Whether or not you are working from house, binge-watching Netflix, or streaming your gameplay on Twitch, there is not any such factor as an excessive amount of bandwidth. Even when you’ve got gigabit fiber mainlined into your router, everybody might use assist getting quicker web round the home. It would not matter when you’ve got the absolute best wires outdoors your own home—eliminating subpar speeds and Wi-Fi lifeless zones is essentially as much as you. Listed here are some methods to troubleshoot and, hopefully, enhance the standard of the Wi-Fi inside and out of doors your house.
Take a look at our different networking guides, together with the Greatest Mesh Routers, Greatest Wi-Fi Routers, Greatest Dwelling Workplace Gear, and explainers, like how you can safe your house Wi-Fi community, router buying suggestions, and Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 breakdowns.
Up to date Might 2025: We added particulars to most sections, together with recommendations on Ethernet, Wi-Fi bands, and adjusting antennas.
1. Transfer Your Router
That router within the closet? Not a good suggestion. Partitions, cabinets, and even bookshelves can probably dampen your Wi-Fi sign. Bodily shifting the router could make an actual distinction to web speeds and the way far wi-fi transmissions attain. The proper spot will rely upon your house, however strive to not disguise your router in a nook, below a cabinet, or inside a drawer—the extra central and distinguished it’s, the higher. For more information, learn our information on the place to place your router for the absolute best house Wi-Fi.
You would possibly must get inventive with cabling to get your router in a greater place, however it will likely be well worth the effort. The purpose is to get your foremost gadgets—consoles, laptops, and so forth—as shut as potential to your router. Gadgets that do not want fairly a lot bandwidth, like good thermostats, do not must be a precedence by way of bodily proximity.
For that reason, it is value contemplating the look of your router when buying. For those who purchase a hideous router, you’re extra prone to put it in a closet. Work out the perfect spot given the situation of your high-priority gadgets, then contemplate what’s going to look good to you in that spot. If you do not have a flat floor close to the perfect space, mount your router midway up a wall. If potential, hold it away from different gadgets that use electromagnetic waves; that features child screens, wi-fi keyboards, and microwaves.
Routers have antennas, both inside or exterior, and even simply altering the angle can impression the power of your Wi-Fi somewhere else round your house, so do not be afraid to waggle these antennas and see if there’s an enchancment. For routers with inside antennas, even turning the router round or angling it in a different way could make a distinction.
2. Use an Ethernet Cable
It is easy to overlook that wires nonetheless exist! We do not, it is in our identify, nevertheless it must be stated: You do not want Wi-Fi. A wired Ethernet connection to your router is quicker and extra secure than Wi-Fi, and it could’t be affected by different gadgets or giant fish tanks. The draw back is that it limits the place your gadgets could be, and it is much less handy.
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