I used a free Android signal meter to find the ultimate location for my router

Once I moved into my new home, I did not give a lot thought to the place the Wi-Fi router ought to go. I merely left it the place the earlier house owners had stored it: tucked away in a nook of the lounge. For some time, it appeared positive. The Wi-Fi labored… more often than not. However over the next weeks, I began noticing annoying dead zones and random connection drops for no apparent cause.

I stored tweaking issues every time it occurred, and whereas these fixes generally helped, the issues at all times got here again. Because it seems, the issue was the place I would parked my router. Fortunately, using the Wi-Fi Analyzer app helped me join the dots.

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The app that lets me see my Wi-Fi’s invisible temper swings

Each step away from the router advised a distinct story

Credit score: Robin John / MakeUseOf

The very first thing Wi-Fi Analyzer does is make one thing that was as soon as invisible all of the sudden straightforward to grasp. The second you open the app, you are greeted with a reside graph of each Wi-Fi community round you, together with your neighbors’, exhibiting which channels they’re utilizing and the way sturdy their indicators are. My very own community appeared as a tall arc on the graph, and as I walked farther away from the router, I may actually watch that arc shrink in actual time.

The quantity that issues most right here is your sign power, measured in dBm (decibels relative to 1 milliwatt). I will admit, the destructive numbers confused me at first. Nevertheless it’s really fairly easy: the nearer the quantity is to zero, the stronger your Wi-Fi sign. So, a studying of round -40 dBm is great, whereas something approaching -80 dBm is often the place buffering, gradual downloads, and dropped connections begin creeping in.

I discovered myself relying most on the app’s meter view. It replaces all of the graphs with a easy gauge that works nearly like a speedometer, making it a lot simpler to grasp at a look. I would stand in numerous elements of the home, wait just a few seconds for the needle to settle, and immediately know whether or not that spot had a stable connection.

My Wi-Fi home tour uncovered an sudden villain

Each doorway got here with a shock drop in sign power

I began proper subsequent to the router and labored my manner by way of the home. Standing beside it, the app confirmed a wholesome -38 dBm, precisely what you’d anticipate. Then I walked over to the couch, the place I spend most of my evenings streaming reveals, and the sign dropped to round -55 dBm — nonetheless completely usable.

The true issues started once I stepped into the bed room. The studying shortly slipped previous -70 dBm, and by the point I reached the far finish of my examine, the room the place I spend most of my workday, it was hovering round -78 dBm. Now, I lastly understood why the browser pages loaded slowly, and video calls felt unreliable. The astonishing half is that the one room the place I really wanted a rock-solid connection was the one with the weakest sign in the home.

The app additionally revealed one thing I hadn’t thought of earlier than. Distance wasn’t the one drawback — the partitions have been doing simply as a lot harm. Each time I walked into one other room, the sign took a noticeable hit. The most important drops occurred across the plumbing and the shared wall behind the kitchen. It seems concrete, brick, pipes, and even water are surprisingly good at weakening a 5GHz Wi-Fi sign.

My router lastly got here out of hiding

5 minutes of shifting the router fastened months of frustration

Armed with all these readings, I did the plain factor: I moved the router to a greater spot — I positioned it on a shelf nearer to the middle of the home, increased up, and out within the open. Wi-Fi indicators unfold outward and barely downward, so retaining your router on the ground or tucked behind furnishings means you are blocking or losing a great chunk of its protection earlier than it even reaches your units.

As soon as I would repositioned it, I grabbed my cellphone and walked by way of the home once more with the app open. My examine, beforehand the weakest spot in the home, jumped from round -78 dBm to a a lot more healthy -58 dBm. The bed room additionally moved into a way more dependable vary. The one place the place the sign dipped barely was the far nook of the lounge, however that wasn’t a difficulty for the reason that TV there was already linked through Ethernet.

So, I hadn’t boosted my Wi-Fi sign; I would merely redistributed it. As an alternative of losing protection in a nook that did not want it, the router was now sending it to the rooms the place it really mattered.

OS

Android

Value mannequin

Free (open supply)

WiFi Analyzer helps you visualize close by networks and discover the least crowded channels for a stronger, extra steady connection. It turns complicated sign knowledge into easy graphs so you may shortly optimize your Wi-Fi setup.

The numbers knew the place my router belonged lengthy earlier than I did

You may preserve shifting your router round and hope for the very best, however a Wi-Fi analyzer app takes the guesswork out of it. Seeing the precise sign power in each room made the very best spot for my router instantly apparent. Even higher, the app is free, would not want any particular {hardware}, and the entire train took me lower than an hour. In return, I removed the useless zones I would been residing with for practically two years, with out spending a single rupee. So, before you purchase a brand new router or Wi-Fi extender, do this first.