other ways to boost your Wi-Fi signal.
2. Get Your Router off the Floor
To help the signal emitted by your Wi-Fi router disperse throughout your home or office, get it off the floor, and place it on a shelve or mount it on a wall. Wi-Fi routers have Omni directional antennas that create a coverage bubble, and you don’t want half of this bubble to be eaten up by the foundation.
Where a router should be placed in a two-story house? If you want to cover a two-story house with a strong and reliable Wi-Fi signal, you have two options. First, you can place your router near the ceiling of the first floor. Second, you can place your router on the floor of the second floor. We don’t recommend this as it may increase your exposure to harmful levels of EM Radiation in the First floor.
What about a three-story house? That’s easy: simply place the router right in the middle of the second floor to achieve even coverage and remember that the best location for a wireless router upstairs or downstairs is approximately in the center.
3. Avoid Physical Obstacles
You might be surprised by just how far your router could broadcast a strong Wi-Fi signal if there were no obstacles in the way. While some obstacles, such as walls and ceilings, may be impossible to avoid, other obstacles, such as cabinets and large appliances, and should be avoidable without much trouble.
Keep in mind that reflective surfaces can bounce off Wi-Fi signals and cause performance issues, so avoid them as much as possible.
If completely avoiding physical obstacles is not an option, then at least stay away from those that have the most negative impact on Wi-Fi signals. Conductive metals cause the most problems, but brick walls can also act as impenetrable barriers standing between a Wi-Fi router and your computer or mobile device.
4. Be on the Lookout for Interference
As we’ve explained in an earlier chapter of this article, Wi-Fi signals can be negatively impacted by other electronic devices that operate in the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such devices include microwave ovens, baby monitors, wireless security cameras, cordless phones, and various smart home devices.
Other Wi-Fi networks in the same area can also have a detrimental effect on the quality of your Wi-Fi signal, especially if they use the same Wi-Fi channel as your router. You can discover which Wi-Fi channels in your area are used the most with Net Spot.
In addition to Wi-Fi channel information, Net Spot can also reveal the names of the networks in your area, their signal level, noise, security settings, and more.
5. Reposition Your Router’s Antennas
If you have a router with adjustable antennas, you can experiment with their position to improve the quality of your Wi-Fi signal. By positioning your router’s antennas upward, you can achieve better horizontal reach. On the other hand, sideways antenna positioning can help you get a better signal upstairs.
You should also consider replacing your router’s antennas with larger, high-gain alternatives.
Router antennas typically use the RP-SMA connector, which has the same external housing as a standard SMA connector, but the center male pin is replaced by a receptacle. You can purchase a compatible antenna for around $10 on Amazon or eBay, and installing it won’t take you more than a minute.
6. Bonus: Update Your Router
Wi-Fi routers are complicated devices with a CPU, memory, simple operating system. If you want your router to deliver the best performance possible, you should update it regularly or, better yet, configure it to update itself automatically at night.
What are Some Other Ways to Boost Wi-Fi?
If you’re unable to find a suitable place for your Wi-Fi router by following the guidelines above, there are still several other ways to boost your Wi-Fi signal that we haven’t covered in this article, including:
⦁ Improve your Wi-Fi security settings
⦁ Buy a Wi-Fi repeater
⦁ Upgrade to a Wi-Fi mesh network
⦁ Reboot your router
⦁ Control bandwidth-hungry applications
For more information on them, read this article, in which we cover the top 10 ways to boost your Wi-Fi.
Check Your Wi-Fi Signal Strength
After going through the tips provided in this article, you should check your Wi-Fi signal strength to see how much it improved.
Make sure to measure from several different places to obtain accurate results and consider building a Wi-Fi heat map for a comprehensive overview of your wireless coverage.
LiveSAFE can help you locate and optimize your Wi-Fi router. We can also measure your exposure to EM radiation, a known wellness inhibitor, from your as well as your neighbors’ Wi-Fi routers and Cell Towers. Call us for an EM Radiation Audit to help live safely with EM Radiation.