A normal WiFi router should be sufficient to cover a standard house up to 100 square meters or an equivalent office. Due to interference, distance, walls or other impediments, in some rooms or areas the router signal is too weak and consequently not very stable. Fortunately, a few precautions and a few additional devices are enough to obtain an optimal signal in each room and therefore have uniform coverage to connect any device (Smart TV, console, smartphone, PC etc.). In this article we will show you all the best methods to extend the area covered by the WiFi signal in your home or office, so that you can cover even the most remote or inaccessible corners with the standard signal of the modem / router in use.
READ ALSO: 10 ways to amplify your home Wi-Fi and extend wireless reception
Have better coverage of the Wi-Fi router at home or in the office
To get the signal to anywhere in the home or office, we advise you to follow the advice we have collected below to the letter, so as to obtain immediate benefits (ie greater coverage for our Internet network).Position the router correctly
The most important decision to have better Wi-Fi signal coverage is, of course, the location of the router: it may seem like a trivial thing, but it is very important to be able to cover well every room in the room where we place the device. Walls and furniture block the wireless signal and to reach all the rooms you need to find an equidistant point from which the router "sees" each room .It must be considered that the Wi-Fi signal does not make curves, but bounces off walls, mirrors and furniture and loses strength every time it changes direction or passes through a wall. The router must not be on the ground but at least one meter high and must not be placed inside a metal piece of furniture; in addition to mirrors, water also dampens 2.4GHz frequency signals, the one used by wireless routers.
In our tests, the best place to place the Wi-Fi router or modem was the wall near the ceiling : at this point it does not meet many obstacles during propagation, it spreads evenly and also allows you to cover a house very well with two floors. Obviously we have to find the best point on a case by case basis, perhaps with the help of an app like WiFi Heatmap, available for free for Android.
Use Repeaters or Wi-Fi Extenders
In the event that we still cannot reach all the rooms in the house, we can focus our eyes on the repeaters or Wi-Fi extenders, capable of amplifying the starting Wi-Fi signal; the best repeater we can buy at the moment (as value for money) is definitely the TP-Link RE200 Wireless WiFi Repeater (22 €).
Be careful, however, not to make mistakes in positioning the repeater! They should be placed where the signal is still strong enough so that it can be extended to its full power. The ideal is to place it halfway between the "outdoor" area and the area where it takes full Wi-Fi signal, so that it can be properly expanded. To learn more about the repeaters and find out how to configure one, we refer you to our guide on How the wifi repeater or "Range Extender" works and which one to buy .
If, on the other hand, we are looking for a valid alternative to Range Extenders, we advise you to focus on Wi-Fi Powerlines, as described in our guide How the Powerline works, secrets and limits .
Use new Wi-Fi antennas on the router and PC
Many routers have at least two antennas so that the signal is fired in two different directions. Keep in mind, however, that if you have a large house, it is better to upgrade the antennas supplied with the modem, so that you can cover many more rooms. The best antennas to be used on routers are the WayinTop 2Set 8dBi 2.4 GHz 5 GHz Dual Band Wireless (10 €).
Obviously in order to use these antennas they must be removable on our router and must not be internal (like many models recently released or provided by the operator).
Another good help can come by placing good antennas inside a fixed PC (perhaps placed in the room where Wi-Fi does not take well): in this case we can take advantage of a good internal Wi-Fi network card such as the Asus PCE-AC56 (€ 28) and use the Windows PC as if it were a hotspot, as well explained in our guide on how to create a WiFi hotspot on a Windows PC .
Switch to 5 GHz for devices closest to the router
Many modern routers have dual transmission frequencies: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
The 5GHz frequency does not suffer from interference but has several limitations, including that of having a more limited coverage and being incompatible with some receivers. The advice is to connect as many devices as possible to the 5 GHz network (in particular those close to the router), so as to leave more bandwidth (and better coverage) to distant devices, which will be reached by 2.4 GHz.
To better understand the difference between the two wireless frequencies, we can read our in depth Differences between Wi-Fi networks 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz; which is better ">
First of all let's get suitable Ethernet cables, such as the 10m Cat 7 Network Cable Gigabit Ethernet LAN cable 10000 Mbit / s (€ 12), and use them to connect one or more routers in cascade to the main modem / router, so as to to be able to create new separate Wi-Fi networks to connect the most distant devices (without losing transmission speed). In this regard, we invite you to deepen the topic on our guide on how to connect two wireless routers to increase WiFi range .
Change router
If all the advice we have shown you is not enough to obtain better coverage, perhaps the time has come to change our modem / router, focusing on a model with greater coverage and support for new transmission technologies. One of the best routers for coverage is without a doubt the AVM FRITZ! Box 7590 International Modem Router, Wireless Fast AC + N, available for 200 €.
If we are looking for other cheaper but equally effective models to replace the old modem, we advise you to read our guide to the Best Modem to buy (fiber, dual band, wireless AC) .
Conclusions
Numerous methods are available to obtain the best coverage of the Wi-Fi router at home or in the office: in most cases it is sufficient to position the router better, in other cases we will have to resort to range extenders or new routers connected in cascade. The important thing is to achieve the goal, that is to connect optimally to Wi-Fi from any location in the home or office.In two other guides we have shown you how to add the wifi card to a fixed PC and which wifi router to buy for the wireless home network "> How to avoid interference on wifi from neighbors' networks
