5 Easy Ways to Increase Your Wi-Fi Range and Performance At Home
You’re here because you feel you could get more out of your Wi-Fi connection right? In a day and age where everything is moving digital from checking your emails to getting your groceries, the internet has become an integral part of our lives. Slow Wi-Fi means slow productivity.
So here it is 5 ways to increase your Wi-Fi range at home:
1. Where is your Wi-Fi located?
Where your Wi-Fi is located makes a huge difference to the speed and performance you are getting. Most standard routers aren’t the most beautifully aesthetic piece of machinery and I can understand why most would want it out of sight, but a lot of furniture or appliances can interfere with the connection. Therefore try to keep your Wi-Fi router in a centralized location, preferably not obstructed by any large items. We have found that certain household appliances may also cause interferences with the Wi-Fi Signal such as microwaves and cordless phones.
2. Upgrade your password from WEP to WPA/WPA2
It is recommended that you should change to WPA/WPA2 security standard instead of WEP, should all your devices supports this. This is due to the fact that WEP is an older standard and is easily bypassed or hacked. Last thing you would want is someone using your Wi-Fi and hogging all your bandwidth. You will also get better bandwidth when using WPA/WPA2 security standard as new wireless N and AC will only perform at maximum capacity with these security standard enabled.
3. Wi-Fi Range Extender
Adding a Wi-Fi Extender to your network is an easy way to extend or provide signal to dead spots. Wi-Fi extenders are essentially signal repeaters and repeat the signal transmitted by your Wi-Fi Router. It is best to install one of these in between the Wi-Fi router and the target dead spot.
Check out these extenders:
NETGEAR EX6200 AC1200 Dual Band Universal WiFi Range Extender
NETGEAR WN3000RP N300 Universal WiFi Range Extender
4. Change the Wi-Fi Channel
Most Wi-Fi routers default at wireless channel 6 out of the box. Therefore it is highly likely that your neighbours are running on the same channel. It’s best to choose a different channel to avoid channel overcrowding which potentially can decrease your Wi-Fi performance. There are tools available such as the Netgear Wi-Fi Analytics software (link) which can scan and analyse your surroundings for free.
5. Update Your Gear
When all else fails, sometimes you just need a hardware update! The latest gear comes in all shapes and sizes with dual band and Netgear’s latest tri-band router performance. Investing into an AC router will not only benefit you straight away but is a great future investment as products continue to improve and develop.
To check out the latest routers Click Here
